There are certain harsh truths about life that few people understand. This article covers seven of them.
Here we go.
1. If You’re Not Going up, You’re Going Down
“Change is inevitable. Growth is optional.” -John C. Maxwell
In today’s over-stimulating environment, there is no neutral ground. You’re either going up. Or, you’re going down.
You’re either using technology to facilitate unthinkable opportunity, learning, and growth. Or, you’re being sucked into an endless web of distraction.
Of course, one is to be moving towards who you want to become, while the other is to be going backwards.
And it really is your decision about which choice you make. You can either do what you’ve always done and allow your body to go through it’s learned subconscious patterns.
Or, you can be intentional. You can create and control your environment before it controls you.
Said Dr. Marshall Goldsmith,
“If you do not create and control your environment, your environment creates and controls you.”
2. Your Circumstances Are Far Less Important Than Your Choices
“It is your decisions, not your conditions, that determine your destiny.” -Tony Robbins
While you can’t control where you start, you can, however, control where you end up. And interestingly, it’s the latter that’s far more important than the other.
Said Randy Pausch in his book, The Last Lecture,
“It’s not about the cards you’re dealt, but how you play the hand.”
Similarly, James Allen has said, “Your circumstances reveal you to yourself.”
Indeed, everything in your life right now is there because you’ve allowed it. Your external conditions are simply an outward manifestation of your internal reality.
If you want something different, then hold yourself to a different standard. Until your change decisions and consequently who you are, your circumstances won’t. To quote Darren Hardy,
“To achieve what you have not, you must become what you are not. You have to grow into your goals.”
Put simply: Things don’t change, you change.
3. Your Life is the Size of Your Confidence
“Your confidence keeps the score. It’s either growing or disappearing.” -Benjamin P. Hardy
Most people misunderstand confidence. They mistakenly believe that confidence is what creates success. That without confidence, then you can’t have success.
However, it’s the other way around; success is what creates confidence.
Indeed, self-efficacy (which is defined as one’s belief in their capacity to attain a given level of performance) and confidence are very much the same thing. Thus, confidence is your belief that you can succeed.
In order to believe you can succeed, however, you already need to see yourself successful moving in the right direction.
For example, you can’t believe that you’re going to become a professional author if all you do is sit around on Facebook all day. However, you can if you publish a story each day.
Thus, confidence comes from congruent and aligned action. While acting contrary to your values and beliefs will diminish your confidence.
Hence, your confidence keeps the score. It’s either growing or disappearing.
However, why are we even talking about this? Because the size of your confidence determines the size of your life. The more you see yourself moving in a desired direction, then the more you’re willing to attempt stuff that might not work.
Hence, the bigger your confidence, the bigger your future, and the bigger your life.
So, how’s your confidence doing?
The next point might help.
4. All Progress Starts By Telling the Truth
“All progress starts by telling the truth.” -Dan Sullivan
In order to progressively move your life forward, you first have to admit that you’ve been wrong.
That you haven’t been living in alignment with values and beliefs. That you have been sucked into a web of distraction and that you haven’t been who you need to be in your relationships.
Of course, there is no room for justification. Until we can honestly admit that we’ve been at fault, then there will be no change — lessons are repeated until they’re learned.
Said Benjamin P. Hardy,
“Until we can honestly look in the mirror and admit we are the cause of everything happening in our lives, we won’t have the power to change our lives.”
5. You Either Control Your Fear or Your Fear Controls You
“Unless you’re in mortal danger, fear is a compass showing you where to go.” -Mastin Kipp
According to Seth Godin, we’re all mixed up about what we should really fear. For example, most people are afraid of things that are simply outside of their comfort zones rather than their safety zones.
Or in other words, most of your fears are completely unfounded. They don’t actually make sense.
Sure, asking for a raise or sending a cold email may be scary. However, will it kill you? No.
Even more interesting, is that the anticipation of an event is always far more powerful than the event itself.
It’s only once you actually step into the fear that you realize all your fears were illogical and thus, allowing you to embrace your future fears.
Said Ryan Holiday,
“No matter what you want to change, it won’t be as terrifying as the first step you take toward making it.”
Also why rather than overly thinking about it, you just need to take the shot.
Said Tim Grover, “Don’t think. You already know what you have to do, and you know how to do it. What’s stopping you?”
6. It’s Not What Do That’s Important. Instead, It’s What You Do For Others
“You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help other people get what they want.” -Zig Ziglar
Most people are only out for themselves. They are desperate for success and will do everything they can to get it.
They will engage in relationships solely for what they can get out of those relationships and happily abuse the generosity of others in order to get ahead.
However, this is actually incredibly small-minded and will only serve to hinder their success. As Joe Polish has said,
“The world gives to the givers and takes from the takers.”
Indeed, getting the life you want is not about you, but what you can do for others. Your value is often directly determined by the value you can give other people.
So, don’t make it all about you; make it a win-win. Focus on your own personal development and then pull people up to your level.
Build relationships based on collaboration and connection, not competition.
7. Wherever Your Awareness Goes, Your Life Follows
“Wherever your mind goes, your body follows. Wherever your thoughts go, your life follows.” -Benjamin P. Hardy
Tell me what you pay attention to, and I’ll tell you who you will become.
Monk-turned-entrepreneur, Dandapani has said,
“If I took a watering can and watered the garden bed; would the weeds grow or the flowers grow? Both. Water has no ability to discriminate between the weeds and the flowers. Whatever you water grows.”
Indeed, the law of the harvest is always in effect; you reap what you sow. Your life right now is a direct reflection of the thoughts, decisions, and seeds you have previously planted.
Likewise, who will become is based upon the thoughts, decisions, and seeds you plant within each present moment.
So, want something different? Then plant something different. Do something different. Take control over the garden of your mind. You are in complete control of your experience.
Once you realize this, you become increasingly discriminant about each choice you make, knowing that each choice you make makes you.
So, who will you become?
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