Bert Oliva

I Can’t Do It All

By Bert Oliva

18
NOV
0

I went to bed early last night and slept in this morning. I meant to do this blow post yesterday evening, but I was exhausted, so I listened to my body and allowed myself to truly rest, even though I had a bunch of things on my To Do List still. And you know what? The world didn’t end. And this morning, I’m all the better for my decision.

I don’t know about you, but oftentimes, when I choose to rest, my mind goes crazy with everything I’m putting off. I feel guilty and anxious and by the time my so-called rest period is over, I’m more tired than when I started.

This is not how we’re supposed to do anything in our lives. Anything that we do should get the benefit of our full concentration—put our full mind to it. When we put our full mind to a task, we accomplish it better and much more efficiently than when our mind is stressing over the next four things on our lists.

We are not meant to constantly multitask. Even a computer’s efficiency and processing speed greatly slows the more applications you have running on it simultaneously. So, this week, let’s stop multitasking. Let’s put our all into everything that we do and work on one thing at a time—whether that be a work project, family time, or even just resting.

You’ll be amazed at how much more you will accomplish this way.

Live Life,
Bert Oliva

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Be Selfish!

By Bert Oliva

11
NOV
2

How important are you…to you? You should be the most important person in your life. Because, without you, your life does not exist. Think about it. You are vital to your life and to your success. So, what are you doing to honor how important you are to you?

So often we put ourselves last instead of first. Women especially do this. Husbands, children, jobs, family responsibilities, etc. all come before they do. Why? Because we’re told in society that we are not supposed to put ourselves first, that we must be humble and self degrading.

I am by no means saying we need to be selfish, or go after our desires in ways that hurt other people. I am not saying to quit your job or leave your children. You have responsibilities that you must take care of, but do not lose sight of yourself in the process. We must learn to take care of ourselves first. We must learn to realize that we are just as important as anyone else in our lives; in fact, I believe we are more important that anyone else in our lives, because it is our life.

This is not your husband or wife’s life, this is not your mother or father’s, this is not your children’s, this is not your boss’…this is your life. So it’s time you start living for you.

Change your patterns of thoughts and actions. Do not get up early to take your children to school because you have to, do it because you want to, because they are a vital aspect of your life that makes it better because they are in it. Do not go to work and count the hours till 5pm because you need to pay your bills, go to work and do the best job possible because you take pride in what you do and you know that working enables you to have the best quality of life you possibly can.

These small changes in your thinking pattern will make all the difference in your life.  Try it out and let me know what you think. If you do it properly, you will truly start living for you, rather than other people. You will no longer feel like the victim of your own life, but the hero.

You only get one life in this world, it’s time you start living it for you.

Remember to Live Life, Don’t Let Life Live You,

Bert Oliva

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The Beginning

By Bert Oliva

4
NOV
2

I was at the gym recently and saw a quote written on a dry erase board: “No one can go back and start at the beginning, but they can start fresh right now.”

That struck me. So often we feel we are stuck in a rut because we made the wrong choices way back when. We’re stuck in “should’ve, would’ve, could’ve” mode…we are never stuck. And no, we can not go back to the beginning, but we can certainly make the choices we want to today.

The beauty of life is that we can ALWAYS choose again. We are never truly stuck in any situation. Sure, the choices we have to make may not be easy, but no one said life was going to be easy. If you want the life you always dreamt of, the one that has you waking up every day ready and excited to go, then you have to work for it. You have to make the tough choices.

So, let’s start fresh today. Let’s make the choices we’ve been avoiding. Let’s do the work we need to do. Let’s go out and make the life we always wanted.

Live Life,
Bert Oliva

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Take Charge

By Bert Oliva

21
OCT
0

Why do we fight ourselves so much? It seems like we are each in a constant battle with our personal leanings and desires. We are always trying to change ourselves—or even worse—others.

Don’t misunderstand me. Change is absolutely possible with each one of us. Moreover, it is necessary and good. However, if you do not have the right mindset when you are working on a change, then your journey will feel like a battle—full of obstacles and hardships—and you will more than likely give up before too long.

However, if you see the change not as something you have to do, but something you want to do—not a “I have to lose weight,” but “I choose to lose weight”—then you are no longer in a battle with your own urges, fighting a goal some anonymous someone laid down on top of you. Instead, you are in charge. You are the one making a conscious decision to change. You are not powerless against your urges but rather you are a student of yourself. You study your habits and analyze your pros and cons. You make a plan of action to put your changes into affect. You are the master of your own destiny.

This might seem like a game of semantics for you. This might seem like a waste of time and that it does not matter, but the shift in your subconscious mind that this change of thought process makes is gigantic. When you are no longer the victim in your own head, you no longer have any excuses as to why you haven’t accomplished something.

The only excuse is YOU. You didn’t make it a priority. You didn’t make the time. And that is okay. You truly do not have to do anything in your life. Everything you do is a choice.

Stop making excuses for yourself and fully take responsibility. You are in charge.

