PREVIOUSLY
In Part 1 of Stand And Deliver, we took a little walk around the graveyard of our plans and our dreams. It’s a tough walk, but it’s best to face reality now rather than later. And the undisputed fact is that we are our own worst enemy. So, now that we are close and personal, it’s time for a few more doses of the truth. It’s the only way we can get to a better place in life. Get ready for it…

 

DON’T HURT ME

Now, don’t get me wrong.

I am not saying is going to be easy. In fact, I am going to tell you a few things to set that one straight.

It’s not gonna be easy. It’s gonna be tough. You are still going to get kicked. You are still going to fall. You are still going to fail. You are still going to get hurt.

If you are looking for easy, it’s never going to happen.

You will still have to go through the failures and the pain and the setbacks.

You will still get people who doubt you, who will drag you down, who will derail you, who will hate you for having the audacity of even trying to get to your dreams.

Those things will never change.

You see, a lot of people will try to go through life trying to avoid being hurt.

Trying to avoid being embarrassed.

Trying to avoid being rejected.

Trying to avoid failing.

Trying to avoid being put down by others.

They live a lifetime of trying to sidestep the pain.

But I’m going to tell you one thing.

You can go hide under your bed in your bedroom and pain will still come and find you.

You can go hide under a rice bowl in China, and pain will still find a way to stab you in the heart.

Pain is part of life. Pain is inevitable.

No matter what you do, no matter how much you try to duck it, how much you try to hide from it, pain will still find you because pain is part of how the world is constructed.

 

THE WORST PAIN OF ALL

But keep this in mind.

Of all the pains you are fearing, all the pain that you would imagine might happen to you when you try to get to a better place in life, none of these pains will hurt as much as the PAIN OF REGRET.

That is the WORST kind of pain.

Let me share something with you.

Earlier on in my career, one of the jobs I had was working with old people.

People who had lived long lives and knew the end was coming.

So, when we used to talk to me, they would take the opportunity to reminisce.

And when you listen to these people talk, they would go over their lives and they would tell you what they would change – if they only had another chance.

“If only…” – the two saddest words I know in English.

And when they talked, you could hear the pain in their words.

You could feel the ache in their hearts, the agony in their memories of knowing they would never have another chance to go back and fix the things they did wrong.

A lifetime spent trying to avoid pain and yet the pain was still there.

The pain of regret.

The vast majority of us will never try to get to a better place because we are governed by three things.

One. Our old habits. The things we are accustomed to doing.

Two. Our fears. Those things will keep us chained to our old ways and never let us get anywhere.

Three. The opinions of other people. Usually people we value.

It is these people that tell us that we are unable to achieve, that our dreams are too lofty, too high, or that we are taking ourselves far outside where we deserve to be and what we deserve to have.

So we are effectively living in a framework of a life set up for us by others.

You will find that many people have failed in getting to their dreams because, at the critical point in the achieving of that dream, the point that would make all the difference, at that point, someone that they trusted, someone they respected, someone whose opinion they sought, someone whose opinion meant a lot to them, someone they loved, that someone at that critical point in their lives told them they could not do it.

“You can’t do that!”

How is that for the destruction of the soul?

 

WHAT IF…

Now let me tell you of what if.

What if, at that critical point where you needed to make a decision, you chose not to pay attention to other people’s opinions.

What if, at that point, you decided to let go of your fears and you said to yourself “What would my life be like if I do this one thing?”

What if, at that critical point, you decided to have enough courage to follow your heart?

To do what felt right to you without the opinion of others dragging you down.

Without the weight of that fear stifling your goals.

You see, courage is not only the stuff they show you in the movies.

Courage is not going out to fight a major battle dressed in armour on horseback.

Courage is the ability to face your fears and still go out and make your dreams happen.

Courage is the decision to live your life to the fullest and never give up on your dreams.

Courage is not the absence of fear.

It is the conquering of fear.

Think of those people that you know have been very successful in their lives.

These are not people who have been fearless.

These are people who have conquered their fears.

These are people who have the courage to believe and to go for their dreams.

William Shakespeare once wrote “Cowards die many times before their death; the valiant never taste of death but once.”

COMING UP

In the third and final installment of Stand And Deliver, I’ll tell you what you need to do to instantly get to a better place in life. It’s all about how small decisions have a ripple effect, and how you owe it to yourself to be the best you can be. So stop limiting yourself – and that is something you can start doing today, with immediate effect.

 

 

Comments