At church this morning the Priest’s sermon was about “resisting life’s distractions.”  As he listed a number of distractions we should be resisting, I wanted to jump up and shout, “No! If a person is spending all of their time trying to resist life’s distractions, they are, in fact, thinking about them!  Tell us how to REPLACE those distractions with something more positive.”

This is a technique I learned many years ago.  For example:  I don’t drink soda.  I like it….a lot….but I don’t drink it.  I didn’t stop drinking it by resisting the urge to drink it.  I replaced drinking soda with drinking water.  Yeah, I know.  TomAto….tomAHto.  By focusing on the desired behavior, as opposed to the behavior I wanted to stop, I found it easier to make the change; a life-style change if you will.  I was able to use this same technique many times over the years, finding it allowed me to look forward to where I was going, instead of backward to where I was.

Today, no every day, I encourage you to consider whether this technique is something that will help your students learn to overcome the distractions in their lives.  It took me awhile to get the hang of it, but for me, this helped me change my entire outlook in life.  Just sayin!

Make Today a Magnificent Day!

Gary L Rupert

Culture Strategist/Coach

II:Leaders Creating:II Leaders

LCL Mentors @ Marching Arts Education