When life gets TOUGH, you always have a CHOICE!
You can get BITTER or you can get BETTER!
The challenges and difficulties we experience in our lives are important.
Without them, it is highly unlikely we would become the person we are capable of becoming.
“I have never met a successful person who had an easy past.”
I love the quote, “Sometimes you WIN! Sometimes you…LEARN!”
The day we learn the truth, power and wisdom in that statement is the day we stop our whining and feeling like a victim. But rather, we choose to grow, win, learn and elevate our belief in ourselves that we can in fact come to the realization that we are capable of becoming INVINCIBLE!
A practice I encourage people to have in their life is to journal—write down their thoughts of times they have challenges in their lives and dealt with them in a way that they come out the other side, having learned new things they can use all our lives.
There isn’t one challenge I have had in my entire life that has not made me a better person. I may not have realized it at the time but by looking back and reflecting on those situations, I have come to realize that they were experiences that have helped me to become a better person and as a result, live a better life.
I recall having a presentation early in my speaking career, for a huge and well-known organization at their head office in Winnipeg. Since this was in my early days of being a speaker, I was extremely nervous about my talk. I had arrived in Winnipeg the night before and I recall that I was so stressed out that I was pretty much awake all night thinking about my presentation for the next day. I was doubting myself and wondering if I was good enough to do a talk to an audience of this calibre.
The next day, I got up and went to work!
The one valuable thing I have learned when faced with a challenge is to stop and focus on the fact that I “Get To” do this. That every presentation I give, is an opportunity for me to have a positive impact on the people in my audience. And this gives me the mind-set that what I am doing Makes a Difference. So, I get my courage by making it about them, not about me.
Regardless of the fact that I didn’t really get a good night’s sleep, the bottom line was,
I “came to the cause” and gave an “Outstanding” presentation filled with spontaneity, energy and humour. I was actually delivering one presentation in the morning and then another one in the afternoon to a different group of people that day. Apparently word got out from the people who attended the morning one in a very positive way, that the afternoon session had standing room only as people who were not supposed to be there, showed up because of the positive comments from their co-workers. This organization also booked me again to return for a future presentation.
“One of the things I have learned is that we often don’t realize just how
capable and resilient we are until we are challenged to find out.” This is about the power of believing in yourself, no matter what the odds, no matter how hopeless you may have thought things were or are!
I think about this experience every time any self-doubt ever crops up in anything I do.
I have had several such experiences that when I am faced with challenges, allow me to reflect on and say to myself…
…“Because I was able to do that, there is nothing I cannot do!”
It’s my INVINCIBILITY factor!
You are just as capable as I am of having the same belief!
It’s called having a Healthy Perspective!
Your next challenge will give you the OPPORTUNITY to build on YOUR INVINCIBILITY Factor! So, when it happens, just say to yourself…
…Bring it ON!”
