Live your dreams – Living With MS

Use Technology

Rick Simon — Sun, 08 Dec 2013 01:21:28 +0000

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Are you a person who delays the adoption of new technologies?
Do you wish for the day when cars didn’t have computers, and normal people could actually fix them?
Many of us hesitate to use the latest technologies, don’t we?
Do you walk with a cane, or do you know someone who does?
But what is technology, and why should or shouldn’t we adopt it?

http://www.merriam-webster.com concise encyclopedia says it is the Application of knowledge to the practical aims of human life or to changing and manipulating the human environment. It goes on to say Technology includes the use of materials, tools, techniques, and sources of power to make life easier or more pleasant and work more productive.

So is a cane, or a walking stick as I long preferred to call it, an example of technology? To see the answer to that, we can first answer “is the cane a tool?” and then answer “does t make life easier”. If the answer to those questions is yes for you, then the cane is technology, isn’t it?

So why not use it? Maybe because:

You have to figure out what to do with the cane when you get where you are going.
You now need two legs and one hand to walk.
Some of your muscles may become weak because you don’t use them as much.
You may overuse, stress or injure your arm.
As you become more dependent you may be less able to walk without it.

I use a cane, and I know from personal experience that these down sides are real. For me the advantages outweigh the disadvantages, and we’ll talk another time about how I use more technology to help me deal with the disadvantages.

Thanksgiving Message

Rick Simon — Fri, 29 Nov 2013 03:48:13 +0000

An interesting thing happened last week that is related to the Have A Positive Focus strategy I described previously.

I live in Canada, and in Winter we get some snow. Someone posted a picture of their back yard covered in snow on Facebook. One headlight of her car was showing. The Message said “My car is out there somewhere…Richard Simon? Please, please write something positive…I have to shovel this$@&)(!@&$”. In a later comment she said she wasn’t going to shovel till tomorrow.

My reply “Positive thinking on demand! You can be grateful that: 1. You can shovel snow. Many aren’t healthy enough. 2. You can wait till tomorrow to shovel it. 3. You have a warm place to wait till tomorrow. 4. You have food so you won’t go hungry while you wait. 5. You have entertainment while you wait aka the internet and Facebook. And finally, you have a car to be covered in snow. Those are the first positive thoughts that come to mind… ”

She replied with “Did all that…still shoveling tho…but thanks for all that. As my boots fill with snow tomorrow…I’ll think of you!”

And someone else responded “Another positive…you have boots!!”

I found positive things to think about while acknowledging the negative – that the snow had to be shoveled. I was especially happy to be of service given that I didn’t have to shovel the snow…

The names have been excluded to protect the guilty.

What is your MS – Step 2 – Focus On It

Rick Simon — Sun, 10 Nov 2013 23:29:11 +0000

Once you know what your major struggle is, what do you do about it? In three words the answer is “Focus on it.” That’s the answer, but it isn’t a particularly helpful answer. What does it mean to focus on it? How do you stay focused? How do you keep from getting distracted?

Some solutions I’ve used included:

Turn overcoming that struggle into a goal. In doing so you will make it a SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound) which will go a long way to motivating you to achieve it (see “Set Your Goals, Live Your Dreams”).
Put it on a goal card that you carry with you to remind yourself.
Put it in your paper or electronic day timer so you get reminded each day.
Find someone to be accountable to, and announce your intention.
Tell your parents, spouse, and kids about it. If possible link achieving your goal (and overcoming your MS) to something that benefits them.
Put it on your screen saver.
Put it on the bathroom mirror, the refrigerator, and on the ceiling over your bed.
Figure out what you are NOT going to spend time on so you can spend time on overcoming your MS and reaching your goal and living your dreams. Schedule some time for it.
Break it down into bite sized chunks so you can start to make progress, If you don’t know what steps to take, ask someone.
Figure out 2 things you can do in the next 7 to 10 days to get started…

So here are 10 things you can do to help keep yourself focused on overcoming your MS. There are many more. They might not all work for you. But they are a place for you to start. I have done each of them at one time or another, and they worked for me, so I know they can work for you.

My Major Struggle (MS) was Multiple Sclerosis (MS). I have MS, but MS doesn’t have me. Recently I blogged on “What Is Your MS” where I encouraged you to figure out one Major Struggle (MS) to focus on with the idea that if you focus on one until you are over it, you will make more progress than if you just do a little bit on a bunch of struggles. I tackled the challenge of figuring out what your MS was.

So give some of these 10 ideas a try. Get started. Get going. Get growing, and other ideas will come to you on how to stay focused and how to overcome your MS.

Be Fiercely Independent

Rick Simon — Wed, 23 Oct 2013 04:46:08 +0000

When you see someone struggling to do something, due to a physical handicap, do you pride yourself on being the one who offers to help? Do you feel insulted or hurt when the person declines your help? Do you ever wonder why they insist on doing it for themselves, even though they are obviously struggling? It would be so much easier for you to do it for them, wouldn’t it?

