Risk

Hanging on with…..?
Image from timsstrategy.com

“A ship is safe in harbor, but that’s not what ships are for.”  ― William G.T. Shedd

Many years ago, I owned a farm in Southern Queensland, Australia and ran an earth moving business from it.  One of my team was Tracey, a great guy who rode a Triumph motorcycle, had long hair down to the middle of his back, and absolutely adored his wife Rhonda and their two little girls.  He was a real wag and I loved working with him.  And he could drive bulldozers! Very important in our game.

The first Tuesday in November in Australia we are plagued with the Melbourne Cup, a horse race run in Melbourne where the prize money for the winners is obscene but it’s still just a horse race.  The whole country virtually stops for the day, to let the horses race – it’s an institution!

Tracey said to me: “Having a bet today?”

I replied “No, not today.”

He asked: “Don’t you have a bet sometimes?”

I answered him, “I just bet $50,000 on buying us a new bulldozer; does that count?”

“Never thought of it that way” he said and we went back to work.

My new  Earth Mover!
Image from olm-macchine.it

“A bend in the road is not the end of the road…Unless you fail to make the turn.” ― Helen Keller

What is risk?

Risk is when you stick your neck (or wallet) out for something you think you can win, but it is not guaranteed.  Like my bulldozer bet.  My business needed a new, more powerful and versatile machine so I chose what I thought would handle the work I had coming in, and the risks I took were that it was the right machine for the work, and that there was enough work to make the investment worthwhile. This $25 ‘risk’ I had been dared to was nothing more than a bet, a gamble I was almost sure to lose on!

Recently I was sent an email with the dubious title “Just wondering…are you a risk taker?”

The email went on to dare me to invest $25 (not much, really) to get an unspecified gift worth $1,000 plus a supposed money-making blogging platform.  After all, it’s only $25.  How could I go wrong?

When I invested/took a risk of $50,000 on my bulldozer, it was the equivalent value of five new family cars at the time.  That was a risk, but not a gamble.  I’d calculated the odds, weighed up the work I had and the amount of enquiry I was getting and took that risk.  The risk was worthwhile.

If I invest any money at all on what someone else has calculated to have a value, it was THEIR value they used to invite me to take MY risk, then I risk wasting 100% of my money.  The possibility is that their $1000 value is not worth a cracker to me, if I don’t need or want the unspecified item they are ‘giving’ away.  The blogging platform may be a scam or just plain worthless.  Since then, I have been bombarded with more and more emails, up to 3 times daily, trying all sorts of ways to entice me to part with that $25.  If that is what the blogging platform requires, then it’s a safe bet I’d waste my money.  That is called discernment – or assessing the risk/reward potential.

Risk Vs Reward – Calculate the risk and prepare for it!
Image from 1000lifelessons.com

To live is to risk!

People and in fact all living creatures have an inbuilt survival instinct – in other words, they fear for their lives and have this survival program running to protect it.  We jump out of the way of moving cars, avoid heights, wild animals, spiders and snakes and so on, because of this anti risk program we have running.  Rather than risk death, we aim to stay alive.

“The only safe thing is to take a chance.”   ― Elaine May

To love is to risk!

Is this the right person for me?  Am I worthy of this person?  Can I handle a relationship?  Will I be hurt?  Will it last?  These are all the questions our risk monitors race through our minds when we fall in love, or there is even the chance of it.  Is this worth the risk?

“There is no intensity of love or feeling that does not involve the risk of crippling hurt. It is a duty to take this risk, to love and feel without defense or reserve.”   ― William S. Burroughs

Is it worth it? Absolutely!
Image from pessimistincarnate.blogspot.com

Being yourself is a risk!

Will I be liked?  Will I be accepted?  Will I ‘fit in’ with the group?  Perhaps this is the risk that people are most frightened of, and why fashion and fads are so powerful in societies.  We are conditioned to believe that we are not quite right – perhaps the “Original Sin” conditioning, and that we need to be something else in order to be accepted by everyone else.  People are so anxious to ‘conform’ to someone else’s idea of what is ‘right’ or ‘in’, that they are frightened of just being themselves, yet it is what and who we are most qualified to be.  No other person on the planet can be YOU as perfectly as you can be!  Being outstanding is the key to success, yet it is what terrifies most people the most!

