Exhibiting Courage

Courage is something that we commonly reserve for soldiers, firefighters, and police officers. We often refer to people acting "courageously in the line of duty". These individuals are esteemed because they risk for the benefit of others. This is a class of people who deserve the attention. However, they do not have a monopoly on courage.

Many think courage is the absence of fear. It is not. Mark Twain may have summed it up best when he penned:

"Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear."

Each of us needs to exhibit courage in our daily lives. Fear is something that affects all of us. However, those who succeed are able to take action in spire of the fear. They exhibit some courage by "doing it anyway". The unsuccessful allow themselves to be paralyzed by fear. Their action is stifled because the fear controls them.

Sadly, courage is something that is rarely talked about in our society. Instead, we are presented with an image that we are weak if we allow fear to enter into our minds. It is a fact that everyone experiences fear. The trick is to realize where it resides. Many think of it as a feeling which it can be since it manifests itself in that way. Nevertheless, it is vital to remember that fear, like everything else, starts in the mind. Our lives are nothing more than mental exercises. Everything we experience first started as a thought.

This insight is helpful in overcoming fear. Courage is something that we create in our minds also. To overcome fear, we simply have to picture the payoff of the action being greater than the expense of succumbing to the fear. For many, this is almost impossible since they are so conditioned to giving into the fear. After years of settling, people begin to rationalize why they cannot take action. These "excuses" serve as justification for continuing along the same path without change. Of course, this is only reinforced by society since fear is used by all promoters of dogma.

Security is an illusion. Many settle for things in their life because they believe in this fallacy. The truth is that nothing is secure in life. Life is a dynamic entity; it is not static. Things change in an instant. People often take things for granted until their world is suddenly cast in a much different light. Look at how lives are altered by car crashes, hurricanes, and disease. These are just a few examples which take security and toss it out the window.

Therefore, we need to look at our fears. Why do we have a fear of financial insecurity? Of public speaking? Of humiliation? Of failure? Of being ostracized by friends or family? Many of these same thoughts pass through the minds of everyone. However, those who are able to overcome these things are the ones who excel. In short, they act courageously in the face of their fears.

Keep these ideas at the forefront of your mind when you start to see yourself succumbing to fear. Naturally, those situations where we are in extreme personal danger are to be avoided and the times when listing to that inner voice is helpful. However, in our daily lives, few of us encounter such extreme decisions. Instead, we face situations where one of the above-mentioned fears (or a host of others) get in the way of our progress in those areas that are important to us. We seek the security that comes from inactivity only to later realize that it does not exist. Ultimately, we always pay the price for listening to our fears.

Courage is required if we are to avoid the state of stagnation. Paralysis from fear is something that comes from repetition. We see this in people who allowed this cancer to control their lives for decades. These same people often completely shut down. They usually are inept at making decisions since that muscle was not exercised. Their rationalization for life is in high gear always justifying the lack of progress. Plus they blame everyone else for their ills. Yet, when a person of this sort looks back over his or her life, the truth is realized. Fear won over and over.

In closing, just remember we all will meet the end someday. Do you want to be one who looks back and notices all the missed opportunities because of the succumbing to fear? Or will you be a person who knows you gave it your best in all situations? The choice comes is yours.

Choose wisely.

Share and Enjoy!

Change

Change is something that always happens in a moment. Unfortunately, it often takes a long time to get to the moment. People will hold onto old behavior until it reaches the point where change must occur. Until this moment arrives, the same pattern follows.

Pain is the most powerful motivator in life. There are two states: pleasure and pain. However, when it comes to altering behavior, pain is the state which will cause one to alter actions. As much as we like to believe we do things for proactive reasons, the truth is that to make it lasting, pain needs to be involved to the nth degree.

Losing weight is a prime example. It is no secret that eating junk food, not exercising, and carrying around rolls of fat will shorten one's life expectancy. The medical community has warned about this for decades. In fact, it is not uncommon to see people working in this field, those who should be in the know, who also fit the mold of obese. Yet, they do nothing about it.

Why is that? The reason is that pleasure, the idea of being healthier, thinner, living longer, is not enough to get one to put down the cookies and go workout. It is only after one gets an "awakening" in the form of pain that he or she will do something about it. Before that, habits simply take over.

So, what is the point of all this? My view is that one can be proactive about change. Most people tend to resist it. Sadly, this is a way to unhappiness since life is not static. The nature of the world we live in is that it changes. Those who attempt to remain the same tend to lose ground. Things move in a forward direction whether we want them to or not. Those who resist this tend to live in unhealthy states. Consider the mother who always picture a child as "her little boy" (or girl). Reality is that kids grow up and holding onto is not a healthy state. Change is inevitable and we either embrace it or get run over by it.

