Fear

How do you deal with the fear?  Yes, I know, you’re saying, “what fear?”  You know, the fear.  The fear of not being good enough, or the fear of things not going the way you want them to go, or the fear of….well you know.  The question is how do you deal with it?

Interestingly enough most of us deal with the fear by trying to control it, sometimes very subtly, but we still try to control it.  Most of the time how we control the fear is with expectations.  When we place expectations on people, things, situations or circumstances then we feel a greater sense of control and we can push the fear back for just a little while.  The problem with this tactic….as we all know, is that it is very seldom that things actually work out the way we expect.

So, we place expectations on situations to push back our fears, they don’t work out the way they should and then the fear returns, but this time it is deeper.  Now, we are disappointed.  Now, we are second guessing ourselves with what we wanted, or thought or planned.  Now we are upset with ourselves and the situations and the other people involved because now we have to think about the situation all over again but this time we are afraid to place expectations on the situation and now we are second guessing everything including ourselves.  When we don’t trust our own judgments or choices, then we are paralyzed indeed.

What do you do with the fear?

 

 

 

Weak desires bring weak results

Napoleon Hill is quoted as saying, “the starting point of all achievement is desire.  Keep this constantly in mind.  Weak desires bring weak results, just as a small fire makes a small amount of heat.”

That makes sense.  If I’m going to take the first step toward anything I have to first of all want to take the step, right?  Or I suppose you could change your focus and say that if I’m going to take the first step toward anything I have to first want the thing I’m going after.  Either way, I have to have the desire.  So the question is, “why don’t I”?  How did you look this morning after you stepped out of the shower and caught a look at yourself naked in the mirror, is what you saw what you wanted to see?  How does the bank account look this morning?  What’s the relationship with your teenage children like?  Is it where you want it to be?  The list can go on and on, but my point is that I suspect where there are struggles or problems in your life, you “desire” things to be different, so why aren’t they?  Well, while the answer is always a situational answer there are a couple of things to consider when wondering why our desire isn’t what we think it should be in our life.

Sometimes our desire isn’t what it could be because the results of a strong desire are something that we don’t think we deserve.  If we have a self-destructive, or self-sabotaging personal belief system then we will subconsciously weaken our desire for the things that we want and therefore never reach our potential.  Do you really believe its ok for you to be healthy and in shape?  Do you really think you deserve financial freedom and independence?  Perhaps not and you don’t even know it.

Sometimes our desire isn’t what it could be because we simply are overwhelmed and think we don’t have the energy to go after what we “really want”.  I’ll say it a different way, “you’re emotionally weak”.  Or, “you’re looking to escape your emotional pain”.  Either way, your desire for what you think you really want isn’t going to be what it could.  Now, before you start emailing me telling how much emotional pain you’re really in let me tell you that I believe you.  I don’t doubt for a second that you’re hurting, so the question is what are you doing to stop the pain, or have you lived with it for so long that that is what you think you’re supposed to feel?  How much desire to stop the pain and be free do you really have?

Sometimes the truth can jump up and slap us in the face, and the truth is weak desires do indeed bring weak results, Napoleon was right, but the question is what are we prepared to do to strengthen our desire?

 

Who are the small people in your life?

Mark Twain is quoted as saying, “keep away from small people who try to belittle your ambitions.  Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can be great.”

I suspect that you, like me, see the truth(s) in that statement.  Perhaps you can see the teaching of, “be careful to not let others keep you from your dreams?”  “Stay close to people who make you feel stronger, or who push you to become more?”  I suppose that we could find a half dozen other ideas from this quote, but there is one part of this statement that I want to zoom in on.

“keep away from small people”

I don’t know that most of us feel comfortable doing that.  For some of us, who are rescuers, we want to “save” them and help them in their life.  For some of us, who struggle with our own insignificance, we struggle to draw that kind of boundary.  I mean who are we to label someone as “small” and then purposefully avoid interaction with them?  Isn’t that arrogant?  Conceited?

The truth is that it is not only not arrogant or conceited, it very well may be one of THE key’s to our own personal success in life.  We all know people who are in our life that can suck the energy right out of us, or people who are a bad influence in our life and can somehow get us off track, or people who can just push our buttons and somehow always bring out the worst in us.

I remember hearing Zig Ziglar tell a story several years ago about dining at a cafeteria where the cashier was all too happy to tell him, or anyone else who would listen, all her life’s woes.  Later he encountered a waitress who had just the opposite in attitude.  She was light hearted, enjoying her day and genuinely enjoying her time making other’s experience more delightful.  When Zig asked her if she spent any time around the cashier, she instantly replied that she did not, because if she did then she might start thinking like the other lady.  She wasn’t going to risk anything like that.  Are you?

