Using the F-word as a Stepping Stone

Whether on a macro- or micro-scale, we all fall short in our attempts to reach our goals or reach greatness, whatever that may be.  In those attempts, and re-attempts, it sometimes just seems too hard, or it doesn't make sense, or it makes you want to quit.  It's precisely at those moments that we must not stop.  Failure, the F-word, is a stepping stone.

"One of the greatest tragedies of personal growth is quitting.  If you take stock now you may find the odds stacked against you, but tomorrow is a new day.  Remember, opportunity knocks just once and you are always just one chance away from greatness.  So, stay in the game and answer the damn door." ~ Jason Huntsinger

I've learned through my own failures there are three traits that will facilitate you in overcoming failure and rediscovering your greatness: reflection, persistence and resilience.  This combination is what makes it possible to move past failure.  But, it's a process.  Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon you will get back to that level of greatness you always imagined if you stick with it and use failure as a stepping stone.  Trust me...it will happen.

Reflection
This is the first trait because we must have the ability to learn from the failure.  This is the greatest learning opportunity you will ever have so look at it and dig around.  Find the cause and effect.  Map it out and really understand it so you see the route you took.  Don't waste time regretting, that is purely emotional, rather spend the time trying to understand.

"Failure is instructive. The person who really thinks learns quite as much from his failures as from his successes." ~ John Dewey

Persistence
I love the idea of this word: an obstinate continuance in a course of action.  Failure can make us feel like someone has taken away our ability to succeed.  Who's permission do we need to be successful or happy?  Only our own.  Reflect on the twists and turns along the way that brought you here and then get back on track.  Carry on; you don't need permission!!

"Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm." ~ Winston Churchill

Resilience
In many ways I feel this is the most important trait.  You've got to bounce back.  It's this elasticity factor that enables you to get up, look back and shake it off.  Without resilience you would simply let the world crush you.  I'm not talking about simple mediocrity...I'm talking about physically collapsing under the weight of the world. But, that won't happen. We are all here for a purpose, so find yours and go after it with every ounce you can muster.  Stumble and regain your footing.  Fall and get up.  Get knocked down and fight back to your feet.  This is your life and you get one chance at it.  Greatness is not found in the past, it's before you waiting to be discovered.

"The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out.  The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something.  Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don't want it badly enough.  They're there to stop the other people." ~ Randy Pausch

Another Classic Battle

Looking back through history there have been several classic battles: David and Goliath, Hatfields and McCoys, good and evil.  Another has been waging in me for a while, too.  It's the battle of dreams and responsibilities.

"The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams." ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

I've reached a point in my life, in both age and satisfaction, in which I feel the need to hit the reset button and create the life I want.  But in the course of 42 years I've accumulated some responsibilities.  Responsibilities are the results of previous decisions.  I've struggled the last few years thinking about this battle, allowing each side to wage a war inside my head, catapulting reasons, justifications and excuses back and forth.  It's been exhausting.

As I mentioned previously in my evolution of change, this process involved much deliberation and rumination, and still I find myself questioning my decision.  I believe this stems from the feeling I'm shrugging off some of my responsibilities.  In every decision there are corollary ramifications and I'm not sure any decision can be made without there being some negative effects.  That's the whole point of a decision, right?  It's a choice between two or more options, each with their own gains and losses.  I know this seems obvious, but in my thought process I need to break it down.

"Don't you find it odd that when you're a kid, everyone, all the world, encourages you to follow your dreams. But when you're older, somehow they act offended if you even try." ~ Ethan Hawke

Decisions like this come down to placing some value on the future, although this seems to require the ability to be a fortune teller.  For me, one decision satisfies the moment but the future is potentially bleak, whereas the other decision has a clearly visible and beneficial future.  Nonetheless, responsibilities.  That word pounds in my head with each syllable like a bowling ball falling onto concrete.  Then I realized something: when I felt stuck and failed to look at the big picture I turned the idea of responsibilities into limitations.  Responsibilities are not barriers nor limitations nor consequences.  Responsibilities are the fruit of our past.  Viewing them as limitations is akin to regretting a moment from your past and there is no value in that.

"The only limit is the one you set yourself."

