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Guest post by: Michael Hume Become an Author

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Relax, Appreciate, Imagine, And Dream

It's vacation season! Most people would say their vacation is their big annual chance to get away from it all. And it is. A chance to get away from all the daily cares of the world and the grind of work. But I say your vacation is really a chance to get back to it all. An opportunity to get back, in your mind and heart, to the most important things. Your mission. Your inspiration. The "why" behind the things you do the rest of the year.

Spend the first several hours of your vacation just enjoying the respite from the daily grind. Try to relax, and just allow yourself to be in the moment. If you travel for vacation, you'll want to soak in your surroundings. If, like many people these days, your personal economy demanded you take a "stay-cation" at home, I think you should do the same thing - take a fresh look at your surroundings - and remind yourself why you chose to live where you do. Your home is your castle. Enjoy it!

This is a key step in getting back to it all. Once you've relaxed and "escaped" mentally from your daily grind, it's time to take inventory of your overall life with a view toward attaining a new appreciation for the things you have, do, and are. Appreciation is a key building-block of inspiration; and inspiration is necessary for achieving your best aspirations. So whether you're taking a fresh look around the ol' homestead, or your inventory is a more cerebral look at the big picture of your life, find the things you can appreciate about the life you have. Want to get away from it all? Get away first from your own negative feelings about your life. Get back to the things you love about your life.

While you're looking at the big picture, it's a perfect time to turn on your positive imagination. Last week, back in the heat of your workday (and trying to work ahead for your vacation), you were worried. Anxious. In the heat of "battle," your imagination tries to protect you by forcing you to envision a negative future. That's worry. It makes you form contingency plans for dealing with bad outcomes... but if you dwell too much on those possibilities, worry becomes a form of negative goal-setting. You can find yourself moving toward those bad goals, without even realizing it. Want to get away from it all? Make sure you get your imagination away from worry, and start using your new-found appreciation as a foundation for imagining a good future. A great future. The future you had in mind when you first started to build the life you have.

It's this dreaming that will help you recharge your inspiration and further your mission. You have a job to do back at work, sure, but your mission is greater. You're on a mission to make the world better in some way... to leave a positive mark... to make life better not just for yourself, but for your family, your neighbors, and even people you've never met. You might own a business, or you might be a leader in a company or firm, or you might simply be embarking on an emerging mission that will take you places you don't now fully understand. In any case, you're on a journey that will require inspiration; and you'll need to relax, appreciate, and dream before you can become inspired.

Remember that true inspiration comes only from God. Believe what you want; I hold that you'll have many goals toward which you'll be motivated in your life, but the truly inspiring ones will be the ones blessed with a Divine tailwind, and to me, that's God. They say "we plan, God laughs." Sometimes God laughs at your plan, and you must learn again the humbling lesson that you're not finally in charge of your world. But sometimes, God laughs with you... and inspires you to do amazing things you never would've imagined.

But start imagining. Those of your dreams blessed by true inspiration are the ones you'll live for. And when you get away from it all this summer, make sure you get back to those crucial dreams that make your personal battle worth fighting, and your life worth living.

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