Do you value yourself to a level that you are willing to protect yourself from people who are “small” in your life?  They might be your parents, or another family member.  They might be someone you work with, or someone who even earlier in your life was influential and helpful.  Are you willing to protect your journey and limit contact with the small people in your life, or will you continue to let them weigh you down?  What Mark Twain said makes sense, until we actually have to identify who the small people are.  It may be time to look around. 

 

 

What really Matters?

I will always remember first seeing the movie “Apollo 13”.  Yes, it was dramatic in its storytelling of how the Apollo 13 mission made it back to the earth, but that’s not what I’ve always remembered.  I have always remembered an early part of the movie that was fairly unimportant in the grand scheme of the movie plot.  As the first astronauts step foot on the moon and are walking around on the moon’s surface, Tom Hanks’ character is laying in his lawn chair looking up at the moon while the astronauts are walking on the moon.  He looks at his wife and says, “it’s not a miracle that we’re up there, we just decided to do it”.

Nido Qubein says that, “when a goal matters enough to a person, that person will find a way to accomplish what at first seemed impossible”.  That is true in so many ways.  Most of us will discuss how we don’t have time to do “anything”, and yet we find time for the things that are truly important to us.  We all know that.  In fact no matter how busy our schedule was, if our child was diagnosed with a disease of some kind and the only solution was found in Australia, or some other far-away place, it wouldn’t matter what was on our schedule.  We would go find the solution to protect our children.  Now, while that’s an extreme example the truth is still the truth.  We find time for what is important to us.

So with that said, what is important to you?  How long have you been trying to lose weight?  Can’t really lost it?  Then it’s not that important to you.  How are your finances?  Have enough money for your needs and extras?  No?  Then it’s not that important to you.  The list can go on but you obviously get the point.  When it’s important to us, we will find a way to do it…even if its “impossible”.  Now, I can read your mind as you read this blog.  You’re thinking something along the lines of how I don’t understand why you’ve not been able to lose the weight, or have more money, or….and the truth is that I don’t have to understand.  When it’s important, we will get things done.  That’s just the way it is.

So, what is important to you?  When we’re able to accomplish that which we thought was impossible to do, it not because it’s a miracle that we accomplished our goal(s), we just decided to do it.

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Have you graded yourself lately?

How would you grade yourself and your life?  I will be more specific, how would you grade the different areas of your life?  Are you all “A’s”, all “C’s” or a mixture?  You remember your grade cards from school, right?  It was an easy way of taking a snapshot of your school work and seeing how you were doing, so I ask you again….what grade would you give yourself?

I suspect that most of us, if we allow ourselves to become that reflective, will rationalize where we’re at and kinda move the grade up a bit making it look better than it is.  If you allow yourself to think about it,   I would encourage you not to rationalize what is going on in your life and not to summarize areas either.  Be specific in the different areas of your life and honestly answer what the grade would be.  I suspect that most of us won’t be honest with ourselves, and if we are…we will judge the outcome.  That’s the trick with this little experiment…just gathering information without judging the results.  The truth is that none of us reading this blog, none of us, will be all “A’s” or “B’s”.  We just can’t be on that level in all aspects of our life all the time and yet I think that most of us put pressure on ourselves to do that.  I would suggest that we could call that….expectations.  I expect myself to be an “A” in the area of my body, but if I honestly assess that I’m 30 lbs. overweight, then I’m more like  a “C” in my report card on my life.  But since I would judge that outcome, I feel like I’m failing in that arena because I expect myself to not be that out of shape.  That’s when guilt can take over, but that’s for another blog.

So what’s the assessment?  Are you doing well mentally, but physically you’re not where you want to be?  You and God are doing well, but you’re not financially where you want to be?  Somehow most of us seem to emphasize what is not where we want it to be and dismiss the victories in the other areas of our life, all while judging the overall grade as just not good enough.

I would suggest that things aren’t as bad as you think and that it’s very easy to turn things around.  Earlier this week I asked what your plan was for growth and this is a different way of asking the same thing.  What’s your plan for growth? 

Are you finally willing to admit you don’t have all the answers? 

Are you finally ready to go to someone else for help and direction?  What’s the grade?  What’s the plan?  While it’s all a process, I remind you again of the great reminder from the all-knowing Yoda, “do or do not……there is no try”.

 

 

 

 

Tomorrow is always promised!

Random thoughts; stay with me.  A couple of friends, years ago talked with me about how they were struggling with their lives back then.  He was very successful in his chosen profession and they had made all kinds of plans.  She was staying home with the children, he was making all kinds of money, and life was wonderful.  Then his entire profession changed and he was laid off.  It was unthinkable.  When they were talking with me they had no idea what they were going to do.  I remember them saying, “this wasn’t part of the plan”.  A few years ago a lady I knew was telling me about struggles in her life.  She was a widow who had put all her life savings into a business that she loved.  While she loved what she did, she wasn’t a business person and at the time she spoke with me she was losing her business and all her savings.  She was lost and she was telling me, “This isn’t the way it’s supposed to be.  My life isn’t supposed to end up like this.”