Therefore, we need to embrace the pain that we experience. Why? Because this is the foundation of our ability to change. We can alter what we do in an instance....we just need a powerful enough motivator. Pain offers that.

I see so many who are locked in to their present state without hope of change. The reason I know this is because they have settled. People of this ilk are not even unhappy. They just are listless. It is a state many of us find ourselves in periodically. However, it is crucial that we get out of that. We need to realize that life can offer us a lot. The only factor is that we get unhappy about something. This shows passion and desire. Those who settle lack these important components.

Change is good. It is a result that comes after experiencing frustration, anger, and hurt. It is only after having enough of something that we are willing to do something about it. Ponder the weight loss situation for a moment to get a good visual. Only after having enough, will one get off the sofa and go workout. Proactive reasons aside, vanity or fear are often the motivators in this instance. Nevertheless, it is effective.

Being someone who seeks out change sets one in the minority. To be honest, most get run over by the circumstances in their lives. They resist change until it is too late. Many buy into the saying "you cant teach an old dog new tricks". This is inaccurate. One is never too old to change and no habit to ingrained that it cannot be altered. Sure it takes effort, persistence, and work. But that is what separates those who live a growing, expanding life from those who settle for what is offered. Change and the ability to deal with it are at the core.

All change starts with a decision. It is the mindset that "I am no longer going to accept this in my life" that instigates the process. The choice to lose weight is what precedes the exercising and healthier eating. Everything we decide to do differently is concluded in the mind. After that, action follows.

The biggest obstacle in achieving lasting change is overcoming the old habit while instilling a new one. People tend to live their lives on autopilot. Therefore, the unconscious action will always overcome the conscious one. Why? Because we do not have to think to do things that we do without thinking. Unconscious habits are difficult to break. The key is to break them and make the empowering actions habit. This can take some time. It is at this point that one must be persistent in the endeavor. However, it is the only way to change our lives.
Share and Enjoy!

The Power of The Mind

Reality is created in the mind. This seems like an absurd statement but it is the truth. Everything we see, hear, touch, smell, and taste is filtered through our brains. There, we have a treasure trove of memories which the new sensations are linked up to. Everything we process is done through this central computer.

The bad news is that whatever we "see" in the mind is real. It cannot distinguish between real or imagined. Instead, it sees everything as concrete. This allows a thing called fear to assume control. When we are living in a state of fear, our projections are imprinted upon our minds as real. Even though the situation that we are thinking about is days or weeks away, the mind reads it as true.

None of us have a crystal ball that can forecast what will happen. Therefore, any projections we are engaging upon are simple creations of the mind. This is a powerful mechanism which creates "reality" by sending the sensations throughout our body. How many of us have felt that pit in our stomach when we thought about something that we needed to do in the future. The brain manifested the thoughts in our mind as a real sensation in the body.

So if the mind can create our reality, why do we allow it to establish a negative view of things? Again, this is where fear enters the picture. Fear is a mighty foe that has a way of showing itself in many different forms. At times is dresses up as anger; others as terror; still others as uncertainty; the list goes on and on. In short, we look at a future situation, fear in one form or another, and we suddenly have a negative outlook upon the future event.

Of course, the problem with this approach is that it ruins our present moments. The truth is that there are always things we need to tend to in the future. If we spend all our time focusing upon "what will happen" with a negative viewpoint, we completely miss our lives. Always looking ahead causes us to miss right now. Certainly everyone can identify with thinking about something in the future and completely miss what is being said to you. Our mind wanders off and takes us from "the now".

So what do we do about creating a new reality? The first step is to recognize what is happening. The mind likes to play games with us. Accept this as a reality. Also, consider all the things that you have feared in your life and then question how many of them came true. Sure, we all had bad things happen to us and events turn negative on us. But the consensus seems to be that most of us allow fear to go to the worst case scenario. The reality is that most of what we imagine does not come true. So the best method is to stop doing that to ourselves.

Of course, this is not easy. A lifetime of habits do not cease overnight. However, when one considers the misery that is created by allowing fear in its many forms to control, then one is instantly motivated to take control of this powerful instrument. Projections are real in the mind. Thus, it is our goal to look at each situation as resolving itself in our favor. Next time you project about some future event, imagine what it will be like if everything went exactly how you wanted it. I know at first this will seem almost impossible since we are conditioned to look at everything negatively. But, the reality is that we have no way of knowing how things will turn out. Since our mind is doing the creating, why not erect a positive outcome in our minds.

Our minds like to play tricks on us. You are free to use it however you see fit if you are willing to take control of it. However, since most go with the default negativity, they are at the mercy of this out of control mechanism. Begin today by looking at things in a positive light. It will change your present reality.
Share and Enjoy!