Adrian's Daily Cup of coffee Blog

You don’t need to keep looking to the sides to see where the competition is compared to you. Stay focus on what you are doing, make small gains daily and soon you will have no competition. It’s easy to get ahead of ourselves and switch to the fast traffic lane instead of keeping our eyes on the road ahead of us. Comparing yourself to others is one of the biggest impediments to progress.

The prefrontal cortex is probably the single most evolutionary change we have endured. This is the area in our brains where self awareness takes place. The thing about this upgrade in our species is that with self awareness come most of our troubles. Our emotions, anxiety, fears, depression, anger, low self esteem, etc all originate in this region of the brain. With the steady practice of meditation we can learn to quiet the self and allow us to step away from us, to find more confidence, to discover deeper talents, to clear our minds from the daily debris that clutters our thinking. Meditation is just one way to, momentarily at least, reach out outside of yourself.

“It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs, who comes short again and again …who at best knows …. if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly “.

Theodore Roosevelt

So many times we have been stopped even before we take the first step. Often its the critics, the ones that have never accomplished a thing but have the first word of unsolicited advise why we shouldn’t and why it won’t work. They seem to have it all figured it out, but yet they don’t. Some other times its our internal dialogues, our fears speaking, our comfort states.

We all have a need to try, a need to convince ourselves that there is more. I will also say we have a need to fail. Only in failure do we find growth, even more than in succeeding.

What would I tell my 10 year old self ? I would tell myself that even though life gets more complicated, it gets to be more fun. I would tell myself to not hold grudges, that they are not worth the energy or the time spent holding them. I would tell myself to listen more to those that are willing to teach me. I would tell myself to write more, to journal. Some things tend to be forgotten over time. I would tell myself to be less impatient. I would tell myself that some people are meant to make you better, not to stay, and that’s ok too. I would tell myself to express myself more, that it’s ok not to follow the crowd. I would tell myself to make more friends, to get out of my comfort zone, that it’s ok if it does not go as I hoped. I wish I could say that living life with no regrets is better, but regrets can also help you be a better person. It depends how you use them.

There is not one simple formula for success or reaching your goals. Getting up early when everyone else still asleep ? Might work for you, not necessarily for everybody else. Some people do their best creative thinking in the evening, or after lunch, or after walking their dog in the mornings. You can’t copy and paste somebody’s formula for success into your life because the circumstances might be different for you than for somebody else. What we can do every day, is prepare physically and mentally, for whatever your goal or your idea of success is. Don’t beat yourself down if you didn’t read today. Just read tomorrow. Learn from what happened today and avoid making the same mistakes tomorrow. Like Seth Godin says “Tomorrow comes daily, but we don’t have to take the same route to get there”.

A solid foundation seems to be the driving force behind all good things. A solid family support system its the starting point for a child’s success in life. A company with a strong business plan and a solid vision, clear stated principles its on the right path to success. Buildings with strong engineering expertise and solid foundations are going to withstand the challenges of time. Seeds that are planted on the right ground, with the right care are going to be the more fruitful. After some time, its really up to the seed.

Nowadays, no matter what we say or do, it seems like someone is always getting offended, and we switch to defend our position, or further elaborate. When we get offended, it is not because of what it is being said, although sometimes the remarks were actually meant as offensive, but it is mainly because of how we judge the comment. It’s almost like we are craving for controversies, to be at the center of some confrontation. Even though we shouldn’t allow certain insults, verbal attacks are seldom worth wasting time and energy. If you don’t react to the attack, you are actually owning the situation, deescalating, making you the winner of that argument.

Distractions are always going to be part of our lives. Deadlines, things that we keep postponing, things that become urgent all of a sudden or whether its the little things like social media, the news, etc. We can try to block as many of these as we can but that rarely works. We always find ways to to be distracted by something else. Right now, as I’m writing this, I’m distracted by my dog playing in the yard chasing lizards. It is what it is. The way I deal with distractions is to incorporate them into what I’m doing. The dog playing in the yard while I write, well, I write about the dog playing in the yard, but I’m still writing. You are at the gym, checking your phone, well look at work out videos for new exercises. It does not always work but you can give it a try

Sometimes it’s so easy to get caught up in the moment and forget about the real important things. We mix up our priorities and succumb to the pressure society puts on us. At that moment, good, solid routines come in handy. A good habit to have when one feels like that is to take a step back, breathe, close your eyes, re-calibrate your focus, re-orient your energy, meditate, reflect, spend some time alone, until you fall back into place again.

My name is Adrian Michelena and today, February 3, 2020, I decided to start this blog site. The path I want to take is clear as mud but I know one thing for sure: I want to share part of my daily routines, habits, books that I’m reading or have read, quotes I’m pondering at the moment, articles, publications, blog sites, etc that I have come across that have helped in a particular moment of my life. I hope you can find it useful. Thanks.