Welcome to my blog!  Enjoy the latest post by Jennifer Horton and Xpress Xcellence.

Miracles should be status quo.

My very breath is a miracle, and yet our concept of miracles is that they are difficult and elusive.  Miracles are simple and completely worthy of every bit of awe we feel in them.

Miracles happen all around us, and yet we often live life in a backwards way that keeps us distant from the miracle of life.  The origin of the word “sin” means “to miss the mark”.  Interesting!

Have you ever noticed that we tend to go through life observing the greatness is others?  We celebrate their moments of achievement and exclaim “Wow!  Good for him!”, “She deserves it! ”.  Why is it that we so easily see in others the skill, the success, the belief, the value that we want, and yet, keep ourselves from it?  All the while, we are living our life somewhere off in the future where we are bargaining with life in hopes of having some mediocre brush with success.  The greatest sin is again the self.  To miss the mark that God intended for you to hit,  that is sin.  We often miss the mark in the miracle of our own God given gifts, talents and abilities and the VALUE we are here to provide.  The “sinner” is in the greatest opposition to him/herself by devaluing his or her own contribution and success.

Where IS success?  Does it seem “out there” to you.  “I’ll be successful when my company grosses six figures this year”.  “I’ll go on a tropical vacation once I get in shape”.  “I’ll spend one on one time with my kids once I can manage my workload and leave a little earlier”.  This kind of “out there” success is created in the mind.  It’s an illusion that we make real by our belief in it.  We hold ourselves apart from success, happiness, love and connection when we put conditions on it.  What are the self-imposed conditions you have placed on living a successful and fulfilling life TODAY?  Where is success?  Success is NOW.  Most often success doesn’t show up as a massive, shocking moment as if Publishers Clearing House just arrived at your door with a life sized check.  Massive success arrives through a succession of moments that YOU choose, with your will, your attention and your faith.  Success is a choice for today.  Are you living in that success and making daily choices that will bring you your intentions?  Success comes knocking daily…are you answering the door?  Are you even tuned in to hearing the knock?

If you are one of the many people that is not even hearing the knock of success, then let’s re-evaluate your personal definition of “success”.  Have you ever considered it?  What would it sound like?  I have a client who is a very successful executive.  He’s been uber-successful in many areas of life by most peoples standards.  However, in our first session, we were able to uncover that not only did he not feel successful; he could not even articulate his own personal definition of success.  No wonder he didn’t feel successful, he had no target, no aim.

Without a target, how can you hit the mark?

You can’t.  It will always remain some ethereal “destination” that is forever in the future and outside of you.  The unfortunate thing is that this is not how life works.  Many people, like my client, unconsciously reverse the laws of life.  They try to reach and take massive actions towards the next ideal, expecting that “someday” they will be successful.  It’s almost as if the bullseye is painted on their forehead, and the arrow is in God’s hands.  He was placing himself in a position of feeling “Pick me!  Choose me!  Hit MY target”.  The error here is that his target could never be hit, because he forgot (by reversing the equation) that the arrow is in his hands and the target is in his mind…which he left undefined.

Seriously consider what success is to you.  Ask yourself, “does my definition of success put the responsibility solely on me, or on people or circumstances outside of me?”.  If it is the later, what would it take to rewrite your definition so that you set yourself up to experience success on a daily basis based on the choices YOU make, the actions YOU take, and the results YOU get?  You see, one thing I have observed over the years is that we tend to end our daily lives consumed with thoughts of the next day, or even the entire week, and all the tasks, projects, commitments we need to complete.  It can feel overwhelming…unachievable…faraway.  It continues the cycle of us living “out there”, in the future.  What we miss is what is right in front of us – the very moment we are in.  There is success in this very moment.  It is HERE in this day you are living…IF you choose to observe it.  You ARE creating success.  It is our lack of attention to it that short changes us in the long run.  We rarely become present enough to genuinely enjoy it, appreciate it, and give ourselves that pat on the back to keep us going at a high pace.  After all, as one of my very wise mentors has said, “you don’t have to slow down, you just have to calm down”.  How poignant!

What would happen in your life and your results, if instead of running the list of “to do’s”, we complete our day reminding ourselves of what made us successful that day?  Relive those moments and small milestones when you stretched and followed through.  What did you do today, with your will, attention and faith, to move you closer to your goal?  Feel how good that feels, right NOW.  Feel that growing faith inside you that confirms that the vision of your desire is moving towards you as much as you are to it.  It’s magnetic isn’t it?

People usually consider walking on water or on thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk on water nor on thin air, but to walk on earth.

Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we seldom revere with the awe it deserves: a blue sky, blooming flowers, a smile from a stranger, the curious eyes and wisdom of a child — our own phenomenal body with which we navigate this life.

All is a divine miracle.