Live Life,
Bert Oliva

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You Have The Power

By Bert Oliva

14
OCT
0

Are you a martyr? Do you feel sorry for yourself all the time? Do you do things for everyone else around you but not for yourself? Do you feel put upon, stepped on, pushed into a corner? Do you feel forced to do things you don’t want to do?

Do you find yourself asking, “Why does this always happen to me?” “What did I do to deserve this?” “Why me?”

The short answer to “Why me?” is YOU. You allow things to happen to you. You allow people to walk on you. You allow situations and circumstances to dictate your feelings and your actions.

You are giving your power away to everyone and everything around you instead of standing up for yourself.

We do not have control over everything around us, but we do have control over how we react to what happens to us. In fact, we truly don’t have control over anything but ourselves and our reactions. We have the ability to choose how we want to respond and whether we want to give someone or something the power to affect our thoughts, feelings and actions.

The true secret? We should never give anyone or anything control over ourselves. When we stay in charge of our own minds and actions, we are able to be truly in control of everything that we do. This keeps us from feeling like a forever victim.

We all fall onto the self-pity wagon from time to time. We are human. And there are situations that happen that will cause us to feel that way. It’s part of the natural grief cycle. However, what matters is how long you allow yourself to feel sorry for yourself. Staying in a constant state of self-pity is neither healthy nor productive. You will never achieve anything that you want to achieve if you are always playing the “Why me?” game.

You are not a victim. No matter what happens to you, you have power in the situation, if you choose not to give it away.

Stop the cycle of martyrdom. Stop the cycle of feeling sorry for yourself. Stop making excuses for why you are acting or feeling the way you do. If you are not happy with what you are doing, then change it. You are never stuck in any situation. There is always a choice. Find it and choose again. You have the power.

Live Life,
Bert Oliva

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Do You Feel Lucky?

By Bert Oliva

7
OCT
0

Do you know how lucky you are? Do you even have a clue?

So much of the time we walk around in a stupor of bills, work projects, family obligations, and all the other things that make up the everyday doings of our day-to-day lives, that we miss the magic that we are living. We get so busy with “living” that we forget to live. We let our lives “live us” instead of living life.

We take our existence for granted. Many of us don’t even think about it. The different circumstances that had to come together for you to come into existence are staggering:

o Odds of your parents meeting: 1 in 20,000.
o Odds of your parents forming a relationship that led to pregnancy: 1 in 2,000.
o Odds of the right sperm meeting the right egg: 1 in 400 quadrillion (that’s one thousand million million).
o Odds of every single ancestor of yours meeting and reproducing successfully: 1 in 1045,000 (for a comparison, the number of atoms in the known universe is currently estimated at just 1080).
o Odds of every single ancestor producing the exact people they did: 102,640,000 (when you put this into Google’s calculator, it literally says “infinity”).1

Everything came together just right for you to be here. Every one of us is a walking miracle.

So let’s stop feeling sorry for ourselves and thinking we’re so unlucky shall we? Let’s stop worrying about the petty things in life and just realize this one immutable fact: we are all incredibly lucky to be here. To be breathing. To have the chance to affect the world with our presence.

We have each been given an opportunity to make our mark on this world. We can choose whether to take it and whether to leave a positive or negative mark, but we have the choice because an infinite number of things came together just right for us to be here.

Don’t waste your opportunity. Take the time to appreciate it. Realize the magic that you are carrying within yourself. The beauty you have to share with the world. Your time is limited here. Make the most of it.

There are times when this is easier said than done, I know. I’m human too, with children and responsibilities. And there are definitely days when I don’t feel as lucky to be here. But when I find that feeling creeping in, I take a moment. I stop and breathe. I start to think about every little event that happened to bring me into existence.

I’m a walking miracle. And so are you.

Live Life, Don’t Let Life Live You.
Bert Oliva

1Binazir, Ali. What are the chances of your coming into being? http://bit.ly/TZNkKB.

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Impulsive

By Bert Oliva

30
SEP
0

Patience is a funny word. It is easy to tell someone to have patience, especially if you are the one making them wait, but it is a lot harder to actually practice it. I don’t know about you, but when people tell me “Have patience,” my initial reaction is always frustration. It is usually a split second subconscious reaction and then I’m able to get it under control with my rational mind, but for that split second, I’m truly irritated.

Why is it that we get frustrated when someone tells us to have patience? Perhaps it’s partially because of our instant gratification society and having everything at the tap of a cell phone screen. Don’t get me wrong. I love technology. In fact, I probably own just about every gizmo you can imagine. But sometimes I think that technology has caused us to become more disconnected and certainly less patient.

There’s something to be said about patience. There’s something to be said about waiting and taking our time to get the things we want. When we wait, we are able to truly mull over the positives and negatives about the thing or things we are waiting for. We are able to truly decide if we want it and if we will use it when we finally get it.

I don’t know about you, but I certainly have a few “impulse buys” that are sitting around collecting dust. But those items that I took the time to research and save up for, even those I bought years ago, I still use and cherish.

The same goes for decisions and commitments we make in our lives. For instance, if you decide you want to lose and weight and just say, “I’m going to lose 10 pounds this week,” there’s not a big chance you’re actually going to stick to it. And worse, you will even discourage yourself for the next time you want to try to lose weight. However, if you take the time to truly weigh the decision, envision what you want, and make a plan of how you’re going to achieve it, you are much more likely to stick with the decision and achieve your goals.

So, let’s stop making “impulse commitments” with ourselves. Instead, let’s have patience and make educated decisions and choices. There is absolute truth to the adage, “Slow and steady wins the race.” So, take your time. I know you will Make It Happen!

Live Life,
Bert Oliva

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You Are…

By Bert Oliva

29
SEP
1

When you get up in the morning and look in the mirror, what do you see?

Do you see bags under your eyes? Lines around your lips? Extra weight in your cheeks?

Or do you see bright eyes? A crisp smile? Laughter in your cheeks?

You are beautiful. Yes, you. Just the way you are. You are an amazing human being with tremendous potential.

You have a gorgeous spirit that is aching to come out at full force and affect the world around you in ways you can not imagine possible.

You have talents that need honing. Thoughts that need sharing. Laughter that needs expressing.

You are absolutely, positively perfect, just the way you are.

Sure, you have improvements that you want to make on yourself. Some physical, some mental. Some work-related, some personal.

However, everything that you need to make those improvements is already within you.

You have all the answers that you are seeking. You simply have to start listening to yourself.

Get to know yourself. Love yourself. And share yourself.

You are greatest gift you can ever give to the world. You are amazing.

Live Life,
Bert Oliva

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Don’t Spit Up

By Bert Oliva

28
SEP
0

This weekend, I took my family boating in the Florida Keys. The sun was shining and it was a gorgeous day. The water was a little choppy but not too bad. I got behind the helm and headed to the turquoise blue waters of the shallow sand bar a ways off the shore. When we got there, one of my passengers had turned green. She was terribly seasick.

As I helped her get a life vest on to get herself into the water and find her equilibrium, I jokingly said, “So you don’t have your sea legs huh?” I even filmed her and joked about it. It was all in good fun and she was a good sport though she was so ill.

Soon after, I got in the water to swim for a bit myself. When I got out and back on the boat, my world start spinning and my stomach started doing flip flops. I could not stop it if I tried. It took all my concentration not to lose my lunch. I felt helpless and dizzy. After all the years of me driving boats, I had my first experience with seasickness myself.

This story is a prime example of a phrase I use often: “Don’t Spit Up.” It means not to say something that may come back at you later. I definitely “spit up” when I toyed with my loved one over her pain. I didn’t do anything really hurtful or mean. Our relationship has always been one of jokes, but I personally had never experience seasickness before. I did not realize just how intense it can be and how quickly it can overtake you.

I truly try my best not to rush to judgment of others (though I do slip up from time to time), because you really can’t make a call on someone else’s situation. You really can not know what another person is feeling or experiencing, until you walk a mile in their shoes yourself. So, it’s best not to make a quick judgment call unless you have all the facts. I’m not saying you need to always have first hand experience in order to empathize with another person, but whenever possible, you should at least take the time to imagine yourself in their place. Imagine what they are feeling and thinking. And, whenever possible, simply ask them.

When you rush to judgment, you run a greater risk of “spitting up.” And remember, what goes up, has to come down, and it may just come back down on you.

Live Life,
Bert Oliva

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Inspire Me!

By Bert Oliva

27
SEP
0

Inspiration … what comes to mind when you think of the word? For many, it seems like “inspiration” is a faraway achievement. That it comes rarely. That it’s something we can’t easily grasp.

I know so many people who say, “I want to do X but I don’t have any inspiration …” “I’ll do it as soon as inspiration hits …” “I need to be inspired …”

Want to know the secret of inspiration? For the most part, it doesn’t just “come.” You have to train yourself to be inspired. You have to create a habit.

For instance, if you’re a writer and you only write when inspiration strikes you, you will soon find that you do not write all that often. However, if you create a habit—say you sit at your computer every day from 10am to 11am and write whatever comes to mind for an hour—you’ll soon find that inspiration comes to you sooner and sooner during that time. This is because you are conditioning yourself for inspiration. You are making inspiration a habit.

This is true with just about any task. In fact, I use this personally with my Motivational Moments. There are days where I record them when inspiration strikes, but regardless, I have an alarm set on my phone that goes off at 9pm that reminds me to record. So every day just about 9pm, I will record if I haven’t already. I must admit, there are days when inspiration takes awhile to come, but because I’ve created a habit, I usually find a topic fairly quickly.

So, stop putting off your tasks till inspiration strikes. It’s not going to. Especially because you are procrastinating it. Just set aside some time for yourself today and do it. And do the same tomorrow and the next day. At first it will feel like you’re pulling teeth, but before you know it, you will find the inspiration you need as soon as you set your mind to it.

When you are first creating a habit like this, try to keep it same time and in the same place. Though this sounds a little “un-inspirational” it will help with the habit creation subconsciously. And because it takes 21 days to change or create a habit, make sure to do it EVERY day for 21 days—that includes weekends and holidays.

You have greatness inside of you. Condition yourself to find it!

Live Life,
Bert Oliva

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