Showing posts with label obstacles. Show all posts
Showing posts with label obstacles. Show all posts

Tuesday, 22 September 2009

How to Turn Obstacles Into Opportunities

Article by Christopher Howard:
In modeling extraordinary men and women throughout time, one thing I have discovered is that they aren’t really extraordinary at all—they are simply ordinary people who made extraordinary decisions about the events in their lives.

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When Nelson Mandela was in his teens, he attended a tribal ceremony. A tribal elder stood up and said, “These are our young men. They are our future. But the truth is…They are second-class citizens…They will always be boys.” When Mandela heard this, he made a decision to change South Africa. That one decision changed the world forever. When Richard Branson was labeled dyslexic, he decided the impairment would make him more intuitive in business.

What sets world leaders apart is their decision to turn obstacles into opportunities. One person could grow up in poverty and decide that means they could never be President of the United States. While another in that same circumstance or worse decides that it is the very reason they should become President. The first sees their circumstance as a stumbling block that creates an impossibility. The second uses their “obstacle” as a way to relate to people that gains them popularity, and eventually the Presidency. Same circumstance…completely different outcome. The only differing factor was what they decided that something meant.

Say that you are walking down a path and come upon a huge boulder blocking your path. What would you do? Too many people choose to turn back then use that as their excuse for not being able to live the life they want. It’s those rare few who make the decision to learn how to rock climb. Those are the mega-successful who not only surmount the obstacle in front of them, but in so doing gain the skill and confidence to then climb any mountain they want to.

What are you seeing as an obstacle in your life right now?Make a list of all those things you feel are stopping you from fulfilling your financial, health and/or relationship goals.
Now imagine for 5-10 minutes there is no such thing as an “obstacle”…how could each one of these obstacles actually be a great opportunity?

If memories are the cement that perpetuates beliefs, then decisions are the cornerstones of belief. They act as the line in the sand from which you will make future choices. I had a woman in one of my seminars who had made a decision at an early age that “it’s a man’s world.” Because she was a woman and obviously couldn’t do anything about this “obstacle,” she had a lot of difficulty achieving what she set out to do. It wasn’t until she became aware of the unconscious decision and realized she had made it only as real as she believed it to be, that she chose a different way of seeing things and her business expanded.

So it is essential to figure out:
What decisions did you make in your past?
Do those decisions serve your goals or work against them?
What are you deciding about the events going on in your life now?

The bottom line is, it is not the events in your life that shape your destiny, but the decisions you make about those events. So often we put world leaders on a pedestal as if they possess some rare and elusive power that we were not born with. Power is simply the ability to create real results. Becoming conscious of the decisions you make on a day-to-day basis, and consciously and carefully choosing your responses or reactions to those circumstances gives you that power.

Even if you only pay attention to what decisions you choose on a daily basis, this aspect of personality alone can make all the difference in causing you to be unstoppable. This alone places you firmly on that pedestal with the elite achievers. Circumstance no longer has the opportunity to be an excuse. You have successfully allowed “obstacles” to disappear from your life.

Originally Posted: Feb 9, 2006 at 2:56 PM

Click here for Two FREE TICKETS to Christopher Howard's "Breakthrough to Success" Seminar

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Tuesday, 11 August 2009

Until the Uncomfortable Becomes Your New Comfort Zone

How many times have you heard someone say "I can't do that because I've always done...(something else)". Think of the generations of mineworkers who stubbornly saw no other option when the mines closed.

Sometimes others tell us we cannot do something because we have no previous experience in that field. They laugh at our dreams and try to hold us back. They say it is for our own good to avoid disappointment.

Fred Luster was a steelworker who was laid off. He had always had a knack for cutting hair so he became a barber. He moved into the entire field of personal grooming. From there he built Luster Products, a multimillion-dollar corporation.

What is stopping you from overcoming the unlikely, the impossible? Do you believe that you are not good enough, not clever enough, not able enough or are you just listening to the negative self-talk which is holding you back in your uncomfortable comfort zone?

There will always be obstacles, trials sent to test us eg a failed relationship, illness, financial problems, lack of support but from these we learn more to make us stronger, better equipped for the future. Are you going to allow these temporary setbacks to stop you achieving your potential? Even though you have been hurt before, it is the only way to grow. We all have the capacity to change, to lead meaninful and productive lives by awakening our consciousness. Consciousness is our energy force comprised of our thoughts, feelings and impressions from the outside world.

Find the reasons why you must grow, why you must make the change, why you must achieve. When you go inside and find those reasons, you become stronger.

When you decide that it is time to grow, be prepared for a bumpy ride until the uncomfortable becomes your new level of comfort zone.

©Antonia Harrison 2009 from Personal Development in the 21st Century

Tuesday, 2 October 2007

When the Why is Big Enough

To succeed in anything, especially something that requires change from the current situation, we must have a WHY that is big enough.

• What is it that gets you so excited you can't sleep at night?
• What is the real reason for you becoming what you want to be?
• Why do you want to break out of the rat race and achieve your freedom?

When the WHY is big enough, the HOW doesn't matter!

Any obstacle can be overcome if you know WHY you want to overcome it.

When you decide to make changes, people around you will feel uncomfortable as you are challenging their comfort zones. You are going against the norm and they will try to keep you as one of them. They may laugh at you. They may tell you are crazy to even imagine you could achieve what you want. They may tell you that you are just dreaming and will never be able to do that something different.

It will take guts to stick to your plans, your wishes, your hopes and dreams. You will need to be laser-focused. Others will try to stop you, try to keep you back.

But nothing will happen until someone becomes excited. If that someone is you, you need to know WHY you are planning this future. WHY do you want it? WHY are you prepared to leave your comfort zone to seek a better life?

When the WHY is big enough, the HOW does not matter. The WHY will remove the obstacles if you become a RHINO head set on success. You will become so tough that nothing will stop you.

To remind yourself constantly of the WHY, W-R-I-T-E I-T D-O-W-N.

You have heard that before, right? But have you done it? Have you written down your goals with the WHY clearly stated?

A dream only becomes reality when it is stated as a goal with a WHY translated into WHY you MUST have it. Think about that. You might say that you would like an idyllic holiday on a tropical island. That is a vague dream. Now turn it into a WHY: "I want to take my family on an idyllic holiday on a tropical island because the children want to see tropical fish when snorkelling and I want to improve my windsurfing in the heat." That sounds better than taking the kids to see fish in an aquarium and swimming in a crowded seaside holiday resort whilst your windsurfing is done in a wet suit on a reservoir in the cold.


Now make it a MUST: "I must take my family on an idyllic holiday on a tropical island because I want my children to experience the thrill of seeing tropical fish close up on a coral reef and I must windsurf with the sun on my back."

Now transform that dream into a vision statement from the MUST sentence and paste it in large letters where you can see it everyday, along with photos of those tropical fish and someone windsurfing in the sun.

Your subconscious mind believes that what you tell it is your reality. Turn the dream into a statement IN THE PRESENT TENSE. Now you have the WHY you MUST have it, your subconscious will find the HOW and remove the obstacles.

Click here for a Hypnosis MP3 download to help you stick to your goals

Antonia Stuart-James is an English Hypnotherapist in Belgium helping people to make positive change.