Get Out The Box!

"Think outside the box!", they told me, but what they meant, I did not have the faintest idea. Looking back now, I didn't even know I was in a box. All my years growing up I had seen only seen one way of doing things from my parents. I was well aware that there were many others who lived better than us and accomplished more than us, but that was just their fate-their BOX.

As the years went on and I began to meet people and learn new things and be exposed to new mindsets, I discovered, I WAS IN A BOX. My life had been fashioned and dictated by a certain mindset, although sincerely, but sincerely wrong. Of course, we were totally convinced we were right, however the results and way we lived proved us wrong. I was rewarded and punished according to that mindset, and slowly but surely over the years my BOX was being formed for me.

With encounters with people of different mindset, I began to realise I needed a change in thinking, in mindset - I needed to think outside the box. Not only did I need this new pattern of thinking, but I also needed to put this thinking pattern into action. No longer could I be an expression only of what I was raised on, I needed to begin to form my own expression.

So, what does it take to get a new mindset and begin to set it into motion?

1. Firmly realise that not all you have been exposed to and taught is the total reality of life.
2. Read about and meet others who have stepped out of their box, and probabaly challenge yours.
3. Decide what roles you want to fulfill in your life and what those roles will accomplish.
4. Begin today to envision a new you in those roles. Allow the dreams and desires in your heart to begin to take shape, regardless of whether you, or others, think it possible or not.
5. Act. Take some action steps today, this week, this month and this year to move you in the direction of your vision, your dreams and desires.

Don't allow the box to limit you all your life. What box has been created to box you in? Begin to think outside that box!

Enjoy your life!

As clergyman Henry van Dyke wrote nearly 100 years ago, "To be glad of life, because it gives you the chance to love and to work and to play and to look up at the stars; to be satisfied with your possessions, but not contented with yourself until you have made the best of them; to despise nothing in the world except falsehood and meanness, and to fear nothing except cowardice; to be governed by your admirations rather than by your disgusts; to covet nothing that is your neighbor's except his kindness of heart and gentleness of manners; to think seldom of your enemies and often of your friends... these are little guideposts on the footpath to peace."

Everyone needs a mission for their lives; a purpose that they know is clear, meaningful and somehow influential to this world. It says of King David that he served his generation and then died. Without this meaningful mission it seems that life becomes just a sequence of mundane duties that has no inspiration or direction.

But this mission is more than just money or pleasure, which are so temporary in their ability to fulfill us. No, this mission is one that can be maintained and is inspirational in the face of the most trying of situations and circumstances. It will always ensure that there is a harmonious balance to all the facets of your life, and leave you sensing the deep knowing that you are experiencing your best life.

Have you spent time really looking at what it is you are 'called' to do here on this earth? What it is that you will do and should do that will serve this generation?

Have you written down this mission and purpose for your life and developed a strategic plan of tasks that will keep you on track to fulfill this mission for your life?

Don't just survive! life is too short for that. Enjoy every day. Live each day. Go to bed at night having that sense of contribution in some small way that will benefit this world because you were in it.