In the first few pages of every book, you will find a page of contents. In your book of life, how does your page of contents look? I realize that that is a profound way to start a blog, but your goal in reading this blog is to develop personally. The reason I am so effective at what I do, is I help people to create a metric to measure the seeming immeasurable. In my experience the people who really live life in the moment. They live working on the index of the book. Each day is its own individual subject, instead of a group of chapters of pinnacle events.
You are the author:
You are an author; you are writing a book about your life. Many people believe that life happens to them and they are somehow like a leaf in the wind. That life blows them into the direction that the wind pushes them, much like a ship in the ocean at the mercy of the wind and the wave. The facts are simple. No one can make you do anything. They can do things to you that may cause or lead to you making a decision, but at this time your mind is still your own and no one else’s.
You are not the victim:
Some people prefer to fall backward into the mindset that because life happens to them that it’s not their fault. They can declare social bankruptcy because friends and family say that it’s not their fault, so it’s ok, and it will get better. Let’s face it; there are some cases where things happen to people just couldn’t avoid. If you wish to debate that fact, then you are not reading the right blog, as you have other issues in your life that you need to handle.
If you are really trying to change, take a moment to analyze your most recent successes and failures. As you look back to days, weeks, months and even years before the incident do you see how small pieces of your life have come together like a super puzzle to create what happened? Lost a job? Odds are somewhere down deep you knew and dismissed the signs that the position would be coming to an end. It may be just a gut feeling? Some people even decided subconsciously they no longer wished to do the job and they sabotaged the job.
You create the map of your life:
Now the next example is really going to blow your mind just a little more… If you are still stuck on the whole bad things happen to nice people (maybe even your go to), I will now give you a much better illustration. When you decide to drive from Florida to Washington, you may understand that you just need to go north till you hit the Canada border, then make a left and go straight across theUS and eventually, you will find Washington. Someday!!! If you don’t run out of resources, such as gas, food, money, tires, engine, and any number of things that can go wrong.
Now, how about this, what if you used a map and a compass, or better a GPS to get there. This will save you time, and you will get there with much less stress and a higher level of confidence then you would have created using the prior example of just going North and turning left. Hmmm… Ok so if you have control of your car, perhaps you have more control over your life too?
If I am over 300 pounds and I develop chronic heart disease, Kidney Failure, or diabetes, do you see it as life happened to me? What if diabetes causes me to lose a foot, or the kidneys require me to get dialysis and have by blood scrubbed by a machine? Do you feel sorry for me in this scenario? So what could I have done differently? Eating healthy, drinking water and even exercise? Let’s raise the bet; I don’t drink or smoke, but what if I did. Would it change your view of my situation?
Ok, so it’s obvious the above example is my fault. So when someone works at a job for 20 years, and the plant closes, after every year being laid off for months because the plant was on the edge of closing, why are people surprised. We are moving from the industrial age to the age of technology. People should always be learning and experiencing and preparing for any potential situation that may arise against them. I’m clearly not saying that it was right or wrong, ethical or unethical to end the job. What I am saying is that if everyone was reading this was to be proactive and start planning their lives, the number of things that happen will be drastically less.
Mirror Test:
Every morning you must get up and look at yourself in the mirror. Do you like what you see? Do you feel a twinge of guilt for what you haven’t achieved that you know you could or should have? Why not stop worrying about what you have messed up and start to concern yourself with grabbing all the opportunities you see as you move forward through life. What an amazing world in which we live. Full of opportunities for abundance with just a small shift in the way we think.
Maybe instead of looking at your failures as failures look at them as experiments in a laboratory. In the laboratory, a failure is just feedback. It only re-enforces the truths you already know and allows the scientist to make better decisions. So as you write your book of life, my suggestion is you pay attention to every index entry. Get as much out of it as you can and be sure that you are not editing too much. Recognize that many things that happen to you are because of decisions you have made in the past, and moving forward you can draw a better map.
– J –