How Goals Help Self-Awareness
Do you want to find the key to unlock your dreams? Self-Awareness can be that key. We are often taught to set specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, time-bound goals. This is great, but most of the time we miss the massive benefit we can get from the goal-setting process itself. The process laid out below could…
Life Changing Potential From One Idea
This short post provides you the potential to change your life for the better. All you need to do is read this post, ponder the implications. The statement “time is an illusion” initially seemed absurd to me, but I later understood its significance. The past is memory, and future is imagination. Live in the present…
End Life’s Struggles:
The Power of Flow Look outside. This morning, the sun rose on its own. Clouds gathered, bringing vital rain to the plants and grass. Nature knows exactly what to do. Seasons change, and adjustments are made effortlessly. Everything in the universe is in perfect motion, sustaining life on our planet. Now, compare this harmony to…
Unlocking Your Potential: How Meditation Rewires Your Brain for a Better Life
Unlocking Your Potential: How Meditation Rewires Your Brain for a Better Life AI wrote this post from a three sentence prompt. I do this occasionally for ideas, but I thought this one was powerful, so I am sharing it in it’s entirety here. Hey beautiful souls! Today, I want to dive into a topic that’s…
What do you want out of life?
What do you want out of life? Are you someone who feels like you have tried everything and still aren’t achieving your goals? If you have been at this for a long time, what do you have to lose? I want to set the stage by saying this is your life and you should have…
Happy New Year and My Gift to You
Happy New Year! Get your free “Gateway Coaching Session” to enchance your new year.
Today is Your Day!
As I write this, I am asking myself what I want to do about this day. Just like mostly every other person on the planet, I have off days. Times when I don’t feel good about myself, and days when I don’t believe in myself. What we do in these times matter. These days are…
Suggestions When You Are Having and Off Day ?
Today I had one of those days where I just felt a little off. Had some business related frustrations. I have a routine I normally go through to get myself grounded again when this happens. Usually accepting the feelings, a few deep slow breaths, and a moment or two of mindful meditation, I am back…
Your Path to a Better Life
Prepare to transform your life into a purpose filled, happy, and abundant life. What is written here are some initial steps you can take to begin a surefooted path towards a life better than you ever thought possible. This is the first in a series of posts. The time between posts is designed to give…
Law of Attraction ?
I picked up a book I bought a while back and had only read the first few pages of. It was lesser known book on the law of attraction, but was pretty consistent with most of the more popular ones. The book laid out three steps to start. 1. Determine and write what it is…
You Don’t Have to Know How!
I recently heard something that sounded a bit sketchy to me, but I have been testing the statement now for several weeks and the results have been very good. The statement is that “it is not your conscious mind’s job to know how and when things are going to happen.” When we set out to…
Just Breathe
Your success will come much easier if you can make your mind clearer and more disciplined. Today I am sharing a quick practical mindfulness exercise that will help you get started towards a more aware, mindful, abundant life. This is a practice you can do anywhere. It is the gateway to awareness. Wherever you are…
We Have Success and Happiness Backwards
Material success does not create happiness, but happiness is a great platform for success. Most of us set out to achieve our goals, because we think they will bring happiness, and security. We have it backwards. The first order of business is happiness and acceptance of reality. Those two things will provide a much better…
Success Begins With Reality
Read this one last post, and you will realize that you don’t need anything to be successful that you don’t already have. I know that sounds like a bold claim, and something crazy for a person to say that wants you to read their content, but I have been coaching and mentoring people long enough…
How To Make the World a Better Place
Making the world a better place starts and ends with you. Our natural inclination is to figure out how to change the thinking of others to make the world a better place. It is all that trying to change each other’s minds that has led us to the place we currently find ourselves. The world…
Present Moment Awareness
Present moment awareness is a superpower than can transform your life. We often don’t realize how much time we spend “in our heads” thinking about what has happened or worried about what will happen. Commit to spend one day focusing on the present moment, and looking for things in your everyday that you never noticed…
Weekly Message Success For – Week 2
Past, Present, and Future Reflection In last week’s message we reviewed how we can use mindfulness to begin to notice the thoughts that hold us back. The continued practice of our week one exercises will continue to be the foundation on our success journey. In week two we are going to talk about two other…
Weekly Message For Success – Week 1
Introduction Welcome to week 1 of the Weekly Message for Success. The Weekly Message for Success is a step by step process to help you succeed and achieve your life’s goals. The value of each week’s exercises will be more apparent in coming weeks. This process was designed to help you start with the most…
A Secret Worth Sharing
The Law of Attraction is a real thing and it works, but many overlook some of the obvious gaps in the way that people understand it. I will get right to the heart of the secret worth sharing. Two real ideas seem to conflict with one another, and between the two is where the secret…
The Divided States of America
I was going through my Facebook messages this morning and saw a video pop up in my feed. I have included a link to the YouTube.com video below. Listen to the words, and you will find a common sentiment, although it may be expressed a little differently in your circles. Regardless, I hope that this…
Start Succeeding Today!
