JAMES McPARTLAND'S BLOG

Access Point <The Blame Game> “Blame inspired drama is an ill fated attempt to gain attention, elicit sympathy, and direct energy away from us and onto someone or something else. It’s like cursing the mailman for the bills he delivers to our mailbox." - James K. McPartland Accepting personal responsibility for all that happens to us can be a quite difficult "way of being" to adapt to. Surely we did not cause the “accident” that damaged our car, our body, or even one of our im

Access Point <Vulnerability> “Vulnerability is the path to truth. You wouldn’t go to your physician for a thorough exam and refuse to remove your clothes, would you?” - James K. McPartland Sometimes the most difficult person to get to know is our self. And, most of the people in our life can see us better than we can see ourselves. Put another way, the person we tend to frequently fool is our self. Being vulnerable and learning about who we truly are, liberates energy and ca

Access Point <Play To Win> “In the great game of life, we either play to win or play not to lose. No matter what the outcome, we can never win when we play not to lose.” - James K. McPartland Airplanes deteriorate faster when not in use than when being used in the way that they were designed for. And while ships may appear safer in the harbor, that is not what they were built for. You have great gifts, talents, and skills that you were uniquely created to use. Like in the pre

Access Point <What Time Do You Have?> “It is not that we lack time, it’s that we lack clear priorities and a compelling future. In reality we have all the time we need as each day we are granted all the time there is.” - James K. McPartland Work is infinite - time is finite. So many of us are busy being busy and are getting no closer to a destination that we can’t see. There always seems to be tomorrow, next week, after graduation, as soon as we get through the holidays, when

Access Point <Leap> “To create something far bigger than ourselves requires us to endure a journey of self discovery along the path to our destination. And, in pursuit to our ultimate goal, we usually find that the only available method of transportation is a leap of faith.” - James K. McPartland A hero is an individual who believes in the future more than the past, who sees what is on the way versus what is in the way. Each of us will never know how great we are until we ste

Access Point <Curious?> “Curiosity is the art of mastering the questions. The longer we linger inside of the questions, the closer we come to discovering meaningful answers.” - James K. McPartland It has become apparent to me that it is far more important to have a well thought out question than to come up with the right answer. We tend to hear, see, and experience, that which validates what we already know or that which has already been answered. In order for us to to truly

Access Point <Story Telling> “The present moment is forfeited by an allegiance to the stories we tell about why things happened, what events mean, and how we must protect ourselves on the road ahead.” - James K. McPartland The quality of all that we experience is a reflection of our emotional condition. Fear has us trading presence for pretense as we cling to our stories - choosing to live in the past and to project that past into our future. Once we can feel without telling

Access Point <The Speed of Life> “Life, when measured by time, flies by at the rate of 60 seconds per minute, 60 minutes per hour, and 24 hours per day. While it may not seem significant in the moment, eventually we run out of moments.” - James K. McPartland Time is a non renewable resource that we all too often waste, spend foolishly, or fail to value. There always seems to be a future time to get to the things we want to get to. Perhaps it is after the quarter, once the kid

Access Point <Great or Greatness?> “You can never be truly great at work - if work is the only thing you are truly great at.” - James K. McPartland For a significant majority of us, our identity is linked to what we do professionally. It is where much of our time is spent, many of our relationships are built and a great deal of our accomplishments are recognized. However, work is what we do. It is not who we are. A life of “full-fill-ment”, meaning a life that is full and fil

Access Point <Go Ahead> “If you truly want to master happiness - go ahead.” - James K. McPartland Happiness is not an amorphous state outside of our control, it's a trainable skill. Most of us look to the future when seeking happiness when it is right here in our own backyard. These three steps - call them "Happiness Systems" - can lead you to that seemingly elusive happy place in an attainable and sustainable way. Try the following daily for the next 30 days: * Exercise

Access Point <Filling the Void> “When we judge another person we are compensating for an internal void that we were silently hoping they would fill.” - James K. McPartland You know you have a hole to plug when you find yourself feeling hurt -or creating meaning- around someone else's words or actions. While we cannot control the language or behavior of another person, we can control our reactions and how our "meaning making machine" interprets behavior and language. The key i

Access Point <What Do You Believe?> “Our habits are the execution of our beliefs.” - James K. McPartland Day in and day out our life demonstrates our beliefs. Our beliefs make us - but they are not us. For the most part, our lives are a result of imitation, memorization, association, and imagination. We acquire a great majority of our beliefs before we are 9 years old and they are essentially locked into place by the time we reach our mid 30’s. You might say that our consiste

Access Point <What Is Possible?> “Anything is possible if we don’t care who comes up with the ideas or who gets the credit.” - James K. McPartland Creativity requires us to think bigger than our self, to play a bigger game, and to truly be open to learning. All of us have blind spots as we don’t know what we don’t know. As long as we don’t have to be right, and can get comfortable being uncomfortable, we can experience tremendous personal growth. This is not easy, if it were

Access Point <Waiting For The World to Change?> “Taking responsibility for the magic of our own life experiences frees us from waiting for the world to change so we can enjoy ourselves.” - James K. McPartland We get what we look for, and listen for, from the great game of life. At any point in time, we can create magical moments or miserable moments based on our own expectations. We often believe we know the outcome of a meeting, discussion, or an event before it even has tak

Access Point <Nothing to Worry About> “Once we let go of our past mistakes and release the grip of our future fears - what is left for us to be so worried about?” - James K. McPartland Being present is truly one of life’s great challenges as we seem to be regretting much of the past, or anticipating what we must deal with in the future. Add to that the incessant demands of our smartphones, a need to stay connected and “liked” in our social media world, and the never ending da

Access Point <Happy Memories> “It is never too late for a joyful childhood.” - James K. McPartland We are each powerfully influenced by our experiences as children, as this early stage of existence sets the direction for our lives. Research shows that by the time we are somewhere between the ages of 6 and 8, we have unconsciously designed the course of our own future. In other words, when we evaluate our lives, a great many of us come to realize that we have been taking instr

Access Point <Give Away Your Gift> “Once you discover your gift you must tell the world, and if necessary, use words.” - James K. McPartland Sometime ago I learned that people hear what they see. I believe we have all born witness to someone who is living on purpose and doing their life's work. When we are not fulfilling our dreams we end up fulfilling someone else's dream. Most of us have heard that when a person is doing what they love - and using their gifts - they will ne

Access Point <Strive For - OR - Settle For?> “Without a plan, and intentional effort, we must learn to settle for whatever we get.” - James K. McPartland While most things in life do not proceed as planned, they do not go anywhere without a plan. Unless we take measurable action for our plan, we must accept the result of our efforts. Much like the misunderstanding in the law of attraction illustrates, if we sit on the couch and only think about what we want in life, someone w

Access Point <Who Are You Around?> “There are people who simply don’t want to make their lives better, they just want to make yours worse.” - James K. McPartland There is great learning in the study of life, and our own life experiences, when we see that who we are around is who we tend to become. People are contagious.Witness the vigorous effort we put forth in attempting to change someone when we see something inside of them that they themselves don’t see. And yet if they d

Access Point <Negative Feedback?> “Nobody grows from negative feedback, including the one who is giving it.” - James K. McPartland If it is accurate that we get what we focus on, then emphasizing what is “wrong” can only lead to more of it. This is especially true when we talk to ourselves, as this is a series of conversations that occur in our heads all day long. When we fear making a mistake, being called out, judged, or are anticipating negative feedback, we will play not