A few days ago a friend of mine died from an abdominal aneurysm.  His wife watched him die in front of her.  He was sitting at the kitchen table.  As we talked she remarked, “this wasn’t the way it was supposed to happen”.  I have often thought about her comment over the last several days.  Do you know anyone that was happy with the way their life ended up?  Very few ever are, I am afraid.  She had always thought she would pass before he would and so was not prepared for the thought of him dying before her, and certainly not like that.

Most of us are consumed with the busy work of today or tomorrow and that makes it difficult for most of us to think about the bigger things or major points in life.  Sometimes we have “close calls” and are shaken a little where we think outside of our daily routine, but most of the time we go right back to the daily grind where we’re not challenged to look at our life overall and see if we like where it’s going.  I don’t know if this blog will make a difference, but maybe just maybe it will spark a question or two in your mind where you will ask yourself if you really are happy with the direction of your life.  If you’re not then perhaps changing it now would be appropriate.  Tomorrow is promised to no one.

 

 

Who will you honor?

When I was just a lad, sorry I’ve always wanted to write a sentence with that phrase, my dad bought a new tractor.  It was nice.  It was a new John Deere tractor and it was a beauty.  It was all green with a bright yellow seat, with arm rests, and a solid metal canopy over the yellow driver seat….and a seat belt!  My dad was proud.  He would have driven it to town if he could have.

That year when it came time for the summer hay season the new tractor was at the front of the pack.  Now I don’t know how long it took dad to convince mom that I could do this, but I was told that I had a new job, I was to drive the new tractor pulling the hay bailer pulling the hay wagon, which dad would be on loading the hay.  I repeat, I was to drive the new tractor while pulling the hay bailer and wagon in the hay field.  Dad had figured out that I could drive, he could load the wagon and that would allow more guys in the barn to put the hay up and would allow mom to take care of other things as well (mom sometimes drove the tractor during hay season).  He had figured all this out but my mom was not impressed or excited.  I can’t remember what was said but I know there was at least one heated argument before I started my new driving job.  It was one of the few arguments that dad won. Mom was upset and scared, but dad won out.  I started my new job as the official hay bailing tractor driver.  I was 5 years old.  Dad got the idea for me to drive when he saw the seat belt on the tractor.

While that was one of the more controversial ideas dad had, it worked.  I drove and drove well.  We figured out hand signals that he would give me from the trailer behind me and away we went.  Dad was always coming up with creative ideas to solve problems.  He was a thinker, an innovator and somehow seemed unafraid to dive into something even if he didn’t know how to do it exactly.  He figured things out as he went and worked through problems as he hit them.

These are just a couple of memories I have of dad.  I have no doubt that you have dozens of memories yourself of your father.  This weekend is the Father’s Day weekend, obviously.  And obviously, I don’t know what kind of relationship you have with your father, but if it’s strained I hope you figure out a way to work through it.  Let’s face it, some fathers are idiots and perhaps you have had to overcome your father your whole life.  If that is the case I suspect that there was another man in your life who took over the father figure role in your life.

I encourage you to honor him.  One way or another take the time to honor dad while you can.  My father has been gone for almost 20 years and I encourage you to connect with your dad before he’s gone too.  No, he’s not perfect, but he is your dad.  So fire up the grill and fluff up the pillow for his nap on the couch.  Have a great weekend.

 

AND LIFE GOES ON

Hello everyone.  As I sit and type out this blog, it is late at night and I am exhausted.  If you keep up with my blogs, then you know that the blogs written going into Mother’s Day were a tribute to my mom.  She is indeed a special lady with an extraordinary impact on the lives around her.  As I typed those blogs the words came effortlessly as I have thought those things before.  I have also thought about how others have not been so blessed as to have a mother as I did, or who may have had a mother like me but have had to say “good-bye” to that special lady in their life.  I thought about all those things and wondered how much to say or not to say in the blogs that were posted with the final decision being to not over think it and just write about mom.

Since those postings mom has been put in the hospital.  We admitted her the day after Mother’s Day.  She is still there fighting bronchitis and trying to breathe.  As I think about the timing of her admittance and the blogs and her influence on me….I am struck with the thought that life goes on.  Let me explain.  As my mother comes into the winter years of her life, my son who just got married two months ago is just really starting his life’s adult journey.  As my mother comes into the winter years of her life, my daughter will be graduating high school next week.  If my mom were here and I were to ask her if she would want me to go to the hospital to be with her or go to Alexis’ graduation she would emphatically say in a louder than needed voice, “No, no, no.  Don’t come to see me!  I’m fine.  I will be fine.  You go see Alexis.”  Of course any mother or grandmother would say that, at least any mother or grandmother who loved her family.  And my mother loves her family, and she loves life.  She always did.

