 |
 |
|
I’ve learned over the years—over the good times and over the absolute worst times—to constantly remind myself of “who I really am” and to never fall prey to believing that my worldly successes or failures define me.
I am “who I am” – regardless of fame, fortune or status; I am “who I am” – regardless of failures, betrayals, or other people’s opinions of me. I am still “me”...
A few weeks ago, I was driving down a country road near my home. In the distance, I noticed a woman at the end of her long, dirt driveway. She was standing in the ditch with a rake in her hand. As I approached, I watched as she furiously stoked the dry grass that was beginning to spring back to life. I scanned her front yard and spied a small run-down house, close to a quarter-of-a-mile back from the road; the house was dilapidated, with junk all around—rusting cars, tools, and garbage. I shockingly looked back to this woman, who had to be in her late 60s, working like mad to clean the ditch. I shook my head and reminded myself that being busy has nothing to do with being productive or effective!
If you talked to most highly successful people, they would tell you that it took hard work, perseverance, focus, and the right plan. I bet they’d also tell you that they had a little bit of good luck thrown in from time to time. Even so, there were many times when they felt like giving up (and nearly did), but something always brought them back. I’ll bet there were times they felt like frauds or felt inadequate, ill-equipped, and even terrified . . . but something always told them to stay the course.
When Failure Isn’t an Option, You’ll Succeed
The inspiring story of Thomas Edison and his 10,000 attempts to create the lightbulb should give us the encouragement to never give up. Yes, that’s right! Edison tried more than 10,000 different ways to make a glass bulb light up, and at least 9,999 times were failures. I bet it was hard for him. I bet there were moments of frustration, hair pulling, and even the odd time he felt like throwing in the towel. But he never did. I’m sure he had to continually rework his plan and stay focused on his dream of putting electric lights into homes around the world. Something in him believed that he could do it.
Don’t ever assume it was easy—not for Thomas Edison, Abraham Lincoln, Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Babe Ruth, Amelia Earhart, Susan B. Anthony, Joan of Arc, Martin Luther King, Jr., Oprah Winfrey, Barack Obama . . . or even for your own parents! There are millions of empowered people who have blessed our world by stepping into their power—we just don’t know their names. Whether your aspiration is to do something on a global, national, regional scale, or on a level in your own backyard, your dreams matter . . . and manifesting those dreams takes effort. Don’t ever kid yourself!
What I remind myself of is that it takes more drudgery to get up every day and go to a job you hate. It takes more exertion to live in an overweight body, dependent on medication. I know firsthand that it’s downright draining to be in an unfulfilling relationship or to be around someone who is negative or condescending. To me, that’s far harder than the energy required to keep the faith, believe in your dream, and take action! Nobody ever said it was going to be easy . . . but what’s the alternative?
Are you ready to stop waiting for someone . . . anyone . . . to wake up and notice you—notice your talents, needs, wants, and desires? Are you ready to accept yourself for who you are (for all your supposed faults, weaknesses, addictions, fears, syndromes, and dysfunctions) and love yourself regardless? If so, you are ready to become an empowered person! You’re ready to begin creating a magnificent life!
I’m sure you’ve given yourself too many “outs” in the past—too many permissible excuses, but they just don’t cut it anymore. You have a choice: to keep doing what you’ve been doing or to do something you’ve never done before. Sure, this may scare you and maybe you’re not exactly sure what to do yet. You’ll find out. You’ll make the calls, do the research, and discover your next steps. You don’t have to know the whole journey today; you just need to begin moving in the right direction.
Remind yourself that you’re worth more than you’ve been. Your life is worth more than you’ve been living. Don’t beat yourself up, guilt yourself, or blame others for your situation. It is what it is, and you’ve learned so much along the way. You’re not going to wait for anyone to give you permission to be you. You’re not going to wait anymore for someone to come along and give you the money you need to start that business, set you up on that blind date, or fix your dysfunctional family. You’re taking charge. You’re going to treat yourself the way you want to be treated and stop resisting yourself and your dreams. You’ll no longer resist asking for help when you need it or doing the things that may feel a little uncomfortable.
