Celebrating Turning 40 with 19 Life Lessons Oprah Taught Me

I turn 40 next week and I have been pondering life, love and the general status of my well being. I have a ways to go on the physical side (working out, eating healthier). However I have climbed the mountain of love and creativity and have planted flowers and they are blooming! Woo Hoo!

So as I reach this milestone age I thought about what I wanted to most share on my blog and then I remembered when I was younger and watched Oprah turn 40 on TV (She cried. Ugly tears. It was sweet and sentimental.)

Then I just thought about Oprah. I’ve never met her in person, yet she has had a huge influence on my life. When she read Simple Abundance, and started a gratitude journal, so did I. When she bought T-shirt sheets, I got T-shirt sheets. She had an episode once talking about vision boards. After that episode I looked up vision boards online, read a cool blog written by a fabulous wise woman who would eventually become one of my greatest mentors. She would in turn introduce me to the equally brilliant woman who runs the Life Coach School where I learned soooo much about managing my mind.

In my life, many, many roads lead back to Ms. O. Including the creation of this very blog! I figure, that you could do worse than to learn one or two things from her or the experts she has had on her show. So for my Birthday Celebration, I proudly present,

My all time favorite OPRAH-ISMS.

One of my favorite quotes is: Once a mind is expanded by a new idea, it never goes back to its original dimensions by Oliver Wendell Holmes.

Oprahisms = really cool thoughts, spoken on the Oprah show that have expanded my mind in new dimensions

Here we go!

1. When someone tells you who they are, believe them. — People reveal themselves to you through their words and actions, and many times we make excuses or ignore key pieces of information. When someone tells you who they are, pay attention.

2. Sign your own checks. — No one will pay the same attention to your finances as you will whether it’s 100 dollars or 1 million.

3. You teach people how to treat you. (Really a Dr. Philism but he said it on the Oprah show!) When you accept someone else’s behavior you are telling that person that it’s okay to treat you that way.

4. Classic from Maya Angelou — Courage is the best and most important virtue. Without courage you can not practice any of the other virtues consistently.

5. The same behavior produces the same results.

6. No means no — when a person fails to hear the word no, it is a problem, always in every context, because a person who fails to hear the word no is trying to control you.

7. Do you want to be right or would you rather have peace?

8. Love is a verb. Is there admiration and respect? if there isn’t then there is no love. Love is not a feeling, it is behavior, it is how a person acts and how they treat you.

9. When the mother decides, the child will follow – this applies to all areas of life. When YOU DECIDE, everything else falls into place.

10. Children are little people with not as much life experience.

11. Another Classic from Maya Angelou — Say “I love you.”  You don’t have to be really well educated to be eloquent. You don’t have to be extremely blessed and talented to be eloquent. There is nothing more eloquent than a wife saying to a husband, I love you.

12. Through the grace of God, I am not my past.

13. With mud on your wings you cannot fly. [For me this means, complete your incompletions, let go of the past, clear up any messiness, whatever qualifies as mud in your life, is holding you back and it has to be cleaned and cleared for you to move on.]

14. Right this minute you have everything you need to make your dreams come true. Right. this. minute. you. have. everything. you. need. to. make. your. dreams. come. true.

15. Maya again (don’t we love her!?) You did then what you knew how to do, when you knew better, you did better.

16. There is no strength where there is no struggle.

17. One person CAN make a difference. (Yes that person may have an army of producers or a whole network, but it all started with one person and her dream for a better life and a better world. We are all the stars of our own lives and we can all start where we are with what we have right now, today.)

18. You can come out of difficult circumstances one of two ways, bitter or better and you get to choose which way.

19. Live each day with greater courage, greater intensity and greater kindness.

There you have them lovelies. My favorite Oprah-fied Life Lessons!  What would you add to this list? I would love to collect more Life Lessons for my Birthday! Did one of these make your heart sing? Please share in the comments.

I have to admit, it was kind of fun spending my big birthday with the Big O – even if it was just in my mind! What is super cool is spending my birthday with YOU – thank you for reading! And sharing, and loving. You inspire me. Birthday HUGS all around.

If you enjoyed this post, please Like it! Pin It! or Tweet it! Our community of love and creativity grows thanks to inspired hearts likes yours. Now go love and be loved. XO