It has taken me some time to see the truth in this.  I believe where there is a will there is a way.  When I looked at the responsibilities in my life as reasons I could not pursue an opportunity I gave up.  They became limitations because I stopped searching for a resolution.  But, there is always a resolution to some degree.  Perhaps not the first one our mind paints for us, but there are always resolutions to a dilemma.

The first step in finding this resolution is to make peace with the responsibilities--again, the fruit of our past decisions.  Embrace them.  At one point in the past we engaged in a similar decision-making process and this seemed like the best option, so embrace it.  Now, let's stop looking at this as an all-or-nothing situation and open our minds to options and possibilities.

"Every time you discuss the future, grammatically you're forced to cleave that from the present and treat it as if it's something viscerally different." ~ Keith Chen

Our mind can be our greatest ally, or our greatest enemy.  This battle of dreams and responsibilities is all in my head and it's as big a war as I make it out to be.  Yes, the only limit is the one you set yourself.  And, likewise, the only resolution is the one you create yourself.

My Change Evolution

You'll have to forgive me if the topic of change is becoming redundant or a bore, but things are happening for me and I'm inclined to share and reflect. For the first time in my life I had the beginnings of a panic attack. The topic, in a nutshell, was change.  It is actually quite a bit more involved than that; nonetheless, change was the inspiration for my tachycardia and breathlessness.  I feel I've been on the brink of change for some time now but it suddenly got real.

"All the concepts about stepping out of your comfort zone mean nothing until you decide that your essential purpose, vision and goals are more important than your self-imposed limitations." ~ Robert White

In my case my goals are quite lofty yet I feel the platform for such success and prosperity is not present in my current environment. As a result, I'm taking a huge step, rather a leap, towards meeting my goals and it is entirely outside my comfort zone. I'm moving to another state, leaving family behind, leaving a business behind and leaving my business partner and best friend behind. Life is about to change.

Change is not a single act; it's a process that must be managed. The changes imminent in my life have evolved from ideas to decisions to action, and my investment in my goals has evolved as well.  Every time I think I'm facing the toughest phase in this process the next phase comes and I realize the deeper I get into this evolution the tougher it gets. Each phase takes time and serious deliberation.

The first phase, idea generation was a "weeding out" process in which I filtered through all the possibilities. From here I narrowed the list to plausible options and began the decision phase. Truth be told, I really struggled with this phase. Perhaps that was part of my sluggishness. It's the classic pros/cons debate with a mixing of what-if rumination. It's really a valuation of my goals in relation to my current state, which is not all bad. Once I got through this stage, made a decision and began to develop confidence in my decision, the final step--action--is proving to be the most impactful step of all; hence the term leap. It's this leap that takes me out of my comfort zone. Ruminating was actually safe because it happened within my mind.

"One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time." ~ Andre Gide   

Looking back at panic's invasion of my body, I can pinpoint exactly what was going through my mind when it happened.  I was looking at the other side of my valuation list; the things I will go without. Often I would focus on the positive opportunities and negative consequences of a decision, but rarely do I look at the flip side, or what's positive in the present.  I've already moved past the decision phase and made peace with my decision but I doubted myself just long enough to allow my focus to shift to life inside my comfort zone. It's peaceful and predictable there. My vision of the future became clouded by everything good in the present and my fear manifested itself into a temporary re-valuation of my goals.

"Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt." ~ William Shakespeare

The point to all of this is that change is an evolution of steps requiring progressively deeper mental commitment, courage and focus. As I write this post my anxiety has subsided (for now) and I am nine days from embarking on my journey.  Real change, the kind that changes your life, is not something to take lightly and as much as I can sit here and assert the need to take action, the truth of the matter is that it's unnerving. Had I not taken this process as an evolution of my options and thoughts I could not have developed nor had faith in my process. I would have crumbled long ago and spent the near future with my head hanging low from defeat unable to see my dreams.  Dreams exist in the clouds of possibility high above our heads, not in the soil trampled beneath our feet.

Today my resting heart rate was 48 beats per minute. I found my peace again.

  

Finding My Peace

Many of my posts focus on action.  It's a common theme and a topic of much contemplation for me.  I recently likened by self-proclaimed disposition for action to a race car revving its engine at the starting line.  It's all pomp and show until you release the brakes and go.  Sadly, at times I feel I have many hours on my engine but few actual miles on the tires.

