Just Doing It!

“Faith is taking the first step, even when you don’t see the whole staircase!”

— Martin Luther King Jnr.

If your reading this you may potentially be lost on the net, looking for some motivation to start “something” that’s crossed your mind several times before. It’s likely “something” you’ve always wanted to do but never made the time to get around to, or, have made efforts to do in the past, eventually giving up along the way. If any of the aforementioned are true, don’t fret, your not alone, I can certainly relate, as can billions more. One thing I know for sure is that if you are reading (reading and relating emotionally to be precise, bots can read too.), then your a human being and as a human being, emotional struggle is a very common characteristic. Self doubt is a blight on the mind of humankind across the globe and it’s an internal voice that stifles our dreams, ambitions and life goals, to the point where we just stop . Remember that rejection is not a measure of your self worth!

A major reason as to why people end up doubting themselves, is as a result of another human trait, which is the not so wonderful are of comparing ourselves to others. You’ve heard it and said it before, “Look at Joe Bloggs over there, he’s faster, stronger and more talented than me, why should I even try, I’ll never be up to that standard”. When what you really should be focusing on, is working on becoming as fast & as strong, as you possibly can, while working on all aspects of your trade, to increase your capabilities. The self comparison leads to a defeatist attitude settling in on the mind. We end up avoiding doing things we truely want to do, all due to a fear of not being up to the “required/perceived standard” This type of attitude not only buries our dreams but also any chance of even getting remotely close to those dreams. If you read an article, case study, a chapter of a book every day for 1 hour on a specific topic or discipline and just think if you did this every day for one year. That’s 365 hours (366 in an earthly annual cycle, with an extra day in Feb for the smart asses) a year of education on that subject, just over 15 days for the sake of one hour. Who knows you could get 2 hours in on a Saturday with more free time available, end story is it all adds up. You improve you achieve you get closer to you’re targets not somebody else’s. The more time you put into something the better you get. Increase in input results in increased output. Efficiency determines the level of output for the applied input. Long story short, forget Joe Bloggs, start doing you and surpass!

Quitting is an action associated with negative connotation. Nobody wants to be termed as a quitter but we all have & will start things and stop them. A key factor in people quitting on their goals is that they don’t see results quick enough. For me one of the best example of this is the January surge in the number of people at a gym. People are full of optimism at the outset of a new year and are in the frame of mind to start running on the treadmill, swim some laps of the pool, do some resistance training. However as the weeks go by and February approaches the surge starts to recede and by mid February it’s the regulars again filling the gym floor on a nightly basis. Patcience is a very important trait to succeed at anything in life. There’s a reason William Langford coined the phrase, “Patcience is a virtue” in his poem “Piers Plowman”, which he derived from the Latin expression, “maxima enim, patientia virtus” (patience is the greatest virtue). Its not a new day sentiment of positivity it’s been around for a hell of a long time. 3 weeks of bench pressing and no pecs, don’t stop, work harder, keep going until you see the results of your endeavours and just think what you could be a year from now. 365 days may seem like a long time but how quickly do those 12 month periods go by?

As human beings one of our favourite pastimes is self sabotage. Now, a lot of people would associate the word favourite with positive vibes but self sabotage so far short of positive it’s like the tennis ball in the bottom of the net directly off a first service. Self sabotage is internal, it’s in the mind, it’s the voice telling you that “You Can’t”, asking you “what are you doing?”. Telling you “you’ll never be good enough and it’s all time wasted”. Typically this will have the knock on effect of lower levels of motivation, decreased mood which will result in a decrease in belief. Ultimately leading to the negative voices winning out and we give up on our dream. So we inflict pain and suffering on ourselves in the long run, for no apparent reason other than allowing negative thoughts become reality in the short term. When you put this in perspective it’s quite absurd to think that we inflict this pain on ourselves and for the sake of what? What if Tiger Woods had stopped when he hit one too many balls into a water hazard? If Mick Jagger hit that one bum note to many? Keep going! You never know where you might end up!

FEAR! The single biggest factor as to why people do not achieve their goals and dreams. Fear is the number one killer of ambition. For me fear has been the biggest obstacle to overcome in life and it’s likely an unachievable task. Do not lose faith however, fear can be managed and controlled, just as anything associated with the mind. Fear of failure can drive an individual in the right direction if you have determination but will eventually eventually hinder your progress. Fear is an emotion and as such prevents the mind from working optimally. Fear of doing is the evil sibling of fear of failure. This type of fear typically leads to nothing. Nothing in the sense of doing nothing. Passing through life without any real achievement because the mind won’t even allow you to try. So much negativity has been built up in the mind that it is paralyzed. What are you afraid of? Face up to fear and use it in your favour. Know that overcoming grows strength. When we face fear and keep coming back for more, the fear eventually resides and dissipates. Fear is the dense fog on the winding country road that leads to the promised land. Navigate the road under such conditions and you could end up finding that “something” at th end of the journey. Just like the staircase, when we start the journey the goal may be unclear but once we start the ascent and we keep going the likelihood of finding what’s at the top increases exponentially when compared to remaining at the bottom, trepidatious of what lays ahead. Life’s a struggle, embrace it, live it, don’t sit back and be a passenger.