Flawlessness is a great goal but a horrible expectation.  Striving to be our best is never a bad thing unless we misinterpret the process to mean product.  Pursuing something must include the realization that achieving it is not a guarantee.  Most of our struggles in life are due to unmet expectations.  Focusing on goals and the process will allow us to continue to move forward and not become paralyzed by unmet results.  Needing to have things perfect is the surest way to immobilize yourself with frustration.  Wayne Dyer

If you have prepared well enough, then you should relish ANY opportunity to demonstrate that preparedness.  If we witnessed someone building a house over months and months and instead of moving into that house, they light it on fire and burn it down, we would call it crazy.  The same is true for someone who prepares for a goal and then is too scared to attempt to achieve it.  "Success is where preparation and opportunity meet".  Bobby Unser

If you truly want to improve and grow and become better, TODAY matters ... "You can't have a better tomorrow if you are thinking about yesterday all the time." Charles Kettering.  Unfortunately, we not only waste time and procrastinate, but we then feel bad about it and then waste more time ... "Regret for wasted time is more wasted time." Mason Cooley.   We must understand that we all want more time for the things we desire but we also waste more time than we think we do ... "Time is what we want most, but what we use worst," William Penn.  The solution is to value time as much as we value anything else and then use that time to be productive, however we personally define production to be ... "Time is more valuable than money. You can get more money, but you cannot get more time,"  Jim Rohn (not to be confused with JeffRahn)

​​Everyone is wired differently.  We all have different goals and aspirations and values that guide us.  Not everyone values being productive or living a meaningful life.  That is up to them.   For me, I don't expect life to be easy but I do expect my life to have purpose and meaning and for me to accomplish something.  At the end of the day, I want each day to matter.  Worry is natural but it doesn't need to be the purpose of my life and it shouldn't prevent me from being productive and successful.  "Anxiety is like a rocking chair. It gives you something to do, but it doesn't get you very far."  Sydney Ceruto

Setting goals and dreaming about the future are great.  But when the future becomes the present, we need to stop dreaming and DO IT!  ​Without execution, 'vision' is just another word for hallucination.  Mark V. Hurd

Shame is feeling bad about ourselves.  Guilt is feeling bad about what we did.  Shame is "I am a bad person".  Guilt is "I did a bad thing.  We need to realize that the feeling of guilt is more accurate and more healthy than the feeling of shame.  We all screw up and feeling bad about it is normal but we don't need to feel about about ourselves.  Feeling bad about ourselves is not helpful.  When we make a bad decision, we need to learn from it but not let it define us.  Every decision stands alone and we are as capable of making a right decision after making a wrong decision.  “There’s no wrong time to make the right decision.”– Dalton McGuinty

Self-confidence is extremely beneficial.  Self-Esteem is under-rated.  Self-Worth is essential.  If we don't feel that we have worth, we find ourselves to be worthless and that leads to all kinds of mental struggles.  A cure for feeling worthless is to find something that brings us the feeling of worth.  There is nothing more simple and quick and easy to build Self-Worth than devoting our energy toward others. “No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another”  Charles Dickens