The BOWA Blog

Bert Oliva

YOLO

by Bert Oliva

Today is the first day of the rest of your life.

That’s kind of a cheesy phrase, but it is utterly true. Today is all you have. This day. This hour. This minute. This moment. So what are you doing to make the most out of it?

Are you spending most of your day is anger, stress, or upset? Are you making excuses and feeling guilty?

Or are you truly living? Breathing in this one moment, enjoying it for what it is, and getting what you have to get done done?

Living in the moment can be a dangerous idea to some. Some people feel that it means you should just do what you want to do and forget all responsibilities. A lot of my younger coaching students tend to quote “YOLO – You Only Live Once” as the reason for not doing things they’ve committed to but instead doing whatever they want, even if those things put them in danger or hurt those around them.

That’s not my definition of living in the moment. Living in the moment means enjoying every moment for what it is. When you’re stressed at work, breathe in and be grateful for you job. When you feel overwhelmed a home, breathe in and be grateful for your family.

Life is not about avoiding the negative. It’s about accepting the negatives, seeing the positives of them, and moving through them to get to the goals you’ve set for yourself.

Negatives are everywhere, but when you start focusing on the positives, you’ll start seeing those negatives as simple stepping stones to get to where you have chosen to go.


Live Life,
Bert Oliva

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24
MAR
0
Bert Oliva

Who Can You Count On?

by Bert Oliva

“I could have done that, if…”

“Yes, but you don’t understand…”

“I didn’t have enough time…”

How many ways do you rationalize your actions throughout the day?

Rationalization is a tricky subject. A lot of times this behavior is so ingrained within us that we don’t even know we’re doing it. However, if you take the time to really monitor what you say and think throughout this day, I bet you will find that you rationalize quite a bit more than you realize.

Rationalization comes in many forms. Usually it stems from our ego not wanting to own up to the fact that we are responsible for something. It’s just so much easier to blame another person, situation, or any other myriad of excuses. For myself, I often find I rationalize commitments I’ve broken to myself: I didn’t workout today, but that’s cause I was tired; I didn’t make all the calls I wanted to make today, but that’s because I was busy with other things; I didn’t… Do any of these sound familiar to you? When I’ve asked my coaching students and my team, I’ve found that we are usually really unreliable people to ourselves. And when you can’t count on yourself, who can you count on?

The definition of “Rationalize” is: to attempt to explain or justify (one’s own or another’s behavior or attitude) with logical, plausible reasons, even if these are not true or appropriate.

Basically, then, when we rationalize our actions, not only are we making excuses for ourselves, but we are also lying to ourselves. Neither of these are very helpful things for us, especially if we are trying to grow and become better versions of ourselves each day. When we make excuses for ourselves, we let ourselves off the hook and the more often we do that, the easier that behavior becomes. And if we’re able to not come through to ourselves, it will be even harder to come through for other people.

It’s time for each of us to make a commitment to ourselves. Stop rationalizing your actions and decisions. If you don’t accomplish something, realize why and own up to the responsibility. Learn from it. The only way to keep growing is to put yourself in your own driver’s seat.

Let’s start holding ourselves to a higher standard. If you give your word to someone or something, including yourself, come through. Make your word count.

Live Life,
Bert Oliva

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17
MAR
0
Bert Oliva

What’s Holding You Back?

by Bert Oliva

Are you doing everything you can to accomplish your goals? Do you still find that you fall just a few feet short most of the time? What’s happening here? What’s holding you back?

Perhaps it’s your work habits. Perhaps you just aren’t trying hard enough. Perhaps you’re procrastinating. Or perhaps you’re simply diverting your energy.

When you are working toward anything, how much of yourself—your mind, your feelings, your energy—goes to that goal? At first, you may say 100%, but be honest with yourself. When you sit down at your desk to accomplish something, do you go straight to it? Or do you read your email first? Or check your phone? Or find your mind wandering? It’s human nature to struggle to find focus at times. And it’s human nature to procrastinate at times. The important thing is that you realize these tendencies in yourself and work to correct them.

However, what about the energy drains that you are not even aware of? What about the deeply seeded grudges within yourself?

As humans, we can be really insensitive and cruel to one another at times. It’s sadly a fact of life that at some point or another you will be hurt by someone and moreover that you will hurt someone. The question is, what do you do with that hurt? Do you deal with? Or do you hold onto it?

Numerous studies have shown that holding onto grudges and bitterness can affect every aspect of your life. Psychologically speaking, holding onto grudges can cause you to bring bitterness into new experiences and relationships, can keep you in the past, can cause depression or anxiety, and an even ultimately cause you to question your life’s purposes. Physiologically speaking, holding onto grudges can cause elevated heart rate, high blood pressure, increased risk of heart disease, digestive problems, weaken your immune system, and even shorten your life.

So, what are your grudges doing for you? Review each aspect of your life, personal, professional, spiritual, etc. and pinpoint the people, events, and circumstances that you are holding grudges against. Don’t be surprised if a lot of your grudges are against yourself and past choices. Once you’ve listed your grudges, figure out what you can do, if anything to forgive them. Some may require a phone call; some may simply require letting them go (and the simple act of reviewing them like this may just do the trick for you).

