Every moment of our lives are influenced by who, what, where and how we perceive what we hear, see and do. You may have heard; “if you want success, surround yourself with successful people”. By surrounding ourselves with like-minded authentic successful people you are influenced. We have the opportunity to ask questions and learn from their mistakes and lessons. As long as we’re alive we are learning something!
What we learn when we’re young become our beliefs until such time we choose to change our perception.
For example:
As I was baking this morning I began to think of the women in my life as I was growing up who influenced me. My mother would bake only because she felt she needed to save money and homemade goodies were cheaper than store bought. She didn’t enjoy the process and often scrimped on better quality ingredients which made most things taste bland. My best friend’s mother always had fresh baking and clearly enjoyed that her ‘goodies’ always tasted exceptional. My mother-in-law loved to bake and being in the kitchen was her passion. She spent hours preparing meals, baking, canning and preserving and held such pride in serving up food for everyone. Her recipes were like well kept secrets that only were shared with her favorite people. Another influence for me was my home economics teacher who was critical, precise and took her job seriously. I’ll never forget how she carefully explained the importance of ever so gently folding the ingredients when making muffins so they would be light and fluffy.
What I learned from just these 4 women:
- Mother – You get what you pay for (cheaper ingredients). A penny saved is a penny earned. When you do what you don’t enjoy it reflects in the finished product. Her negative attitude influenced me to ‘want’ to enjoy the kitchen and take pleasure in serving food that was nutritious and tasty. The contrast she showed me allowed me to appreciate good homemade baking like that of my friends’ mom.
- Best friend’s mom – the most valuable lesson I gained from her was the enjoyment she chose to feel by baking tasty products that were nutritious and abundant. It gave her such pleasure to please the family and she never complained. The more kids in the kitchen the happier she seemed and I felt such appreciation for feeling welcome. Her kitchen was her domain and she loved to share it!
- My mother-in-law taught me how to bake well. She shared her enjoyment and felt such pride in sharing her knowledge. She taught me the importance of following the recipe, not skimping on the ingredients and how to improvise when needed. She showed me the sheer pride in not just baking but presentation mattered as well.
- My teacher also taught me the basics. How to measure accurately (which now with years of experience I often do by a dash and drop), the difference between kneading, stirring, folding or beating. She taught me presentation, color and texture to display the end product in a way that was eye appealing. She was a great teacher who knew what she needed to know and how to inspire her students.
All together I learned the appreciation of not only the lessons these women taught me in learning how to bake, but how to enjoy creating from scratch something that contains love with all the other ingredients.
Source: Uploaded by user via Wendy on Pinterest
Never under estimate the value in any moment!
In summary, every moment you discover something new. Stop and appreciate each lesson you learn and appreciate how you’ve been inspired. Give thanks to the people who inspired or influenced you. How and what you choose to take away from each lesson really matters. You can choose to be negative or you can choose to be positive. Take what you don’t like and see it as ‘contrast’ to clarify what you do want. Take what you like and perfect it for yourself, share it with someone and inspire them.
It doesn’t matter if it’s baking or building a business, it’s what you take away from the experience. All lessons are valuable when you learn how to recognize and appreciate them. Make a conscious decision how to use what you learn and modify it to suit your needs. As you are more consciously aware of how, what, why, when or where every event in your life is being attracted you can be the ‘deliberate creator’ of your destiny.
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