Personal Blog of Mike Bowden

Life changes at a rapid pace. We never know when, where or how it will happen. Some of us go through life and are simply there. We are like the “sheep” you see on a daily basis, driving to work, working and then driving home. The same mundane tasks on a daily basis, over and over again. Most of us never have anything happen that changes the way we look at life, the way we live life or how we deal with life. But sometimes, things do happen that will alter the course of life.

Recently I received some news that did just that for me. I’ve been having back pain and neck pain for too long. Probably for the past few years. Over the the past 7 or 8 months I’ve noticed muscle growth in the lower right section of my back. Last week I decided to get some X-rays done and figure out what was going on down there. What I found changed things for me, probably forever.

The chiropractor that I visited to have this work done, explained to me that my spine had a slight curve to it (left to right, not front to back) and that if I didn’t start having regular adjustments and try to correct the problem, that it would most likely develop into multiple-sclerosis. This was a shock and a hard blow on life to me.

It wasn’t until recently that I started to look at life with a new “lease”. This just added more fuel to my life fire. I am now receiving regular adjustments and hopefully within time this problem will be corrected and I will not develop full-blown MS. However, I do not plan on waiting to find out. I will be living every day with a passion as if it were my last.

Recently I have changed my daily schedule to reflect some of the changes in life that I’ve wanted to take. Over the next few weeks I will be explaining my new routine, how it has helped and how to achieve the same results. I will also lay out my plans for this blog, life and my career as I see it.

Life is too short, we all put things off thinking it will get better tomorrow and if we simply put it off until then, it will get easier. This is incorrect, life is SHORT, start living it now. You will reap the benefits time and time again if you do so. Don’t hold back, do what you feel is right.

Has anything happened in your life that has changed the way you look at it? If so, share your stories here and give others some inspiration to fuel their life fires.

photo credit: lepiaf.geo

I had plenty of plans today, I wanted to research more on some of the articles I’ve lined up for this week. We’ve been working really hard on trying to get our new company web site out the door. I’m working with my business partner on a few new ideas, products and businesses that we’d like to start, the list just keeps going. One thing that I’ve learned while working for myself is that you really can’t plan. Planning requires everything involved to go exactly, well as planned and it never works out that way, never!

Recently I’ve been trying to implement a lot of the GTD methodology and a few other tips and tricks I’ve learned over the years from myself, books or other blogs that I frequent. Slowly but surely I’ve been working my way into a groove of productivity and getting more done throughout the day that I didn’t really have planned to get done. The major technique that I’ve been employing during all of this, is one that just makes sense to me. It isn’t something I read about or heard someone speak of, it’s just something that makes complete and utter sense to me. Above and beyond any other productivity techniques I’ve ever tried, this one works the best for my type of personality.

Go with the flow!

When I get started for the day, I don’t get up in the morning and start thinking about what I want to do today. I don’t plan out my day while I eat breakfast (cause I don’t eat breakfast). I simply do my normal routine that I’ve done on a daily basis for the past few years. When I sit down at my desk and warm up the monitors, I normally get back started on what I was working on before I called it a day. Once I’ve gotten back started on the last days work, things just start falling into place and throughout the entire day I simply follow the flow of the day.

Since I’ve started to do this my day seems to just go better. Of course I still have my bad days, where I really just wanted to a particular task or project and I couldn’t. But you learn to coupe and move on, being angry or upset because of trivial things such as that only cause your life to be shorter and it’s already short enough. I enjoy the things I do and I feel empowered that I’m able to do them. So if a day goes differently, I stop and think about why it did that and what has happened because of it. A good percentage of the time, something good has come from it but most don’t see this because they are too busy dealing with their frustrations than looking at the larger picture.

So the next time you feel like something isn’t going your way, sit back, put your feet up and contenplate how things are going and draw some of your own conclusions as to why they are going that way. I’ll bet you will be pleasently surprised at the outcome.