Why do they insist on doing it themselves? Maybe it’s because they need to be fiercely independent. But why would they need to be fiercely independent?

My journey to being fiercely independent began with what my wife Judy said to me the night she agreed to marry me, in spite of my MS. She said that she would marry me, in spite of my MS, if I agreed to do everything I could do for myself, in spite of my MS. So how can I make sure I do everything I can for myself, if I accept help every time I struggle to do something? How would I know if that was something I could have done?

Have a Positive Focus

Rick Simon — Sun, 29 Sep 2013 02:31:30 +0000

Do you have any negative thinkers in your life? Do you know anyone who, no matter what you are planning, always has all the reasons why it won’t work? Do you know someone who is always complaining about something? They seem to drag you down, don’t they?

Have you ever been guilty of behaving this way? I have, but my fiance said something that helped turn things around for me. You see, I found out that I have Multiple Sclerosis (MS) two days after my (now) wife agreed to marry me. When I found out I went to her to ‘let her off the hook’, but she said something like “I will marry you in spite of your MS if you will agree to do everything you can do for yourself.”

How did this help to keep me positively focused? Well, first of all, I took it seriously. I mean I really liked this girl! I wanted her to stay around. I believed she was serious about what she had said, so I took it seriously. I started thinking about the things I could do so as to keep my part of the agreement. By thinking about, focusing on, and seeking out the things that I could do, I wasn’t paying attention to the things I couldn’t do. As a result:

I found lots of things I could do, so, in my mind, things weren’t so bad after all.
Doing the things I could do led me to succeed in various areas of my life.
Thinking about what I could do, made me happier with my life and therefore more likely to succeed. After all, happiness is all in your head, isn’t it?
Not spending so much time focusing on what I couldn’t do, helped me stay away from depression.

Don’t get me wrong, over the years there were lots of things that I couldn’t do anymore, and when they happened it was depressing. Giving up dancing was probably the hardest, closely followed by camping and skiing. Those were hard times, but knowing that there were all these things that I was able to do, helped me recover from these ‘setbacks’ more quickly, and get on with living my life in spite of my MS.

I guess that is why I am talking about positive focus, as opposed to positive thinking. When I tried positive thinking in the past it always felt like a lie. Positive focus, however, as T. Harv Eker, an author, businessman and motivational speaker known for his theories on wealth and motivation and the author of the book “Secrets of the Millionaire Mind” teaches it, acknowledges that not everything is positive in life, but that it makes sense to focus on the positive, because it works!

Do you feel better when you are focusing on something positive in your life?
If you feel better, are you more likely to do more to improve your situation?
If you do more, are you more likely to be successful, to improve your situation and to make that affirmation come true?

So if it works, improves your life, and doesn’t hurt anyone, why wouldn’t you do it? But like Eker, I’m not going to ask you to take my word for it. I just ask that you give it a try. It works for me, so it might work for you! If it does, keep doing it. If it doesn’t, stop!

Set Your Goals, Live Your Dreams

Amber Cochran — Mon, 02 Sep 2013 22:39:29 +0000

What is the relationship between goals and dreams? What does it mean to reach your goals? Can you really reach your dreams?

When I created the byline for The Living Your Greatness System “9 Strategies to Break Through Obstacles and Live Your Dreams”, I was hesitant to include the ‘dreams’ part. To me, living your dreams seemed too ‘pie in the sky’, but when I though about it, it is living our dreams that many of us want out of our lives, so I included it.

What are the characteristics of your dreams? For me, my dreams seem to be a bit ‘pie in the sky’, not very clear, I’m not sure if I can really get them, and I’m not really focused on doing what I need to do to get there. Are your dreams like that?

On the other hand, I have learned to make my goals SMART. Specific enough that they motivate me because I know exactly what I want, Measurable so I know when I am making progress and when I get there, Achievable because if I don’t believe I can achieve them, they won’t motivate me, Relevant so they are things I really want, and Time bound because I know that deadlines motivate me to get things done.

They are very different from my dreams, but I believe that if I set the right goals, as I am striving for them I will be living my dreams. It is important not to confuse goals and dreams. You want to set goals, strive to reach them, reach them, and move on to the next goal. I believe that people who have dreams that can be reached, they run the risk of being dissatisfied when they reach them. After you reached the dream, then what?

If on the other hand you set up your goals so that in the process of reaching them you will be doing the things you want to be doing with your life, then you can live your dreams as you strive to reach your goals. If you take the time to get them lined up so this is true, do you think you you will live a more fulfilled life, whatever barriers you have to cross to reach your goals?

Learn how to do this in The Living Your Greatness System. Watch this video for a free report on the 9 strategies of The Living Your Greatness System.