"The past, I think, has helped me appreciate the present – and I don’t want to spoil any of it by fretting about the future."
– Audrey Hepburn
Hey <<First Name>> I hope you are enjoying the weekend. I personally had a very productive one as I am working towards launching a new website for a Specialized Pharmacy and tying up loose ends on the site we re-launched for our friend Payasa Agapita.
Every day this past week, I was just focusing on the task I had at that moment. The terrible events that happened during the week made me disconnect from all types of communications; the information overload of the tragedy was something I felt was draining me.
Looking back I felt that the importance of being focused on the present. This is in many ways is beneficial in many aspects from a personal to professional perspective.
Raul and <<First Name>> wanted to be?
When we where in grammar school we probably wanted to be a firefighter, a law enforcement officer, archeologist, or a doctor. I wanted to become an archeologist because I loved history and wanted to find out about ancient civilizations (although when I was 7 years old my main inclination towards archeology was hoping to find someday a dinosaur fossil).
I remember wanting to fast forward to being an adult because I wanted to be big. Over the years my inclinations towards those professions faded away. I lost my interest in looking at the complete logistics to finding artifacts and fossils and the other factors that pulled me into the other professions.
The only thing that did not fade away was the urge to be in the future; as children we do not understand that we only have certain seconds, minutes, hours, days, and years on this earth (as adults we need constant reminders of our mortality).
Why Fast Forward
<<First Name>>, I am not sure how you handle future projects or goals but when I think about future projects I run little movies in my head on what is going to happen if we complete a project and goal.
For some of us, our brains makes us go even further and attempts to predict the future and what will happen long after reaching that goal.
<<First Name>>, I am not sure if this happens to you but I still battle with trying to predict the future; I am trying to change that by putting my energy into the present.
The importance of the Present
Looking back at different stages of my life, I have had some awesome experiences. What blinded me from realizing at those moments that those where great moments was my focus on what the future might bring.
Now to be clear, I don’t want you to misunderstand me. I honestly want you to establish goals and go after your dreams. I am a firm believer that its important to establish targets we can hit and milestones we can reach to motivate us during the toughest times.
I am constantly going after a better future and during different times of the year, I check up on what I have accomplished and what’s pending. I also choose 3 words to guide me through the year and I make sure I apply them daily to my present situation. I even have a reminder to look at how I have applied those three words during the past 24 hours.
Hindsight is 20/20
We have a great view of what happened in the past and it can make us feel a mix of emotions. As time goes on, we have better tools and information, which should help us when making decisions.
Based on my experiences those tools and decisions can work best by employing them now instead of planning to use them in the future.
Applying it to our Daily lives
We all have different priorities. But a pattern I see in people is that they all forget to enjoy the present in more occasions than they should.
We all need to get better in making the best of right now and that should lead us on the path to making the best of each opportunity in the future (there I go again thinking of the future).
Do Your Homework Now
For the next week, set a reminder at different times of every day, stop what you are doing, and take 5 minutes to do something you enjoy.
Before you start the exercise think of the many opportunities that the location, time, environment, people around you, and other factors of your surroundings can bring.
Set up the reminder as an alert on your iPhone, or Google Calendar (call it what you want just make sure you do it now so you don’t forget).
I’ll wait for your feedback on the exercise and if you have any questions feel free to respond now, <<First Name>> you know where to find me.
PS: As I turn 33 this coming week, I have learned how to do a better job enjoying the present. I distanced myself little by little from many things I found superficial and it was one of the best choices.
Today I will be headed to El Morro Fort in Old San Juan to spend time with family while I give some of time for a great charity called Escape in their annual event called a Jugar en Familia. If you are in the San Juan area and would like to spend quality time with the family, feel free to stop by.
This week I will begin a small business one-on-one coaching session with a very talented small business owner who I met online and is a reader of this newsletter.
Very excited to work with Luis Maymi who not only takes time to read what I have to share, but his feedback has been of great value to my blog and other efforts.
If you have a project and are interested in having someone helping you move forward with ideas, I created a special birthday offer for my newsletter subscribers which you can see below.
By the way, if you know of any other people who would like to read a not so normal newsletter like this, feel free to forward this newsletter and ask them to subscribe.
https://us6.forward-to-friend.com/forward?u=8057ec827c&id=31cd81afd5&e=[UNIQID]
Birthday Offer
Business Starter Online Coaching Package
If you want to launch an idea or enhance a current business project I set up a few online coaching packages.
Since its my birthday on Tuesday I want to celebrate by giving my newsletter subscribers a coupon of $351 for any of the three packages making the lowest tiered package at a very affordable price for any small business owner.
Here are the Coupon Links which expired in two days at 4-23-2013 at 11:59pm:
Any questions can be answered by hitting reply.
Thanks again. |