Do you want to achieve your life’s goals and dreams? Below is a prescription to get your life quickly headed in that direction in a more surefooted way? I am so confident that this advice will revolutionize your life, I am not going to waste anymore time trying to explain how it works, because it…
Goal Achievement for the Other Half
Goal Achievement doesn’t have to be hard, Consider Intentions over Goals to start your transformation
Unleash Your Boundless Potential
Today, I invite you to catch a glimpse of the boundless potential within you, capable of leading a life far beyond your wildest expectations. Each of us possesses untapped abilities that go far beyond our imagination, and the only thing standing in our way is gaining an expanded perspective of the world around us. Throughout…
What is going on with all this discontent with work and life?
I have more and more people sharing discontent that they have with their work or careers mostly. In this video I talk about how Mindfulness helped me to overcome this discontent.
Here is what ChatGPT had to say about the benefits of Mindfulness.
I decided to ask ChatGPT “Can you tell me what the benefits of Mindfulness are?” These are all things I experienced and I wanted to share this with you. Here was the AI’s answer. Certainly! Mindfulness is a practice that involves bringing one’s attention to the present moment and observing it without judgment. It has…
One Week Could Make All the Difference
If you feel like you have tried everything to make your life better, and are ready to just surrender one week to turn it around, then read on. I am reminded of how skeptical I was about living a whole month of my life in the way I am about to share. I honestly thought…
7 Tips For a Healthy Lifestyle
There is no magic bullet for losing that excess weight, and living a healthier lifestyle. In today’s post I will share insights based on what has worked for my wife and I on our weight loss journey. Right after Christmas, my wife said she was going to start Weight Watchers. I thought it would be…
Beginner’s Mind
Today I came to an important realization, and wanted to share a short post. As I thought about many of my old blog posts, I realized that some of them were written the way an insecure teenager has a conversation. A lot of imposing beliefs, incomplete thoughts, and trying to control what people think. I…
I Want to Congratulate you… Yes You!
Congratulations on seeing the day where you finally have everything. On the day you found the path that starts with more than you can imagine. Read these next few lines and you are already there. Your mind, whether you realize it or not, is constantly thinking about the past or the future. You are worried…
Do It Yourself Improvement
As I have watched others, and observed the things that have turned my own life around, I wanted to share a couple of the core principles to help you get your life headed in the right direction. Here are the solutions and exercises for two of the most common obstacles people face with positive change.…
You Can Be Happy Right Now
Do you say things like “I will be happy when……”? What if you could be happy right now? We tend to think that when we get a certain relationship, job, or amount of money we will be happy. We go about working towards getting that thing. What you may not realize is that when you…
Free New Year’s Life Coaching Session
The first week of the New Year is the time when most people set their goals and resolutions. I am giving away a free one hour life coaching session for for the first 3 respondents in the New Year. Despite the obvious challenges, 2022 was a great year for me and this is my way…
Your Life is Going to Transform
Today is the day that your life will change for the better. The primary reason for failure is unnecessary struggling. Our whole goal achievement culture is backwards. Science has shown time and time again that calm happy people have the optimum state of mind to succeed. First happiness then success. Your transformation begins with how…
Who am I?
