Note to God

When faced with decisions, big or small, we have the privilege of bringing them to Him in prayer first. As Blessed Guadalupe Ortiz encouraged: ‘ Go deeper in that silence to arrive where God alone is: where not even the angels can enter without our permission

Only two things are needed to commit a sin: negligence and an occasion of sin. The occasion of sin can always surprise us, it does not depend on ourselves, but it is up to us whether we give in to negligence or avoid it. Now, to follow Jesus from a distance is to neglect Him. Negligentia is the opposite of diligentia. In one we find care, exactitude, zeal. In the other carelessness, forgetfulness, coolness. Diligere means to love someone chosen from a thousand others, Neglegere means not to pay attention, to have no preferences, to be detached. Negligence is a lack of attention (in the singular) and a want of attentions (in the plural) and both take us away from Jesus. Lack of attention which can extend from simple illusion to blindness. If Peter had observed himself more he would have spotted the moment when his first impulse of beautiful generosity veered towards imprudence and rashness. Let us be attentive therefore to the first warnings of our conscience and severe in correcting th...

The goal in any sport is to finish with the best score, but it would be ridiculous to spend the whole game staring at the scoreboard. The only way to actually win is to get better each day. In the words of three-time Super Bowl winner Bill Walsh, “The score takes care of itself.” The same is true for other areas of life. If you want better results, then forget about setting goals. Focus on your system instead.  Both winners and losers have the same goal

A Benedictine commentator of the IXth Century wrote quite rightly: “ Peter could not have denied the Saviour if he had stayed by His side”. The ancient writer does not say “if he had come back”, but, “if he had stayed by His side.” This time we understand. Indeed, Peter could have stayed by Jesus’ side, if he had not drawn his sword without orders to do so and, above all, if he had known how to watch and pray with the Saviour. He could then have accompanied Him to the end, confining himself to suffering in silence. Peter, who might have stayed, could no longer return to Jesus’ side, and that is the tragedy of his misadventure. Having abandoned Him in the beginning he could only follow Jesus afterwards at a long distance. At a distance, now quickening his step so as not to lose sight of them, now slowing up so as not to attract attention, all the time, waiting for an opportune moment to rejoin Him. But however short the distance that separated him from his Master, that gap was still too...

I recently heard an interview with a olympic biathlon Claire Egen - ski and shoot. And how crazy extreme the two sports are - one high adrenaline and one high focus.  And the strategy to switch gear is mental resilience and pacing. Halfway through the skiing, she learn the need to regulate breath, not be more fatigued, so that at the shooting range, she can focus better to shoot.  <life is about planning the next move> During shooting, the last shot is statistically the highest failure shot. Especially when you have been shooting consecutive wins. It's the mental gymnastic of not being distracted and the pressure to win. She shared she shot 17 wins and the last 3 shots, she missed. And she said there was a lot of self talk in her head, like "I must win", "it's just one more shot". She forgot to check the winds, having a steady trigger squeeze. <there's a need to focus on process rather than outcome. The outcome will distract you if you dont focu...

Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement. The same way that money multiplies through compound interest, the effects of your habits multiply as you repeat them. if you can get 1 percent better each day for one year, you’ll end up thirty-seven times better by the time you’re done. Conversely, if you get 1 percent worse each day for one year, you’ll decline nearly down to zero. What starts as a small win or a minor setback accumulates into something much more.

Brailsford had been hired to put British Cycling on a new trajectory. What made him different from previous coaches was his relentless commitment to a strategy that he referred to as “ the aggregation of marginal gains ,” which was the philosophy of searching for a tiny margin of improvement in everything you do. Brailsford said, “The whole principle came from the idea that if you broke down everything you could think of that goes into riding a bike, and then improve it by 1 percent, you will get a significant increase when you put them all together.” Brailsford and his coaches began by making small adjustments you might expect from a professional cycling team. They redesigned the bike seats to make them more comfortable and rubbed alcohol on the tires for a better grip. They asked riders to wear electrically heated overshorts to maintain ideal muscle temperature while riding and used biofeedback sensors to monitor how each athlete responded to a particular workout. The team tested va...