Today’s success tip comes from Rosie Pekar.
Rosie is a ÔBut-kickerÕ Ð author, motivator and columnist to over 60,000 entrepreneurs globally and she travels regularly delivering seminars and ÔDeliberate CreationÕ workshops in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Bangkok, Hong Kong, and the US.
What has been one of the biggest challenges you have had to face in your life and how did you overcome it - how did it shape your life?
The biggest challenge I have had to face, and one that I continually have to overcome, is me! Now, this may sound strange considering that I’ve had to overcome the fiery and violent nature of burly angry men intent on bashing me with baseball bats, tyre levers and bricks; that I had a contract taken out on my life within my first six months of policing; that I had to prepare myself to jump off a third-floor balcony in order to escape from a man with a shotgun; and that I had to face a knife-wielding man who kept reminding me that he was ‘ready to carve me up’. Hmmm…yep, I am definitely my own biggest challenge!
Why? Because of my own mind-set and habitual limiting thoughts. I have met many other people with the same problem or as I like to call it, ‘poor-me-itis’. Essentially it’s when people blame everything on a specific moment in their life.
Unfortunately, we get conditioned to keep on repeating our story - ‘poor me I grew up with’ or ‘I was diagnosed with’ or ‘I was abused by’ The truth is, if you live long enough you’ll always have a story to tell, the challenge is to not hinge the rest of your wellbeing on it. That is, don’t use it to restrict your personal power for a happy life.
It’s the thoughts in our heads that make us prisoners to the past and keep us locked into our ‘feeling bad’ states. Then we wonder why more bad stuff keeps happening to us and lay blame on anything and anyone. Once we understand that it’s not ‘out there’ and that the problem is ‘in here’ (nasty self-talk) then we are at least on the right track to the root of the problem.
I have met some professional victims alongside career criminals. I call them professional because as I see it they have mastered the art of criticising and condemning while holding themselves aloof. (Yep, guilty as charged, your honour! I especially excelled through my teens and early twenties.)
Some will justify the validity of their claims, ‘I have every right to feel bad, mad, tired, or whatever’ and sadly it becomes their way of being in their life. Not only is this sad for them, it’s toxic for all those around them too, and we all know someone like this. I have even watched one die holding onto this attitude.
‘Live a life so that when you die, even the undertaker is sad.’ Since you can’t escape your thoughts I choose to continually challenge myself and believe in more than I dreamed possible. I choose to make my self-talk my friend - not my enemy. Why not make your thoughts something that is exciting and makes you feel good, and in the process attract fabulous results into your life? Makes sense to me!
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