What I've learned about myself is I felt no peace.  I felt angst and anxiety about decisions that I had to make and it paralyzed me in a way.  But then three separate and completely unrelated things happened recently that brought this flawed mindset to light for me.  Perhaps, no scratch that, I know for a fact the problem stems from my control issues.  I will struggle with an idea until it fits nicely into the compartment I believe it should fit in.  How's this for a realization: I create my own antithesis to peace with my control issues.

"You have peace," the old woman said, "when you make it with yourself." ~ Mitch Albom 

Surrendering to some decisions in my life almost feels like passivity. Ahhhh! But really I'm beginning to understand that it's more about accepting my decisions than just accepting whatever life brings me.  I can find peace in past decisions when I accept that each and every one helped me reach this moment and I wouldn't change that for the world.  Have some of them been harder than others?  Absolutely.  The trials and tribulations of my 42 years have taught me where my weaknesses lie, but also where strengths abound.  I find peace with that.

Having this peace of mind--no regrets--helps me find some clarity in the decisions I must make today, too.  I simply cannot have the "best of both worlds" in every decision I make.  Some decisions ultimately may not turn out to be the best but if I have faith in my decision-making process and confidence in the decisions I reach, that's really all I can ask for.  I find peace with that as well.

"A quiet conscience makes one strong!" ~ Helen Keller

Think about what I've said here: I have no regrets about the past and I am confident in my present decision-making process.  This mindset opens the door to a feeling of freedom about the future, and it strips away the power my fear and anxiety have over me.  This all makes me believe that I am exactly where I belong and headed right where I need to be...and I could not be more at peace.

Spinning the Plates

You know that guy in the circus who spins plates atop the skinny, pointed rods?  He sets out spinning just one, finds its balance point and spins it like crazy.  Then another and another.  But at several points he has to break this routine to return to the previously balanced plates; they are beginning to lose balance.  The process continues until several plates are spinning in unison.  It's really sort of crazy.

That's how I feel life is at times...when I let it.  I have competing forces at work in my mind.  One force has me sorting through the mounds and mounds of ideas I intend to see through, searching for the starting and balance points, while the other force is my life's time clock.  I am perishable and there are only so many of these ideas that I can see through to completion.  It is a constant battle, not of good versus evil, but of life versus death.  I want to treat life like a verb and experience everything I possibly can before my time expires.  It takes balance. 

"Balance is the homeostasis of the human spirit. On one side is the joy of actually living life, and the other is the fear you can't do enough in this short time." ~ Jason Huntsinger

So I run back and forth, spinning the plates trying to maintain their balance.  Here's the kicker in it all...I feel like that's all I'm really doing at times: standing in one place spinning plates.  I've written and posted about the value of action and it seems to be a recurring thought for me.  As each day passes I'm beginning to realize I need to reduce the number of plates I'm spinning so that I can spend less time running back and forth.

That really is the tough part because I find value in every idea that occupies my mind: writing my book, starting my magazine, exercising my body, building a loving relationship, turning my life to personal training, pursuing stable employment for benefits and retirement...they are all important in their own sense and work together to create this vision of my life from here forward.  If I focus on just one or two ideas, in an effort to minimize the clutter, I feel the ideas abandoned truly don't deserve that fate.  Nor do I.  

Balance can be the toughest, on-going life task to master.  Will any of us really master it?  Is our pursuit of this mastery just a pointless, upsetting practice we're placing on ourselves?  What if I don't get to do everything I ever wanted to do in this life?  Here is the fix: focus on what you can do in this life and put everything into it.  While it may not be quite as dramatic as a circus act analogy, it will be more productive in creating your own fulfilling lifestyle.  You see, by reducing our effort in any given task--by being too preoccupied in moving on to the next--we fail to really experience it.  Our focus is drawn away.  The "up" side of our spiritual homeostasis is cut short because we've closed off our receptors to living life in this moment. What we're left with is the counterbalancing "down" side wrought with worry that the day is passing, we're another year older and we've lost yet another opportunity to do it all.

Perhaps today I will let a couple of these plates slow to a stop then stack them nicely in the corner for the future.  Then I will go back and spin the holy hell out of the remaining plates!