As I look back at my past self, here is what I see. I see a sad three year old who just lost his father. I see a child with deep insecurities and hurt. I see a teenager who was self loathing, and one who would do anything for acceptance. This child and teenager followed…
Poison in “The Secret”
Should you become a millionaire and want to help the guy who shared this with you, we can talk about ways to contribute. Until then please take and use what I have given you here today, to bring true riches into your life.
Freeing Yourself
The power of the pictures we paint in our mind can be the catalyst that either traps us or sets us free. Here is a powerful picture that will help you free yourself.
Selfish Or Self Respect?
It is important to understand the difference between being selfish, and having some self respect. I thought about it this week when I briefly encountered a young lady who needed to improve her grades. It was as if she thought the world would end if she didn’t. It was also somehow apparent that these good…
Lies We Believe
This video popped up on my YouTube feed today. I normally don’t just post a video without commentary, but I think this video is worth a watch. I have spent a lot of time thinking about lies that are widely believed, and I mostly agree with the video host.
Life Doesn’t Need to Be So Hard
We have plenty of things to keep us busy. We have responsibilities around work, school, family, and finances among many other things. For most people there is a lot to do, and then we step in and add our thoughts about the consequences of not getting it all done. We weigh ourselves down with the…
How We Make a Difference
When we think about those who make a difference in the world we tend to think about the renowned and famous of the world. The thing we should always keep in mind is that they are one person just like we are, and the real difference in the world is made by hundreds of millions…
Accepting Reality
What does it mean to accept reality, and how can learning to do this make a positive impact in your life? Accepting reality doesn’t mean you don’t act on anything. What you do about what happens is a completely different conversation. The mistake that we usually make in accepting reality, is the definition of reality. …
This Too Shall Pass
I thought this would be a good opportunity to share this blog post. Have you ever had one of those days where you were just discouraged and feeling really insecure? As I sit and start to write this blog post, I am there. I went to the gym this morning, and then came home and…
Balance of Being and Doing
Interest in Mindfulness and other types of meditation has grown significantly, and for good reason. With so many people entering into meditation practices, one of the common struggles is balancing being and doing. People notice that if you quiet your mind and don’t do anything, you can quickly begin to experience a sense of…
Six Reminders
I have a list of six tasks or reminders I reaffirm and level up on before I set out to achieve any new goal or right after any big life challenge occurs. I call life my a surrender experiment. If you want to achieve anything big or even just prosper through everyday life, you are…
See the World Bigger
“When we try to make ourselves bigger in the eyes of the world, we shrink the size of our world. When we expand our knowledge of the world around us, we make the world bigger.”
Awareness Builds Momentum
Bringing awareness into your life is a process, it isn’t something that happens overnight. It isn’t something that intense effort will bring you. While awareness practices can be found in every religious tradition from Christianity to Zen Buddhism, the awareness I am talking about here is a practical approach for quieting the mind. This will…
The Real Source of Positive Change
Just under the label of self help alone, there are nearly 90,000 books in print. Then you can just keep adding labels, like success, spirituality, motivation, and the list goes on and on. My point is that we have more books available to us than we could read in a lifetime. So how many of…
Toxic Self Help
If you are a regular consumer of self help content, I would encourage you to watch James Jani’s “Toxic Self Help” video at the end of this post. Well written self help books can make us feel good, and give us a dopamine boost. We momentarily feel better. We set out to change our lives,…
Cut Out the Middleman
Any worthwhile endeavor you take on is going to involve planning, preparation, and doing. There are some who do too much planning, and suffer not getting as much done as they could. On the other end of the spectrum is the person who takes on the endeavor without proper planning, and paints themselves into a…
Seeing Knowledge Clearly
When I was in my mid-thirties I remember a trip to the grocery store with my wife Diane, who would occasionally read the fine print on the labels. I noticed that she was holding the labels further from her eyes in order to see them clearly. I teasingly asked if she needed gadget arms to…
Where the Rubber Meets the Road
One thing that I am very aware of when writing these blog posts, is that it is easy to talk about achieving great things. It is another matter entirely to actually make things happen. When we plan, talk, and write about success, we meet with minimal resistance. When we get out there and start moving…
Five Things You Wouldn’t Normally Do
Lives have been transformed by doing things we wouldn’t normally do.. I would like to challenge you this week to do five things you wouldn’t normally do. They can be as simple as changing up where you go for lunch. You could also go to the other end of the spectrum and go skydiving. Maybe…
Things That Have to Get Done
All of us have those things in our lives that we have to get done. Sometimes we don’t want to do them. Can you think of something that you don’t like to do, but it has to be done anyway? Here is something that has helped me to make that process much easier. Today’s post…
Goodbye Twitter
I decided this evening to delete my Twitter account. Our world is so polarized and Twitter is particularly polarized. I believe that in large part, it is people trying to have meaningful communication in so few words. I had a respectful back and forth on Twitter earlier this afternoon over a polarizing topic. I found…
Are You Interested in becoming a data professional ? Data is the new oil.
