“Spring Start” Term 3

As we embrace term three and the renewed energy Spring provides, the staff at Boys’ Preparatory encourage the boys and our parents to put the past behind and look to complete the final term with a fresh start.

First invest in yourself, clear up some “winter “clutter so that you are ready to #know yourself #be yourself and look to serve others.

Staff, parents and boys let us be courageous enough to open our internal windows to release the tired and negative emotions we’ve carried and allow a light breeze of peace and positivity to drive us. The Boys’ Prep staff have always used the mantra: “The anecdote to exhaustion is whole-heartedness.” Reflect whole-heartedly and let us all prepare for a term filled with energy, passion, and enjoyment.

With an open mind, we also have the opportunity to spring clean our lives. We have the chance to hit the re-set button and start over with a shift in attitude and a re-awakening to our values, dreams, and sense of purpose for our lives.

The concept of rebirth during the Spring isn’t simply a religious or seasonal metaphor. Spring is the perfect time to recreate ourselves and blossom into the beautiful potential we envision for our lives.

Everything that happens in our outer life begins with our internal choices or lack thereof. When we are clear about who we want to be and how we wish to live, then our choices and actions become as easy and natural as a Spring breeze.

1. Re-define your core values.

To know our core values is the honesty we owe ourselves. These are the guiding principles of our life around which all decisions and actions should be measured. When we are clear on our values, our life course and moral compass is set.

Your values should be non-negotiable driving principles of our lives. Our values can change over time. This is a good time to clear out the old values and reinforce those that are important for your life now.

2. Restore your integrity.

Are there areas of your life that don’t reflect your core values or where you are living out-of-alignment with your personal integrity?

Where do you feel your life and your sense of integrity don’t match up? What can you do to correct that?

3. Harmonize your close relationships.

There are people in your life whom you love or care for deeply, but perhaps the relationship isn’t as strong as it could or should be.

Maybe you’ve been distracted or neglectful. Or perhaps you’ve allowed someone to treat you poorly. Sometimes we allow our relationships to slip into periods of inattention or malaise.

How can you bring more harmony, communication, attention, and love to your close relationships? What do you need to release in order to be a better partner, spouse, parent, or son?

4. Shine up your attitude.

After a winter of discontent, it becomes a habit to allow negativity to dominate our thoughts and words.

We become so accustomed to complaining, worrying, and seeing the glass half empty that we are blinded to all of the beauty and joy we have access to right now, even in this very moment.

Use this time to shift your attention from all that is going wrong in your life to all that is going right. Allow gratitude and joy to move to the forefront of your thoughts, and actively seek to diminish the power and predominance of your worries and frustrations.

Seek out goodness, beauty, love, humor, and positivity. Spend time with people who support this way of being and thinking.

5. Simplify your thinking.

Sweep out extraneous distractions, projects, and tasks that drain your brain energy.

Prioritize just a few main goals for each day, and allow yourself the time to focus on them deeply and thoroughly without being mentally or physically pulled in different directions.

6. Change up your routines.

Shake up your life a bit and create new ways of doing things.

Our lives become boring and stale when we do the same things day in and day out.

But consider larger changes too — Change challenges us and stretches us to become more interesting and self-aware.

7. Reclaim inner peace.

There are so many circumstances and interactions that we allow to steal our sense of equanimity and inner peace.

We become so attached to things and outcomes that we become deeply disturbed if don’t achieve or acquire what we think we must have.

We allow the moods and words of other people to hurt or worry us. We grow defensive over perceived slights. We allow ourselves to remain in environments that are too loud, disruptive, or draining.

8. Buff up your emotional intelligence.

Part of on-going personal evolution requires that we demand increasing emotional maturity from ourselves. Emotional maturity simply means having control over your emotions rather than your emotions controlling you. It means being able to accept people and situations as they are without needing to change them.

Emotionally intelligent and mature people:

know what they want and make it happen;

think before they act;

exhibit self-reliance and the ability to take personal responsibility;

have patience;

are able to connect with others in a cooperative and positive way;

are able to genuinely care about others and can demonstrate that;

exhibit honesty and can live by their principles;

have moderation and balance in all things;

have the ability to follow through, even when it is difficult;

can show humility and say “I’m sorry.”

 

Just as spring is a time of renewal and rebirth, the start of a new term affords us the opportunity to renew ourselves — to become the best version of who we wish to be.

(Barrie Davenport – live and bloom).