Rohn: 6 Secrets for Thriving (Not Just Surviving) through the Holidays

How to reignite the joy that’s intended for this time of year

Jim Rohn 

The holiday season has officially graced us with its presence. It’s a time of celebration and bliss, and the pure magic of these December days is something I anticipate and enjoy each and every year.

For some, though, the holidays have lost the delight and excitement it once had. The pace of life has grown so fast—much faster than those first holidays I remember in my life—that some people don’t enjoy the time they get to spend with family and friends during what are supposed to be days filled with pure joy and peace.

Why is that? Probably a lot can be laid at the feet of how fast-paced our times are, but that isn’t all.

I believe our holiday times should be wonderful and filled with lasting and enjoyable moments and memories. So how can we ensure that we come out of the holidays in January with great memories of the past month? Here are six thoughts that will help you experience the holidays the way they were intended to be experienced:

1. Be temperate.

Holidays can be days of excess for many—too much food, too many sweet treats, schedules that are too busy. One thing that will help you enjoy the holidays is to be temperate. Enjoy the food. Enjoy the treats. Enjoy the busy schedule of activities and parties. But also be disciplined enough to know when to hold back, when to say no. When we go overboard, we regret it and lose the opportunity to fully experience that moment. But when we enjoy a little and refrain from going too far, then we can enjoy all that little piece of time has to offer.

2. Lower your expectations.

Much of the frustration people experience from the holidays is from setting their expectations too high. They expect too much from friends or family, and when they don’t get what they want, they get upset. They expect presents to be perfect, and when they aren’t, they get disappointed. Instead of having huge expectations this holiday season, just take it as it comes. So…

3. …Enjoy what you can and ignore the rest.

Go with an attitude of knowing that things will be what they will be. You can’t control other people or their actions. If a family member pushes the limits of your patience, ignore that and instead focus on how much you can enjoy the time you have with other family members. If things don’t go perfectly—and they won’t—then enjoy what you can and let the rest slide. You will feel a lot better about life if you can take all things a little easier.

4. Stay out of debt.

Debt is a killer. It will steal your enjoyment of life. Be sure to stay within your financial boundaries this holiday season. The last thing you want is to start the new year with a deeper financial burden. Know where you are financially and stay within those limits. You don’t have to impress anyone; just buy gifts that you can afford and express your heartfelt feeling in the giving of the gift.

5. Take time for yourself.

Be sure that no matter how busy you get, you take time for yourself. Take time to read. Take a long bath if that relaxes you. Take a walk. Spend some time of quiet in front of a fire. Don’t rush through the holidays and zap all of your energy. Your mind and body need to be reenergized, so be sure to take time to do so.

6. Focus on your spiritual life.

Ultimately, no matter what tradition you come from, the holidays are historically days in which we focus on the spiritual. Men and women are created with a natural draw toward spiritual life. However, our culture today tends to stay away from a focus on the spiritual, and that has even crept into our holidays. Placing an emphasis on building your spiritual life and growing in that area will help keep you grounded and able to deal with anything that might come your way.

Friends, we are coming to the end of another year. This time is another chance to remember the important truths of life and to enjoy time with dear friends and family.

May you experience the very best this holiday season and move into January better than ever!

Laughter is one of our greatest nonmaterial gifts. Find out why you should unwrap a little humor—and ditch that Grinch attitude—this holiday season.

Source
http://www.success.com/article/rohn-6-secrets-for-thriving-not-just-surviving-through-the-holidays