Don’t misunderstand me. “Forgiving” your grudges does not mean that you have to be a doormat and allow people to take advantage of you. If someone has sincerely wronged you, you do not need to allow that person back into your life, but you also do not need to waste your time and energy focusing on that person either. Forgive them for what they did, and let them go. Remember, people are in your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. Not everyone will be with you forever, but life is just too short to split your energy resenting people and circumstances from your past. Learn from the situations, forgive those that have hurt you, and move forward.

Live Life,
Bert Oliva

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10
MAR
0
Bert Oliva

I Regret…

by Bert Oliva

Regret is a word spoken often but rarely truly contemplated. So often we glide past our regrets because if we truly take a moment to look at them, we will have to feel the feelings that go along with them—the disappointment, the longing, the embarrassment, and of course the regret. These emotions can be utterly overpowering and draining. It seems to be an innate characteristic to want to avoid these pain causing feelings so we bundle all of our regrets in a tightly sealed box and store it in the back of our most-cluttered closet and keep it there with the patent statement “I have no regrets.”

In the broadest sense, I have no regrets and neither should you. Everything that has happened—good or bad—everything that you have or haven’t done—good or bad—every single minute detail of your life has brought you this very moment, has made you who you are, and you should like who you are. You are exactly where you are meant to be at this moment.

However, regardless of the beautiful truth in the previous paragraph, I do have regrets. And so do you. And so does everyone else. There are things that now looking back on I would have handled differently if I knew then what I know now. There are things I wouldn’t have said or chosen to do. And though these regrets are threads in my tapestry of life, partly responsible for making me who I am, I still have twinges of regret for some of my actions and choices. And my initial reaction is to run and hide from my regrets. But those nagging regrets stay there. No matter where you try to hide them, they come back stronger until you address them.

Regardless of how hard your regrets are, you must take the time to examine them to ensure you understand how you got here. And to ensure that you don’t keep making the same choices that will build up even more regrets. Moreover, by examining your regrets, you will be able to come to terms with them and put them to rest finally. They will no longer be the monster in the back of your closet. They will simply be your past that got you to where you are and your motivation to keep pushing yourself harder to ensure that you don’t have more regrets in the future.

Live Life,
Bert OlivaI Regret

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3
MAR
0
Bert Oliva

What Do You Know?

by Bert Oliva

We are living in dangerous times—the time of the expert. Everyone with the ability to Google and copy and paste has the ability to sound like an expert online. And though there are many actual experts out there, a lot of their messages are being drowned out by the pseudo experts. The ones who know how to make themselves sound like they are the real deal, but whose actions don’t back up their words. The ones who spout beautiful words and yet never quite deliver on their promises.

Please, don’t misunderstand me. The free flowing of information in our modern world has incited a beautiful revolution of unique thought and growth, but it must also incite discernment. Anyone can appear to be anyone they want to, so be careful with whom you choose to invest your time and other resources. Be thorough and do not jump to rash decisions.

Don’t take anyone at face value. Research those people who you choose to associate with. Do your due diligence. Any expert who has truly earned the classification will have documentable experience, results, and testimonials to support their title. Trust me, you will be grateful for this extra step of research in the long run.

Live Life,

Bert Oliva

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24
FEB
0
Bert Oliva

Turn The Key

by Bert Oliva

“You can’t have your cake and eat it too.” I used to think this was a very strange statement. If I have cake, of course I’m going to eat it! Then someone explained to me that it meant you can’t have the cake still in one piece and eat it at the same time. You have to choose. And that’s the case with everything in our lives. Everything is a choice. And you must make these choices for yourself or life will make them for you.

To be successful at anything, you must make decisions continuously that benefit what you are working towards. If you don’t, your path to your desired destination will take much longer and may never come to fruition.

The funny thing about choices and human nature is that it seems we almost innately don’t want to make decisions. It’s much easier when things don’t go as planned to blame others if we didn’t make the choice ourselves. But if we constantly allow ourselves to be “victims” of others’ choices and life in general, we lose sight of ourselves and become only dull shadows of the powerful people we truly are.

So stop allowing situations and other people to make your decisions for you. Stand up on your own two feet and realize how important you are to your life. Recognize that you are in the driver’s seat of your life. Map out your route to your destination, turn the key in the ignition, and get moving in the right direction.

Live Life,
Bert Oliva

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17
FEB
0
Bert Oliva

Just Stop

by Bert Oliva

Today is your day. Whatever happened yesterday, a week ago, a year ago, put it aside. It’s time to stop holding onto to everything you’ve done “wrong” or that others have “done” to you. It’s time to begin anew and realize that today is a new beginning. Today is an opportunity to start fresh and to see things differently.

Stop beating yourself and others up. Whatever has happened has happened. Stop justifying everything. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Just stop. Take a moment and look around. Realize how blessed you are. You are alive, you are breathing, you are feeling. This is fresh start. Take it.

Only see the good in people and circumstances. Treat yourself and others with the respect that you and they deserve. Let unconditional love soak into your being and share it with everyone around you, including yourself.

Any time you find yourself going back to your old negative patterns, stop. Focus on the positive. Focus on how truly lucky you are. You only have one life, now go out and live it. Your way.

Live Life,
Bert Oliva

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10
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