Blending ingredients for a delicious life!

What ingredients would you add to have a delicious life? A delicious life is what you want, not what others want for their life. We got to thinking about this as we were recently doing some cooking. We have a wire whisk that we use to blend ingredients in a recipe. Recipes have several ingredients. Each ingredient is important, but nothing happens until you blend them together to get the final product. As we looked further at this concept, we decided to use the word BLEND as an acronym for some of the ingredients that might be blended to make a delicious life.

B stands for Belief. Starting with belief is important. Belief helps form a vision of what you want to do, where you want to go and who you want to be. Being able to believe in yourself is critical. One common reason people fail at achieving their goal is because of a lack of belief in themselves. As Thomas Edison said, “If you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.” If you firmly believe that you can accomplish something, you won’t be deterred by obstacles that show up.

L stands for Love. The Bible talks about three important life principles, faith, hope and love, with love being the greatest of the three. Oliver Wendell Holmes said, “Love is the master key that opens the gates of happiness.” It’s important to not only love others, it’s also important to be able to love yourself. D. Lafrinere expressed it this way, “We must first love ourselves in order to be able to truly love anyone or anything.” Paul Tillich adds another aspect of love when he said, “The first duty of love is to listen.” It’s critical that we be willing to listen to others, even when we don’t agree. Good conversation can facilitate understanding and help us to be even more loving.

E stands for Engage. To engage means to not just stand around and let life pass us by. It means to get involved in life. We may have some great beliefs, but nothing happens until we engage in some activities to make our beliefs come true. Peter Dunne puts it this way, “You are not what you think; you are not what you say; you are what you do.” Maybe this means confronting our fears and taking some risks. It may mean getting to know someone on a deeper level or becoming involved with projects that support what’s meaningful to us. If we want to bake something, nothing will happen unless we engage and act by blending the necessary ingredients. It takes some effort to get the recipe to turn out well.

N stands for ‘No’. One thing we’ve learned is that being able to say ‘no’ is just as important as saying ‘yes’. Josh Billings says, “Half the troubles of this life can be traced to saying yes too quickly and not saying no soon enough.” When cooking, you can’t make a cake by putting every ingredient you have in it. Pickle juice in a cake recipe will not make it more delicious! So, you have to say no to ingredients that could spoil the recipe for a cake – or your life. To have a successful life, you have to say no to some things so you can say yes to others. Say no to what you know would negatively impact your life – like poor eating, sleeping and exercise habits. Here’s a big one – say no to fear. Jack Canfield said, “Everything you want is on the other side of fear.”

D stands for Dedication. To have a delicious life, recognize that you can’t just wish it to happen – it takes dedication to your beliefs and values. This means that you don’t give up and you won’t quit. Nathan W. Morris said, “The speed of your success is limited only by your dedication and what you’re willing to sacrifice.” You may need to alter direction as you continue to learn on your journey. As you blend the various ingredients of your life together, you’ll see where you need to adjust.

What about you? What do you want to blend together as a recipe for your life? We’ve listed just a few ingredients to consider. Take time to assess where you are now and where you want to be. Think about the ingredients you already possess, such as your gifts and talents. Then blend them, together with the other ingredients you may want to add, to create the recipe for your most delicious life. Bon appétit!

Chanhassen MN residents, Doug and Lynn Nodland are success coaches and owners of The Balance Center in Excelsior. Contact them at WeCare@SharingLifesLessons.com

© Doug and Lynn Nodland 2022 Articles and videos may be shared in their entirety with attribution.