As many of you know I am a part time remote life coach, but I am also a full-time Business Intelligence Specialist / Data Engineer. On a typical week for the last couple years, I have had at least one or two recruiters contact me to interview for data jobs. That activity seems to be…
Add Focus and Discipline to Your Day
Do you want to increase your ability to focus and gain discipline consistently? In this post I want to provide a practical exercise to increase your daily focus, and increase discipline over a period of time. If you do this exercise consistently over a week, you will notice a significant improvement. I am not by…
A Dysfunctional Alarm Clock
I was reminded of this old post today, as I noticed my mental alarms going off during the day.
Letting Go
Another year with COVID has passed. How are you coping with what seems to be the new normal? At a minimum it has been a very long running disruption of what we used to call normal. Do you have more anxiety, or are you feeling the pressure of uncertainty? I wanted to write this post…
Happy New Year!
Do you have New Year’s resolutions? Do you want to make your 2022 exponentially better than 2021? Congratulations! Here are some tips for keeping your resolutions, and achieving your goals. For the sake of this post we will frame your New Year’s resolutions as goals. I am also offering the first three respondents who share their…
Moving Towards
I heard a story about a tour guide who led risky white water rafting tours down perilous rapids. He was said to have one of the best records for not getting his rafters injured. One of the ways he accomplished this, had to do with one sage piece of advice. The trick when you see…
What Makes You Unhappy?
If I asked you what makes you unhappy you might tell me about your boss, a family member, or something else. I am not discounting anyone’s experience, but what really makes us unhappy is having unmet needs and desires. We want our boss to stop treating us a certain way. We want to quit feeling…
The Power of Genuine Communication
Genuine communication is as much or more about listening than speaking.
Starting From Different Places
Have you genuinely tried to make positive changes in your life, and just feel stuck? Have you taken the advice of “success experts”, and still couldn’t make any significant progress? The purpose of this post is to provide both a possible reason and solution for this problem. I doesn’t matter where you are starting from,…
The Value of the Present Moment
This post is an opportunity for you to develop an understanding of a much better way of living than ninety percent of people in our culture. A couple of common themes that arise in my posts are first that you can only act in the present moment, but you can’t do anything in the past…
Take Personal Responsibility
Complaining was a sure sign that I wasn’t taking personal responsibility.
Is Your Life Full of Stress ?
Have you ever stopped to think about the things in our lives that cause unnecessary stress? In this post I am going to list a few of those stress inducers and some tips to reduce stress in your life. Mobile Phones In a prior blog post I talked about dysfunctional alarms. We often associate alarms…
More Perspective on Your Task List
When your actions aren’t aligned with your values, it causes insecurity
A Dysfunctional Alarm Clock
This post will bring awareness to unnecessary alarms in your life, that you can easily minimize to improve the qualify of your life.
Wisdom Quote By Robin Macnaughton: “Being aware is…”
A short quote that is one of the foundations for positive life change.
Before You Seek Coaching For Your Teen
If you are seeking life coaching for your son or daughter and they didn’t initiate it, you have already made a judgement that something with them needs to change.