From this day forward, assume complete accountability for your life. You must take charge of it and do what you need to do to create a life that is genuinely yours: a life that has purpose, meaning, joy, and value. You will no longer rob yourself of your dignity, integrity, and self-respect by blaming, waiting, hoping, and praying that someone will give you the things you want. You know that if it’s going to be, it’s up to me.
You know that to achieve an empowered life, you must reach higher. You must step out of your comfort zone and your need to seek permission to live your greatest life. Make a list each evening, just before going to bed, of the seven essential action steps that you need to take the next day—seven steps that will bring you closer to your goals. Start each morning with the most important step.
You are the master of your destiny, the captain of your ship. Every choice you make (or don’t make) is yours. Never give up!
Three days ago we took my new website LIVE.
Excitedly, we blasted out an email to my thousands upon thousands of “supporters” asking them to “opt-in” to our new system.
Wouldn’t you know our “new system” couldn’t (or better said wouldn’t) allow for so many names to be added at once! Everything went down and I began receiving hundreds of emails from people telling me that they “didn’t get the link to opt-in”. Aaahhhh!
Some of the pages on the new site wouldn’t work. My merchant visa was accidentally canceled. No one could purchase anything! Movies wouldn’t play properly. One thing after another! Aaahhhhhh!
So what did we do? What would you have done?
Would you have panicked? Picked up the phone, started yelling . . . crying . . . gotten angry at someone? Blamed someone? I mean, there’s always someone to blame, isn’t there??? There’s always someone responsible for the mistakes!!!
Would you have buried your head in the sand or poured yourself a tall, stiff drink to settle your nerves?
Just like the song that I often sang to my children when they were young, “What do you do when things go wrong and nothing but trouble comes your way?”
Well, here’s what we did . . .
We stayed completely calm and pulled together without blame. It didn’t matter WHY. We simply assessed the situation and instantly begin weighing our options . . . focused on finding solutions! Complaining is pointless. Blaming is pointless. Besides, there really is no ‘U’ or ‘I’ in TEAM!
We kept our team intact, knowing that if one of us couldn’t figure it out, someone, somewhere, could. We continually refocused, refusing negative thoughts from trying to enter. We stayed positive, almost jovial. Nothing is ever as bad as it seems! We knew that the moment of absolute certainty may never arrive, so we made our decisions swiftly and confidently—knowing that almost anything can be reversed if necessary. Once a decision was made, we moved on—wasting our energy, second-guessing ourselves was just that . . . a waste—pointless!
We are an EMPOWERED TEAM!
A disempowered person, on the other hand, will focus on the problem (and boy, she always seems to have a new problem!!) thinking that if she talks about it a lot—sharing her misery with anyone who’ll listen—somehow it will alleviate some of her pain. She loses friends fairly quickly, or has only a few, because most are tired of hearing her complaints.
I always remind myself that “those who complain are in pain!” Ironically, complaining does not help, as it is actually a way of avoiding it—avoiding any responsibility! “If we sink it wasn’t my fault!”
Talking about it a lot won’t fix a thing!!! Focusing on what you want and finding solutions does! Yes, you need to discuss problems but then you must either find a way to accept it or fix it and MOVE ON!!!
Disempowered people will look for the worst, dwell on the negative, recite “their story” as often as it seems appropriate to the conversation (they also try to find opportunities to make the conversation fit “their story”), explaining only “their side” of the story, finding reasons why “it’s not their fault”. . . as this will justify their lack of success. They may even think they are normally “positive”—a survivor who is simply sharing her tales of woe to keep you from falling prey to her same challenges.
This same approach applies to everything in life—even relationship struggles!
Staying focused on solutions is not always easy . . . but no one ever said living an empowered life is always easy. For example, how do you stay focused on finding solutions when your marriage is falling apart or when your teenage children are reckless and out-of-control? How do you stay focused on finding solutions when you’ve just been diagnosed with a life-threatening illness or when the recession is severely affecting your business and you’re losing assets?
Here are my five points to keep in mind when coming up with solutions:
