You Are Good Enough.

The single greatest threat to any person who seeks to move from a place of mediocrity in life to a place of greatness is the mind. You may have desires to make a career move, you may have health-related goals or goals to start a business or write a book. Think for a minute. What has stopped you? I’m willing to bet that it is your negative thoughts that have stopped you or slowed you down. You may have thoughts that you are not talented enough or not smart enough. Maybe you have thoughts that you have not lived the perfect life and people will remember that.

I’m writing this to remind you to believe. Believe in yourself.

You are good enough. You have the power, the strength, the ability to achieve whatever it is you want to in life. Like millions of other people, I have dealt with low self-esteem, low self-confidence, and going after a dream feeling, at times, alone. I am not writing this to conjure up some sense of sympathy or having a pity-party, rather, I want you to know that we all have imperfect pasts. We all have tarnished reputations. We all have questionable characteristics and, at times, impure motives.

Here are a few things to remember when you think you are just not good enough:

1.   Don’t compare yourself to others.

Think of it this way, the people you compare yourself to compare themselves to others. We all have a tendency to compare ourselves to others. However, I can guarantee that those people who appear to have it all together, do not. We are all human beings. Beautifully imperfect human beings with challenges and triumphs.

Don’t compare yourself to others. You are the best version of you there is. Your life is about breaking your own limits and outgrowing your own limits. You are the only one in the race to be the best you.

2.   There is more right with you than wrong

“Until you stop breathing, there’s more right with you than wrong with you” Jon Kabat-Zinn.

We sometimes fixate on bad things that happen in our lives. Even one difficult situation can overpower all the good things if we’re not deliberate about recognizing them and realizing how blessed we are. The reality is that there is often more right with our lives. For example, there are people looking out for us who love and care for us. No, it is not a perfect world but there is a lot of beauty in this world. We have to be willing to see and appreciate it.

I challenge you to look around today and choose to see the good things. Don’t let the tiny things that went wrong distract from your pleasure. Joy is in allowing yourself to enjoy your blessings.

3.   If your reading this you are still here and able to try again.

If you have no other positive to think of at this moment, you have this one: “I’m still here and able to try again. Be positive! Be patient! Be persistent! Remember the strongest people are not always the people who win, but the people who don’t give up even when they have lost.

Believe in you. You are good enough.The fact that you have made it this far is amazing. Your life is a gift. Cherish it. You are magnificently talented. Appreciate that and show the world what all you can do.

You are a survivor

Life + Adversity = OPPORTUNITY

When I was in the army, I was trained to be tough, efficient and extremely resilient. Physical and mental fitness was a part of everything we did. If someone had described to me the workout regimens before I went to basic training, I would have said there was no way I could do that.

I’ve since realized that I am a survivor and so are you. We have all overcome adversity and we’ve all had our share of battles. We have all gotten smarter, stronger, braver and wiser from the struggles we’ve endured. Maybe not right away, and maybe not easily, but we’ve bounced back from hard times, and we’ve proven to ourselves that our spirit is stronger than anything that could threaten to break it.

I’m confident that it was my faith and trust in God that has brought me through every single adversity that I’ve endured. So yes, I’m a survivor but only because I had a strong hand to guide me.

The key to overcoming adversity is not to wallow in it but to turn it into an opportunity.

Here are a few steps to help you turn adversity into an opportunity:

1.      Accept that adversity is inevitable.

Whether we like it or not, adversity is a part of life. Accept it. Anticipate it. It would be easy for each of us to allow self-pity to overcome us, seeing life as being so unfair, questioning ‘why has this happened to me?’ Instead I encourage you to see the possibility and the opportunity in the adversity while also realizing that every single person in this world experiences adversity. Accepting that adversity is inevitable will soften the blow and help you overcome with a more positive state of mind. 

2.      Recognize what you have learned.

It is important to stop and reflect on the ways in which the journey through the adversity has affected you. Has it made you a stronger person, better prepared to take on challenges in future? Are you wiser now, more comfortable with your place in the world? Perhaps you will even be able to pass on the insights you have gained to others facing adversity of their own.

3.      Help Others

There is a lesson in every adversity we have overcome. I am a strong believer that we do not learn a lesson just to hoard it and let it die with us.  Lessons are learned to be taught. Professor Joseph Badaracco said “In today’s environment hoarding knowledge ultimately erodes your power. If you know something very important, the way to get power is by actually sharing it.”  You get power by empowering others.

We are all adversity overcomers and survivors. It’s inevitable. Accept it! Anticipate it! Prepare for it in prayer!

Thoughts are a steering wheel

How many thoughts does an average person think each day? It has been said that we have between 50,000 – 70,000 thoughts per day. Which averages to between 35 and 48 thoughts per minute. Even more astounding and according to some research, as many as 98 percent of our thoughts are exactly the same as the day before and 80 percent of our thoughts are negative. 

Negative thoughts are terribly draining. This could be part of the reason why your so exhausted at the end of each day. Thoughts containing words like “never,” “should,” and “can’t,” complaints, whining or thoughts that diminish our own or another’s sense of self-worth deplete the body. This is supported by scientific research but I won’t go into that here. The good news is, if you can recognize a toxic, negative or limiting thought, you can consciously choose to change it.

 A few tips to combat negative thoughts:

1.    Stop thinking in extremes

Life is not always black or white. Sometimes there is a little gray. Everything is not completely this or that. However, negative thinking tends to view bad stuff in the extreme. For example: rather than thinking I’m nervous about this performance, we think things like, I’m terrible, I’m going to mess this up, they are going to hate me.

All or nothing thinking misses out the subtle shades in life. It makes us see the future in terms of dramatic disasters, failures, and catastrophes. Most of life consists of shades of gray.

An important tip to overcoming negative thinking isn't to 'just be positive' all of a sudden, but to look for shades of gray. Instead of thinking " Everyone will hate me after this performance" think" I'm prepared and I'm going to do my best. Not everyone will love my performance but that is to be expected."

2.    Remember the positive

Negative thinking stops people from seeing the positives in life. Magnifying setbacks and minimizing successes leads to de-motivation and unhappiness.

Get into the habit of seeing setbacks as temporary and specific rather than as permanent and universal. We all tend to find what we look for. The positive is there but you have to look for it.

3.     Stop making stuff up and believing it

Imagination is a wonderful gift from God. Looking at an upcoming event in your mind and negatively hypnotizing yourself by vividly imagining the worst is a bad idea and your likely to get just what you’ve imagined. Your imagination is there as a tool to be used constructively. By practicing imagining things going well, making it more likely, you'll be calmer in the situation and it will be a much better use of your time..

Stopping negative thinking takes time and effort, and to an extent it's a job that's never done. But using these tips along with a few of your own will help combat the habit of negative thinking. I’d love to hear your tips to combat negative thinking. Please leave your tips and thoughts below.

Adversity!

Adversity? An adverse or unfavorable fortune or fate; a condition marked by misfortune, calamity or distress.

Have you experienced adversity? Sure you have. I’ll admit that I’ve overcome and am currently overcoming adversity. The nature of being a breathing human is that comfort will take a back seat to distress, periods of good health will come to an end, and misfortune will greet you.

The BIG question is, how do you respond to adversity? True character will undoubtedly make an appearance during adversity. Adversity is the mirror that reveals your true character and it reveals what is really at the center of your heart. Anybody can wear a mask to hide the true nature of what is on the inside. This makes it difficult to know, rely on, or trust someone. But this is where pressure, stress, life’s storms, and adversity come into play and show their value. What’s exposed either makes us interesting and more attractive or reveals some inner ugliness!

If you want to experience a life of victory, you must develop endurance to overcome adversity. BUT most importantly you must develop a strong healthy character so that when you face adversity there is no inner ugliness to be revealed. You can be proud of your true character and thus feel free to come from behind the mask that we’ve all come accustomed to wearing.

Here are 4 tips to improve character:

1. Focus on the positives in life. All too often, we dwell on the bad things in life. The troubles, difficulties and challenges. Don’t ignore them, they have to be dealt with, but do not focus on them either. Develop a habit of expressing gratitude. Expressing gratitude leads to more optimism and ultimately can help us keep adversity in perspective.

2. Accept who you are. Appreciate your own values and that which you have. Imagining that the grass is greener somewhere else is a recipe for lifelong unhappiness. Remember that you can only assume how others live. Often our assumptions are miles away from the truth. Therefore, it is better to focus on how you live and who you are.

3. Have patience. Character improvement takes time, dedication and hard work. You must have patience to allow yourself time to improve. An accountability partner can help. Having someone to talk to and help you look at your situation honestly is invaluable. Your partner must be someone you trust and from who you are willing to take criticism. Your partner can encourage you, but most importantly they will likely see a change before you do.

4. Seek the truth. Do not lie to yourself. Delusion will not help you improve. Having a good friend or mentor will help. An individual that you trust and respect to tell you the truth about ugliness in your character.

Your adversity is either in the near future, your currently facing it or recently overcome it. We all experience adversity but what will be revealed during those times of adversity? 

What tips do you have to build character? Leave your tips below. I'd love to continue this conversation with you.

Failure isn't fatal.....GET UP!

Failure! We’ve all experienced it.  It doesn’t feel good. It can actually feel pretty horrible. Trying your hardest to do something important and failing is when it really stings and shakes your confidence. However, failure cannot be avoided unless you totally avoid doing anything at all and I highly recommend against that.

Don't think for a second that you're the only person on the planet to fail. Often we look at the success of others and assume they have everything together when the reality is that they encounter failure just as much as anyone. Some are better at hiding it or overcoming it better than others, but failure is universal.

The important skill to learn from failure is to not wallow in the failure but to GET UP. If the world hasn’t ended then there is still time for you to try again.

Here are few tips to overcome failure:

1.  Don’t let it become who you are.

Failure is something that happens, not who you are. Just because you have failed at something does not mean YOU are a failure. Be sure to keep the lines clear between making mistakes and being someone who only makes mistakes. Our actions may define us, but our failures do not. The actions you take to move past the failure and reach success will define you. Just because you failed today or yesterday does not mean that you will fail the next time that you try.

As an inventor, Thomas Edison made well over 1,000 unsuccessful attempts at inventing the light bulb. During an interview he was asked, “How did it feel to fail 1,000 times?” Edison replied, “I didn’t fail 1,000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps.” Perfect example of not taking failure personal.

2.  Stop dwelling on it.

Dwelling or even obsessing over your failure will not change the outcome. It actually will do the opposite and intensify the outcome, trapping you in a downward negative emotional spiral. You cannot change the past, but you can take steps to shape your future. The faster you take a positive step forward, the quicker you can leave the draining, controlling thoughts behind.

After Carl Lewis won the gold medal for the long jump in the 1996 Olympic games, he was asked to what he attributed his longevity, having competed for almost 20 years. He said, “Remembering that you have both wins and losses along the way. I don’t take either one too seriously.”

3.  Lose the need for the approval of others.

Often our fear of failure or our inability to get over failure is rooted in our fear of being judged by others or losing the respect of others. We are way to easily influenced by what people say. REMEMBER, this is your life, not theirs. What one person considers to be true about you is not necessarily the truth unless you assimilate it and make it truth. Don’t give too much power to others’ opinions.

After his first audition, Sidney Poitier was asked to stop wasting people’s time. F.W. Woolworth’s boss said he didn’t have enough sense to wait on customers. Oprah Winfrey was fired from her first TV job because someone thought she was “unfit for TV.” Stephen King’s first book, Carrie, was rejected by 30 publishers. Walt Disney was fired from his newspaper job because he “lacked imagination and good ideas.” Winston Churchill failed sixth grade and was considered “a dolt” by his teacher. Jerry Seinfeld was booed off the stage the first time he tried comedy.

I can guarantee that you will not find a success story that is not a story of overcoming failure. The difference between those you consider successful and the average person is that they did not give up. 

So, you’ve experienced failure it is ok. GET UP, dust yourself off and keep it moving.

Michael Jordan said it best: "I have missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions, I have been entrusted to take the game winning shot, and I missed. I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."