The Top 101 Jim Rohn Quotes of All Time

1. Affirmation without discipline is the beginning of delusion.
2. Books are what you step on to take you to a higher shelf. The higher your stack of books, the higher the shelf you can reach. Want to reach higher? Stack some more books under your feet! Reading is what brings us to new knowledge. It opens new doors. It helps us understand mysteries. It lets us hear from successful people. Reading is what takes us down the road in our journey. Everything you need for a better future and success has already been written.
3. Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment
4. Don’t join an easy crowd; you won’t grow. Go where the expectations and the demands to perform are high.
5. Don’t mistake movement for achievement. It’s easy to get faked out by being busy. The question is: Busy doing what?
6. Don’t set your goals too low. If you don’t need much, you won’t become much.
7. Don’t wish it were easier, wish you were better.
8. Don’t let your learning lead to knowledge. Let your learning lead to action.
9. Don’t read a book and be a follower; read a book and be a student.
10. Don’t wish for less problems; wish for more skills.
11. Don’t wish it was easier wish you were better. Don’t wish for less problems wish for more skills. Don’t wish for less challenge wish for more wisdom.
12. Don’t wish it were easier. Wish you were better.
13. Each of us has two distinct choices to make about what we will do with our lives. The first choice we can make is to be less than we have the capacity to be. To earn less. To have less. To read less and think less. To try less and discipline ourselves less. These are the choices that lead to an empty life. These are the choices that, once made, lead to a life of constant apprehension instead of a life of wondrous anticipation And the second choice? To do it all! To become all that we can possibly be. To read every book that we possibly can. To earn as much as we possibly can. To give and share as much as we possibly can. To strive and produce and accomplish as much as we possibly can.
14. Economic disaster begins with a philosophy of doing less and wanting more.
15. Either you run the day or the day runs you..
16. Everything you need for better future and success has already been written. And guess what? All you have to do is go to the library.
17. Excuses are the nails used to build a house of failure.
18. Failure is not a single, cataclysmic event. You don’t fail overnight. Instead, failure is a few errors in judgement, repeated every day.
19. Finding is reserved for those that search.
20. For what it will make of you to achieve it.
21. Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune.
22. Get around people who have something of value to share with you. Their impact will continue to have a significant effect on your life long they have departed.
23. Goals. There’s no telling what you can do when you get inspired by them. There’s no telling what you can do when you believe in them. There’s no telling what will happen when you act upon them.
24. Good people are found not changed. Recently I read a headline that said, “We don’t teach people to be nice. We simply hire nice people.” Wow! What a clever short cut.
25. Happiness is not an accident. Nor is it something you wish for. Happiness is something you design.
26. Happiness is not by chance, but by choice.
27. Happiness is not something you postpone for the future; it is something you design for the present.
28. How sad to see a father with money and no joy. The man studied economics, but never studied happiness.
29. Humans have the remarkable ability to get exactly what they must have. But there is a difference between a “must” and a “want.”
30. Humility is a virtue; timidity is a disease
31. I am a buyer of blank books. Kids find it interesting that I would buy a blank book. They say, “Twenty-Six dollars for a blank book! Why would you pay that?” The reason I pay twenty-six dollars is to challenge myself to find something worth twenty-six dollars to put in there. All my journals are private, but if you ever got hold of one of them, you wouldn’t have to look very far to discover it is worth more than twenty-six dollars.
32. I find it fascinating that most people plan their vacations with better care than they plan their lives. Perhaps that is because escape is easier than change.
33. I will take care of me for you, if you will take care of you for me.
34. If someone is going down the wrong road, he doesn’t need motivation to speed him up. What he needs is education to turn him around.
35. If you are not willing to risk the unusual, you will have to settle for the ordinary.
36. If you don’t design your own life plan, chances are you’ll fall into someone else’s plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much.
37. If you don’t like how things are, change it! You’re not a tree.
38. If you just communicate, you can get by. But if you communicate skillfully, you can work miracles.
39. If you really want to do something, you’ll find a way. If you don’t, you’ll find an excuse.
40. In America we have the greatest chance for opportunity than anyone else in the past six and a half thousand years. Never in recorded history have so many different gifts from all over the world been deposited in one country.
41. It doesn’t matter which side of the fence you get off on sometimes. What matters most is getting off. You cannot make progress without making decisions.
42. It isn’t what the book costs. It’s what it will cost you if you don’t read it.
43. It’s easy to carry the past as a burden instead of a school. It’s easy to let it overwhelm you instead of educate you.
44. Its what you dont know what will hurt you.
45. Leadership is the challenge to be something more than average.
46. Learn how to be happy with what you have while you pursue all that you want.
47. Learn how to say no. Don’t let your mouth overload your back.
48. Learn how to separate the majors and the minors. A lot of people don’t do well simply because they major in minor things.