Change: Adapting vs Igniting

"Change is constant in life and will manifest itself in one of two ways: your environment will change forcing you to adapt, or you will change forcing your environment to adapt. Whichever the case, seek the opportunity to grow." ~ Jason Huntsinger

Today's post is sparked by change that came my way recently. Uninvited, unexpected, unnecessary and unyielding...but it came anyway. My environment changed beyond my control which forced me to adapt. As I've mentioned before, I loathe passivity yet this is what my option is now. I tried and tried, perhaps to a fault, to fight this change with words, actions and emotions, but here I am adapting to a change I disagree with.

The fact of the matter is that change will always be part of our lives. It is likely one of the only constants in life. Change is everywhere and, as the quote states above, we really have two options here. One is as I am forced to do now: adapt. This is our response when the environment we live in changes around us. The company we work for closes or suffers layoffs, someone we love ends our relationship, or we suffer the consequences of a failure. Trying to adapt to change can be petrifying, devastating or just plain burdensome; nonetheless it comes and doesn't back off even when we react with one of these sensations.

The other version of change is much more proactive. It's the instigation of change. A challenge to the status quo of our lives. This type of change is what prompts us to finally take a stand and fight for ourselves, lose weight, stop smoking, change careers or even detach from the negative influences in our lives.  This is how we ignite a spark of change...ourselves. Passivity versus action. Adapting versus igniting. When we are the force of change we choose the environment that surrounds us.

Granted, we don't always have control of every situation in our lives. Some instances are give and take. Perhaps you've read my previous post on the state of calm. But to some extent we can employ our senses, intuition, experience and education to foresee and preempt the change coming our way.

"Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself." ~ Leo Tolstoy

I am going to be a little bold here and say that those of us who don't think change is as prevalent as I claim are merely experts at adapting to it, and fail to see the opportunities to ignite their own change. Taking the examples above--layoffs, relationships, failure--think back and see how taking a proactive approach to life could have prevented a passive adaptation. Now try to understand how playing catch-up to the changing environment is stripping you of the opportunities to plan the route to your own goals, and accomplish everything you intend to in this life.

"You have exactly one life in which to do everything you'll ever do. Act accordingly." ~ Colin Wright

The State of Being Calm

"God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference." ~ Reinhold Niebuhr

How many times have you seen this shortened version of the Serenity Prayer and just breezed right over it?  Many, many times for me.  I see it often in the Quote of the Day blogs and postings I read.  And, to be honest, I like it.  Recently I took a little extra time to think about it though.  I like to completely understand the use of words in certain quotes and this was one of them.  Serenity: the state of being calm, peaceful and untroubled.  This is a plea for more than serenity and courage.  It is really a plea for wisdom.

Starting at the beginning, there is a great deal of peace in the idea of the first line.  All too often I think we struggle with this concept.  It can be difficult to sit back and admit we cannot change something.  Effort becomes meaningless.  To think that if we try our damnedest to change a situation and it still might not change can leave us feeling less than serene.

I much prefer the second line.  Action.  Courage.  Grant me the courage to challenge the status quo and shake things up.  Grant me the courage to put the brakes on this life and start fresh.  I prefer action over passivity and accepting things "as is."

What about that third line?  Isn't that really the hardest part of the entire equation?  It seems those of us who prefer action may have the hardest time deciding at the fork in the road.  Our impulse is to seek action and make the change. Whereas, those who prefer to accept what comes their way may disproportionately choose to just accept life.

"Change is constant in life and will manifest itself in one of two ways: your environment will change forcing you to adapt, or you will change forcing your environment to adapt. Whichever the case, seek the opportunity to grow." ~ Jason Huntsinger

Where is that balance?  How do you know when you reach that point?  I struggle to find it because I'd much rather prefer to direct change than adapt to something beyond my control.  It is tough to concede that I can't control an aspect of my life.  But, alas *heavy sigh* it's true.  Understanding this about myself, and life in general, is perhaps the first step in attaining this wisdom which will allow me to find peace.  The fact of the matter is that change is a given.  Everything changes.  Situations change.  People change...sometimes overnight.  We are all on this journey to find the balance and, ultimately, our own state of being calm.