Bert Oliva

What’s Holding You Back?

By Bert Oliva

10
MAR
0

Are you doing everything you can to accomplish your goals? Do you still find that you fall just a few feet short most of the time? What’s happening here? What’s holding you back?

Perhaps it’s your work habits. Perhaps you just aren’t trying hard enough. Perhaps you’re procrastinating. Or perhaps you’re simply diverting your energy.

When you are working toward anything, how much of yourself—your mind, your feelings, your energy—goes to that goal? At first, you may say 100%, but be honest with yourself. When you sit down at your desk to accomplish something, do you go straight to it? Or do you read your email first? Or check your phone? Or find your mind wandering? It’s human nature to struggle to find focus at times. And it’s human nature to procrastinate at times. The important thing is that you realize these tendencies in yourself and work to correct them.

However, what about the energy drains that you are not even aware of? What about the deeply seeded grudges within yourself?

As humans, we can be really insensitive and cruel to one another at times. It’s sadly a fact of life that at some point or another you will be hurt by someone and moreover that you will hurt someone. The question is, what do you do with that hurt? Do you deal with? Or do you hold onto it?

Numerous studies have shown that holding onto grudges and bitterness can affect every aspect of your life. Psychologically speaking, holding onto grudges can cause you to bring bitterness into new experiences and relationships, can keep you in the past, can cause depression or anxiety, and an even ultimately cause you to question your life’s purposes. Physiologically speaking, holding onto grudges can cause elevated heart rate, high blood pressure, increased risk of heart disease, digestive problems, weaken your immune system, and even shorten your life.

So, what are your grudges doing for you? Review each aspect of your life, personal, professional, spiritual, etc. and pinpoint the people, events, and circumstances that you are holding grudges against. Don’t be surprised if a lot of your grudges are against yourself and past choices. Once you’ve listed your grudges, figure out what you can do, if anything to forgive them. Some may require a phone call; some may simply require letting them go (and the simple act of reviewing them like this may just do the trick for you).

Don’t misunderstand me. “Forgiving” your grudges does not mean that you have to be a doormat and allow people to take advantage of you. If someone has sincerely wronged you, you do not need to allow that person back into your life, but you also do not need to waste your time and energy focusing on that person either. Forgive them for what they did, and let them go. Remember, people are in your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. Not everyone will be with you forever, but life is just too short to split your energy resenting people and circumstances from your past. Learn from the situations, forgive those that have hurt you, and move forward.

Live Life,
Bert Oliva

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Bert Oliva

What Do You Know?

By Bert Oliva

24
FEB
0

We are living in dangerous times—the time of the expert. Everyone with the ability to Google and copy and paste has the ability to sound like an expert online. And though there are many actual experts out there, a lot of their messages are being drowned out by the pseudo experts. The ones who know how to make themselves sound like they are the real deal, but whose actions don’t back up their words. The ones who spout beautiful words and yet never quite deliver on their promises.

Please, don’t misunderstand me. The free flowing of information in our modern world has incited a beautiful revolution of unique thought and growth, but it must also incite discernment. Anyone can appear to be anyone they want to, so be careful with whom you choose to invest your time and other resources. Be thorough and do not jump to rash decisions.

Don’t take anyone at face value. Research those people who you choose to associate with. Do your due diligence. Any expert who has truly earned the classification will have documentable experience, results, and testimonials to support their title. Trust me, you will be grateful for this extra step of research in the long run.

Live Life,

Bert Oliva

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Bert Oliva

This Is It

By Bert Oliva

3
FEB
0

What do you want? When was the last time you took a moment and asked yourself that question? And truly answered it? It is now the second month of the New Year. What have you accomplished so far? What have you already given up on?

Take some time today and evaluate where you are. What are your biggest goals? What do you feel you have already achieved? Do not let other’s ideas of you or your past view of yourself to identify you. Only you can know who you are and what is truly in your heart. Get to know the person you are currently.

Once you know who you are and what you want, make a plan for yourself. A real one. Not one that is dramatic or unachievable. If you want to lose 40 pounds, don’t plan on losing 10 this week. Work towards one. Setting yourself up for failure is one of the least productive things you can do.

Every day represents a new day to start and to move forward. Do not allow yesterday’s perceived mistakes to affect what you are doing today. Yet do not allow the excuse of you can try again tomorrow to justify you not working on yourself, your goals, and your life today. Yesterday is gone, but tomorrow is not promised. Today is all you have. So what will you do with it?

Live Life,
Bert Oliva

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Bert Oliva

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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Bert Oliva

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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Recipe For Disaster

By Bert Oliva

26
SEP
0

We humans are such funny creatures. We spend so much time learning how to do things the right way and then often once we learn the right way, we decide to start skipping steps to improve the process, until everything is an utter mess again.

Why do we do this? If we were to apply this line of thinking to other things besides ourselves, we’d have a whole lot of failure.

For instance, when my daughter first learned to bake a cake, she forgot the sugar. The next time, she added the sugar, but accidentally added more salt. It took her three tries until she finally got the recipe just right. What if she had decided to start taking things away once she had perfected it? Like an egg? And then maybe some oil? Before she’d know it, she’d end up with a mix of I don’t know what, but it certainly wouldn’t be a cake.

The same applies to us. Once you find a “recipe” that works for you, don’t alter it. If you are able to work out in the mornings three times a week, why would you start working out at night? If getting your nails done makes you feel better about yourself, why would you stop making time for it? If having lunch with your closest friend every other week made you happy, why would you start scheduling other things during that time?

Life isn’t static by any means. It changes constantly. In fact, the only thing constant about life is change. However, for the most part, our little life “recipes” can be altered gradually to fit in with life’s changes. For instance, if your new job requires you to be at work earlier, get up even earlier so you can still make the gym. If your budget got a little tighter because you had to get your son braces, then learn how to do your nails at home. If your schedule has shifted and you can’t meet with your friend for lunch, try doing dinner.

Gradual changes are the only way to keep being successful. Drastically changing your recipes will set you up for failure and you will give up altogether. Set yourself up for even greater success by being as consistent as possible with your personal recipes. And when life’s changes pop up, face them with an open mind. Oftentimes the slight changes we make to our recipes reenergize ourselves and make us even more committed to our goals.

Live Life,
Bert Oliva

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