49. Let others lead small lives, but not you.. Let others argue over small things, but not you.. Let others cry over small hurts, but not you.. Let others leave their future in someone else’s hands, but not you.
50. Life expects us to make a reasonable amount of progress in a reasonable amount of time. That’s why they make those second grade chairs so small.
51. Make rest a necessity, not an objective. Only rest long enough to gather strength.
52. Managers help people see themselves as they are; Leaders help people to see themselves better than they are.
53. Maturity is the ability to reap without apology and not complain when things don’t go well.
54. Miss a meal if you have to, but don’t miss a book.
55. Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.
56. My father taught me to always do more than you get paid for as an investment in your future.
57. One of the best places to start to turn your life around is by doing whatever appears on your mental “I should” list.
58. One of the greatest gifts you can give to anyone is the gift of attention.
59. Only by giving are you able to receive more than you already have.
60. Poor people have big TV’s. Rich people have big libraries.
61. Some people claim that it is okay to read trashy novels because sometimes you can find something valuable in them. You can also find a crust of bread in a garbage can, if you search long enough, but there is a better way.
62. Some things you have to do every day. Eating seven apples on Saturday night instead of one a day just isn’t going to get the job done
63. Success is doing ordinary things extraordinarily well.
64. Success is nothing more than a few simple disciplines, practiced every day.
65. Success is nothing more than a few simple disciplines, practiced every day; while failure is simply a few errors in judgment, repeated every day. It is the accumulative weight of our disciplines and our judgments that leads us to either fortune or failure.
66. Successful people have libraries. The rest have big screen TVs.
67. Take care of your body. It’s the only place you have to live.
68. The challenge of leadership is to be strong, but not rude; be kind, but not weak; be bold, but not bully; be thoughtful, but not lazy; be humble, but not timid; be proud, but not arrogant; have humor, but without folly.
69. The difference between where you are today and where you’ll be five years from now will be found in the quality of books you’ve read.
70. The few who do are the envy of the many who only watch.
71. The major reason for setting a goal is for what it makes of you to accomplish it. What it makes of you will always be the far greater value than what you get.
72. The major value in life is not what you get. The major value in life is what you become. That is why I wish to pay fair price for every value. If I have to pay for it or earn it, that makes something of me. If I get it for free, that makes nothing of me.
73. The more you know, the less you need to say.
74. The only thing worse than not reading a book in the last ninety days is not reading a book in the last ninety days and thinking that it doesn’t matter.
75. The ultimate reason for setting goals is to entice you to become the person it takes to achieve them.
76. The walls we build around us to keep sadness out also keeps out the joy.
77. The worst days of those who enjoy what they do are better than the best days of those who don’t.
78. The worst thing one can do is not to try, to be aware of what one wants and not give in to it, to spend years in silent hurt wondering if something could have materialized – never knowing.
79. There are only three colors, ten digits, and seven notes, it’s what we do with them that’s important.
80. There are some things you don’t have to know how it works – only that it works. While some people are studying the roots, others are picking the fruit. It just depends on which end of this you want to get in on.
81. There are two types of pain you will go through in life, the pain of discipline and the pain of regret. Discipline weighs ounces while regret weighs tonnes.
82. Those who will not read are no better off than those who cannot read.
83. Time is more value than money. You can get more money, but you cannot get more time.
84. To become financially independent you must turn part of your income into capital; turn capital into enterprise; turn enterprise into profit; turn profit into investment; and turn investment into financial independence.
85. We can have more than we’ve got because we can become more than we are.
86. We don’t get paid for the hour; we get paid for the value we bring to the hour.
87. We get paid for bringing value to the marketplace. It takes time… but we get paid for the value, not the time.
88. We must all suffer from one of two pains: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. Discipline weights ounces–regret weighs tons.
89. We must all wage an intense, lifelong battle against the constant downward pull. If we relax, the bugs and weeds of negativity will move into the garden and take away everything of value.
90. What is powerful is when what you say is just the tip of the iceberg of what you know.
91. Whatever good things we build end up building us.
92. When you know what you want, and you want it bad enough, you’ll find a way to get it.
93. Without a sense of urgency, desire loses its value.
94. Work harder on yourself than you do on your job.
95. You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.
96. You cannot change your destination overnight. You can change your direction.
97. You must either modify your dreams or magnify your skills.
98. You must take personal responsibility. You cannot change the circumstances, the season or the wind, but you can change yourself. That is something you have charge of.
99. You want to set a goal that is big enough that in the process of achieving it you become someone worth becoming.
100. Your family and your love must be cultivated like a garden. Time, effort, and imagination must be summoned constantly to keep any relationship flourishing and growing.
101. Your personal philosophy is the greatest determining factor in how your life works out.

Source

http://www.daimanuel.com/2013/12/10/the-top-101-jim-rohn-quotes-of-all-time/