I don’t know what stage of life you’re in right now as you read this blog but if you’re not enjoying it then you’re robbing yourself.  Mom has been given more than eight decades to enjoy her life.  I struggle to enjoy mine and not let work and responsibilities get in my way, but one thing is for sure….I enjoy my children and their lives.

Mom’s in the hospital.  Kingston is starting his married life.  Alexis is graduating high school…and life goes on.

Are you all in?

I was stopped in traffic today sitting next to an elementary school.  It was after school hours, but they were having a “pee wee league” practice on the baseball field next to the road.  The kids were lined up across from each other playing catch.  I sat, watching a group of 7-8 year olds, laughing out loud.  It was great.  A throw would come to the child bouncing along on the ground going right past them and as the ball bounced several feet behind them….then their glove would make it to the ground.  Oh that darn hand and eye coordination.  I watched one young man intently position himself and let fly the ball!  It was somewhere between 6-10 feet off course.  I repeat, I watched laughing out loud.  Not at the children, oh no.  I was enjoying them and their innocence.  They were great.  They were trying with all their might and focusing as hard as they could.  They were all in giving it everything they had.  Do you remember the last time you were all in?  I mean with everything you had.

I sat watching them and thinking of my children.  I remember teaching my son to throw a baseball, but I have a vivid memory of teaching my daughter to throw a baseball.  I suppose she was really too young when I taught her but she wanted so badly to be like her big brother that there was no stopping her.  I remember showing her how to step with her foot, where to position her arm and when to let go of the ball as her arm came forward.  The thing that kept escaping her 4 year old mind was that these actions were to be one fluid motion.  She would do each motion, one at a time, while intently looking at her foot, then her arm, then her hand as she let the ball go.  She was all in.  She was adorable (and still is).

I would suggest for your thoughts for today the idea that part of what is lost from our childhood is the ability to be all in on what we’re involved with.  We are looking to see if we will be judged, or laughed at, or attacked.  We will instantly compare ourselves, or what we do to someone else who “has it better”, and all of those thoughts rob us of the joy and contentment that can come when we simply give something our all.

Are you all in?

How will things turn out?

I don’t know if you follow sports or not but this past week the star player for the Los Angeles Lakers basketball team, Kobe Bryant, tore his Achilles tendon and is out for the rest of the season.  It’s a bad situation and very bad news for the Lakers.  ESPN’s Sports Center was all over it covering it wall to wall.  One of the segments they had was to discuss whether the new coach for the Lakers, Mike D’Antoni had played Bryant too hard.  Was the injury because Bryant had played too many minutes and therefore his tendon tore?  Was it the coaches fault this tragedy had occurred (insert sarcastic tone wherever you like)?

I was doing one of my radio shows when I saw it on the monitor in the studio.  Since it’s a live show, I incorporated it right into what we were talking about.  That one short segment is the poster child for so much of the mindset we all deal with and can easily fall into every day.  Something went wrong.  Something is not where it’s supposed to be.  This isn’t right!  Who’s to blame?!?!? Someone has to pay for this horrible thing!  In fact we get so caught up in finding someone to blame or positioning ourselves so we’re not to blame that the most important part of the problem is lost on everyone.  What’s the solution?

We can apply this to our work place and work related situations, of course, but this is also applicable to our overall life as well.  Things we deal with in life, problems we face, struggles we swim through like we’re in quicksand can all take us to a victim’s point of view where we want to talk about how we’ve been wronged or hurt but never do we just go to working on the solution.

The victim model that we can all fall into starts with emotional blind spots that we all have which lead us to blame others for our situation and what we’re dealing with.  It’s their fault.  It’s your fault.  But there’s nothing I’m responsible for.  These two steps lead us to then come up with excuses about why we can’t make things better for our life.  “I can’t”.  “You just don’t understand”.  And all of these step put together then lead us to feel like we’re trapped in our own life and we just wait and hope and see if things turn out ok.

Conversely to that point of view is the accountability model.  In this mindset we acknowledge truth, whatever that truth is.  “I have an anger problem”.  “I have problems in my relationships”.  “I have a judgmental problem where I always want to take other people down”.  The list can go on and on and on.  Once I acknowledge the truth about me or the situation, then I can own what is going on and that leads to finding the solutions that are needed to move forward in life.  When I can do that, then I can enjoy much more of what life has to offer.

I would suggest that we look closely at how we react to the problems we face.  As long as I want to blame others for what’s going on in my life it’s going to be hard for me to enjoy what it is

I think I want.