A tree with strong roots can withstand the most violent storm, but the tree can’t grow roots just as the storm appears on the horizon.
~ Dali Lama
When I was a kid in Junior High, I remember facing this bully named Baca. He had always pushed me around. And being rather meek as a child, I let him. But one day after pushing me around, he started to pick on a boy named Troy. Troy was one of the nicest guys you’ll ever meet. He was friendly, outgoing, and blind.
Something happened to me that day. As Baca pushed my blind friend against the wall and threatened him, I decided that was the last day Baca would intimidate me. I walked up to him and SHOVED. I looked him in the eye and told him he will never lay a hand on my friend ever again.
From that day forward, he still talked crap to us, especially when he was with his friends. He made threats, but he never touched either one of us again.
This experience taught me that it pays to stand up for yourself. I was fully ready to fight him that day, even though he was bigger than me and would have probably won. But I didn’t care. I was not going to LET him push me around anymore.
That was one of those moments that helped establish my self-esteem. It was one of those things that changed me from being a meek kid into someone whose not afraid to face a challenge.
When we survive a challenge, no matter how small, we experience a change in ourselves. It is the act of facing a challenge, and seeing what it took to face that challenge, that causes growth within us.
It’s not necessary to “win” a challenge to learn from it, even though that is probably what most people believe. Losing can teach you just as much, although the lesson isn’t always apparent. The simple act of facing a challenge cause us to stretch our minds in a new way. Once this type of growth takes place, it is difficult to go back.
The worst thing that can happen to you is not losing a challenge, but refusing to face it. By avoiding a challenge, we stunt our own growth. We become stagnant: Never having to face the risk of loss, but also never facing the chance of victory. We become one of “those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
Recognize difficulties in life as challenge, and therefore an opportunity
As difficulties and obsticles block your path of life, try to think of them as a challenge for you to overcome. Use that challenge as a means of growth.
For example, one difficulty many people face is money. Either we don’t make enough, or no matter how much we make we spend it all. Take that as a challenge to solve a money problem. Think about what you need to do to overcome it. Do you need to earn more? Do you need to control your spending? Do you need to change your entire outlook about money?
Take yourself out of the problem
One of the techniques I am learning about in my Masters program to become a professional counselor is desensitizing. Here’s one way of using desensitizing to take yourself out of the problem: Imaging you are in a train. As the train is moving along, observe the country side, the trees, the bridges, the fields. Now you come upon a clearing. In that clearing is someone who is in the middle of experiencing your challenge. It’s important to that you seperate yourself from the picture, even if it is you are seeing yourself in that picture. Pretend you are outside of your body watching it all happen. Regardless of how you feel about it, watch it without emotion.
Examine the scene as it passes. What does it look like? What are all the characters doing in the scene? How did they get there? What can you guess about the unknowns in the scene? What is each person thinking and why? Play it backwards. How did it get to this point?
Let it pass out of your view. Enjoy the view of the country side again before letting the scene pass into view again. Do this several times. Reflect on the scene to explore all the questions asked above. What other questions or aspects of the challenge can you examine?
If you’re like many people, you’ll be surprised to find that when you are out of the picture, you can see more choices and opportunities. Perhaps even the solution will come to you easily.
How can you use this or similar techniques in your other challenges.
Seek the every day challenge
We often overlook the day to day problems that plague us. We often ignore the problems that are ignorable and procrastinate solving them. Instead, seek them out. Solve them and get them out of your life.
Challenge your goals
Don’t assume that the goals you set for yourself last year are still the goals you need to follow this year. Treat them as a challenge. Examine every aspect of why you set that goal. Is it still valid? Do you still need to travel in that direction or is it time to change course?
Challenge yourself
Don’t be afraid to look yourself in the mirror and face the choices you make and why you make them. What good does it do to avoid your fears? What purpose does it serve?
Face your fears. Face the demons you keep locked away and take away the power they hold over you.
Learn from your challenges. Examine each one for the lesson it presents and recognize the growth within you.
Here is my challenge: readers who frequent this blog already know my goal is to work online, or at least be able to work from home, wherever home may be. I want to travel and see the world, not as a short lived vacation, but to relocate my home on a weekly or monthly basis. I want to live in foreign countries for as long as I want and not have to worry how I will save money to afford it. Instead, by working from my laptop, I can take my income with me so the vacation becomes a life long exploration of the world.
My challenge is to find the way to work from my laptop and not be tied to any one location.
What is your challenge? How will you face it? This is not a retorical question, please answer it here in the comments, or trackback from your own blog. Let us all learn together our challenges and ways of overcoming them.
I like to write. I can’t say that I am “gifted,” but I like to write more than most of the people I know. Writing is something that I enjoy… when I can get around to it. Writing is something I hate… when I am forced to write.
Many of you, I’m sure, know just what I’m talking about: Sit down and write about something YOU want to write about, and you could go on all day. But sit down to write a report for school, or a freelance assignment for someone else, and suddenly writing becomes a chore.