Listening Over Telling
One of the most important skills for all of us is being a good listener. You can’t listen to someone and really understand them, while you are thinking about the next thing you want to say. If we don’t naturally connect with people this is most often the reason why. By listening closely and seeking…
A Mirage In the Desert
This post is meant to expand on and provide a “how to” for my last post. Most of us who are working towards our life’s goals are thinking about a destination where life will be easy. This is a place where we will have plenty of abundance to keep us happy and content. Many successful…
We Have Goal Achievement Backwards
Writing down and visualizing your goals is critical. It gives you a sense of where you want to go and you should review it daily, but there is something more. The big goals, once written down and internalized should become secondary goals. They are something in the back of your mind for you to aim…
It’s Not Me. It’s You!
There are a lot of awesome life coaches out there. They can help you achieve awesome results. This industry has produced life coaches who have very high success rates with their clients, and there are plenty of them. There are also some life coaches who’s practice depends on long term coaching engagements. They constantly give…
Common Challenges
I recently posted the first couple of videos in a series called Common Challenges on my YouTube channel. Each of these ideas are foundational for creating positive change in your life. These videos begin my rookie season as a video content creator. If you are interested in a free thirty minute life coaching consult drop…
This Realization Change My Life
This post is dedicated to everyone who lives with ADD/ADHD or loves someone with ADD/ADHD. In our minds we have three states of time. Past, present, and future. We can only do anything in one of them. It is only the present moment in which we can physically act. Before you read on take a…
Awake Life Transformation Community
Sometime ago my wife and I went to a comedy show. I apparently misread the start time on the tickets. We arrived at the arena around six, but the doors didn’t open until seven. We waited around as others started to arrive. I felt a deep sense of satisfaction. We were just watching the people…
There is Power in Questions
Have you ever encountered a friend while you were out, waved and said “Hi”, but they just kept walking without acknowledging you? In the following days, did the thought that they might be mad at you arise? Did you think that for some reason they didn’t like you anymore? This is just an example that…
This Realization Changed my Life
This post is dedicated to everyone who lives with ADD or loves someone with ADD. In our minds we have three states of time. Past, present, and future. We can only do anything in one of them. It is only the present moment in which we can physically act. Before you read on take a…
A Practical View of Positive Thinking
I have always been interested in positive thinking literature. What follows are a couple of my own thoughts on the subject. I understand that when some people hear the term “positive thinking”, they throw up a little bit. You might imagine a bubbly, and smiling person being interviewed in the aftermath of a natural disaster…
Why the change at brentpinkston.com
Some look to retirement as a time to reap the fruits of their labor, but I see it as an opportunity to pay forward the blessed life I have and continue to live. I have worked in various capacities in business and technology over the last twenty some years. I am still a full time…
How to Catch Your Mind Trying to Sabotage You.
I was sitting in my office this morning thinking about a work related effort, and had some ideas. I started to get really psyched about the possibilities. It’s that excitement you get when you think you are about to start something really awesome. I started thinking about specific next steps. Almost immediately my mind went…
Learning How To Pay Attention
The misnomer in ADHD is “Attention Deficit”. It is not a deficit of attention, it is a deficit in in being able to put your attention where you want it. It is a matter of executive function, which is to say a deficit in the part of the brain that acts to help us maintain…
Following Through
“If you always do what you always did, you will always get what you always got.” — Albert Einstein Following through on the things I start has been one of the greatest challenges in my life. It is difficult for everyone, but especially difficult for the ADHD brain to persist to the finish line. If…
Money is the root of all kinds of evil ?
I have been thinking quite a lot about the state of corporate America. I want to be clear that there is much good in our capitalistic system, and without it the quality of life would be much worse today. The point of this post is not to demonize corporate America, but instead to get consumers…
Prior To Mindfulness
Do you struggle with racing thoughts? Are you often attacked by negative emotions that make you believe some form of the idea that you are no good? Is your self-confidence low? Do you often see the negative in things, and rarely see the good? If you answered yes to these questions, you are not alone.…
Setting Journey Goals Rather Than End Game Goals
I am not a big on setting New Years resolutions. I believe our resolutions won’t likely be successful, if it is only the time of year that inspires them. I do however think that if you have some days off during the holidays, it is a great time to review your goals. If you don’t…
1 – Foundations – Don’t Do This Alone
I always chuckle when I hear a CEO or any other successful person proclaim they are self made. While they may have lead the effort, the amount of work they did themselves is a tiny fraction of all the work that was done to get them where they are. In the same way you are…