Recently I’ve wondered, do I want to try to be a full-time freelancer? Full-time freelancing would give me some of the freedom I’ve been seeking. It’s a way to earn money from anywhere, without having to be tied to a specific place.
I own the “Well Fed Writer” books. Commercial freelance writing seems like a lucrative way of earning money writing as well – if it really is all it’s cracked up to be.
This will be a difficult decision to make. I can try full-time freelancing and travel everywhere I’ve always wanted to travel, but possibly have little in the way of insurance or benefits. Or I can stay put in my cushy government job with it’s great benefits, but end up living the clichéd “life of quiet desperation.”
I guess what I look at it like that, the decision becomes a little easier. I need to locate freelancing opportunities.
I love the poem Invictus. When I read it, I imagine a man facing off against insurmountable odds, but refusing to give up. As silly as it may sound, it gives me inspiration.
The author of Invictus, William Ernest Henley, is said to have written the poem from his hospital bed to show his resilience after one diseased foot was amputated, and doctors wanted to cut off the other as well.
As I said, it gives me inspiration. It makes me want to fight for what I want. It makes me want to be in charge of my life.
But it got me thinking… aren’t I already in charge of my life right now? No. Instead of me running my life, life is running me. Like most of us, I have been operating on autopilot.
We have been programmed how to behave, how to act, even how to think. This programming, these core beliefs and behaviors, are housed and run in the subconscious mind.
How can the subconscious control you? Think of your subconscious as a giant naval ship. You, your conscious mind, is the captain in the bridge giving orders, the subconscious is the crew of the vast ship, keeping it running, and making things happen as you order them.
For example, the crew takes care of the automatic systems, like making sure you keep breathing when you are asleep; keep your heart beating, digestion happening, etc.
The crew takes care of those things you have been trained to do, like walking. How often do you think about shifting your balance as you walk, which muscles to use and just how much effort is needed from each muscle? The crew takes care of it. They’ve been trained.
The crew is even part of your thoughts. Your crew repeats everything back to you as you think it, like an echo in a canyon. Your thoughts will echo, unheard, among the crew, and the crew will repeat your thoughts back to you when they think you need to hear them. I could never be as successful as that person, you think. Then, when you are presented with a great idea, the crew reminds you, I could never be successful, causing you to give up on the idea, or sabotage you should you try anyway.
The problem with this setup is, your random thoughts are always being interpreted by the crew as the captain’s orders. There’s so many thoughts, the crew go scurrying around the ship trying to do everything at once, leaving the ship adrift, floating along with the flow.
I want to lose weight, you think. Umm that chocolate looks good… I’m hungry… I’m fat… A steak would be good right now… I should run… I hate exercise… Food… Don’t eat… Eat… Who is that guy again, what’s his name… My memory is terrible… I have a great memory…… On an on, an endless steam of contradictory orders are issued by the captain to the crew.
To take command of where your ship is traveling, you need all hands working together. To do that, you must be a leader. Leaders make decisions and stick to them.
Be in control!
Invictus
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of Circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of Chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
Giving orders to the crew involves reminding them often of your desires. As negative thoughts enter your mind, stop them in their tracks. Acknowledge you had that negative thought, but tell yourself again what you want. Talk to yourself in a mirror. Look yourself in the eye and command your crew, I have a great memory… I am successful… I am (whatever it is you desire)…
Be persistent!
Do not give up on what you want to accomplish in life. Do not permit the opinions of others to guide you away from what you truly want. You must resolve to actively combat the forces life throws at you and refuse to give up. When life throws an obstacle in your path, do not give up! Either find a way to overcome the obstacle, or find a new path around it.
Be positive!
There’s enough negativity in the world. Some people don’t like to see others succeed. They do what they can to prevent it. Sometimes they don’t intentionally want to be mean, but they are reacting to the echoes of negativity they have trained into their own crew.
The best way to combat another’s negativity is your own bravery. Do not be afraid to disagree. You don’t have to actively confront a negative person to bravely disagree with them and tell them what you think. Try do inspire them with your positive desire for success.
Be a leader!
No one will give you what you want in life just because you want it. You must actively pursue your dreams, or they will be simply that: a dream. Take charge of your ship and guide it where you want it to go.
A captain never starts a voyage without knowing where he wants to go using his charts and maps. A voyage without a destination is simply cruising on autopilot; it won’t get your anywhere or accomplish anything.
Create your own map. Decide where you want to go, when you want to get there, and set sail!
Leo at Zen Habits has done something amazing. He released everything on his blog to the public domain.
I’m sitting here in shock of what he’s done. He just gave away all his content to anyone who wants it!
That post is getting tons of comments from people pointing out just what he has done, but Leo is doing it anyway. He said “If my little experiment fails, at least it will be instructive to others. Without failures there can be no successes.”
Leo, my hat is off to you. I am eagerly waiting to see how this affects the success of your already-successful blog.