Being yourself is different enough!
Image from rachelslookbook.com

“So we shall let the reader answer this question for himself: who is the happier man, he who has braved the storm of life and lived or he who has stayed securely on shore and merely existed?”   ― Hunter S. Thompson

Why do we fear these risks?

Low self-confidence – the fear that we will not perform to the desired standard, and low self esteem – the fear that others will not like or value us, are the two beliefs that anchor us in fear of being ourselves.  We fear taking the #risk because we feel we may not perform or may not be liked for trying to perform.  Our need to be accepted and liked overrides our desire to succeed, or even try to succeed.

The antidote to this fear of taking a risk is a #personal empowerment program that delivers #self-confidence and #self esteem to you, in small doses, daily, continually, building your confidence and self esteem to the levels where you can walk confidently out into the world, just being you.  And proud of it!  Knowing that whatever risks you choose to take on you will succeed at. And feel great about!

“Happiness is a risk. If you’re not a little scared, then you’re not doing it right.”   ― Sarah Addison Allen, The Peach Keeper

Does such a self confidence and self esteem program exist?

Yes, absolutely, and it delivers much more than self-confidence and self esteem.  Confidence is built on repeated experiences of success.  The Life Change 90 program teaches goal setting and how to set small goals each day, as part of a larger goal getting program.  Each little goal you achieve is a confidence boost.  More than that, you learn to harvest the lessons from the day, find where your shortfalls are and work on improving any that matter to your success.  Communication skills, financial management skills, unlearning bad habits and installing new habits, all ticked off at the end of the day, to give you that feeling of “I DID IT!!!”  Daily tutorials hone in on specific areas and build from month to month to enhance your education in life skills, stress management, health, and personal empowerment generally in all areas of your life!

What she said!
Image from bpw-lakegeneva.ch

How do I receive this new personal empowerment?

Small, daily inputs, a few minutes each morning and evening.  Reading the tutorial each morning will take a couple of minutes, reviewing your goals and To-Do list, checking off your gratitude list and setting your affirmation a few minutes more, and you are ready for the day!

In the evening, check off your goal achievements, lesson for the day, expenses and income and a few minutes on your journal, and your program is complete!  This is your personal empowerment program in full.  For investing these few minutes a day, you receive a very healthy boost of self-confidence and self esteem, wisdom and experiences consolidated by your reviews, elimination of bad habits and installation of new desirable habits, and your goals and dreams are delivered to you, a step at a time, day after day!

“Risk anything! Care no more for the opinion of others … Do the hardest thing on earth for you. Act for yourself. Face the truth.” ― Katherine Mansfield, Journal of Katherine Mansfield

What is the risk?

The risk is that you will get the program and do nothing with it.  That’s why you will receive these blogs, week after week after week, a little pep talk, some further education in specific areas and a reminder of how powerful you could be, by living this program as though it was your life.  The truth is, it can change your life and in the next 90 days, your life could be incredibly enhanced by it!

Take a look at the program HERE and start right now!  The change you could make is the one you were searching for when you began reading this article!

If you feel this article has boosted your belief that you can become all you were meant to be, all you ever dreamed of being, and feel good about being YOU, then there are others who need to know this feeling too!  Please share it, email the link or reblog it to your friends and anyone else who you think may benefit from reading it.  They will thank you too!

Til next time, fair winds and full sails!

Ray Jamieson

“Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.”   ― Theodore Roosevelt, Strenuous Life

Please also refer to my other posts on #Empowerment, to assist you with your specific challenge.

Integrity, Spirituality and Empowerment

Financial Empowerment

Being yourself
Image from inspirationalquotesb.blogspot.com

Where are you searching?

An obvious place to search…!
Image from treasury.gov.au

“Make sure that the beer – four pints a week – goes to the troops under fire before any of the parties in the rear get a drop.” — Winston Churchill to his Secretary of War, 1944

It was a dark and stormy evening.  The very drunk man weaved his way down the footpath, crossed the road and into the car park.  He thought he could see his car, over on the far side, across the garden beds.  As he stumbled through the flowers, he pulled his car keys out, and dropped them.  He stopped, looked around but as it was dark, he couldn’t see them amongst the flower beds.  He turned around.

Some time later, another, quite sober man walked down the same footpath and saw our very drunk friend on his hands and knees under a street light, obviously searching for something.  He stopped and asked if he was OK, and had he lost something.

“Yesh… (belch) …!  I dropped my (hiccup) car keys an I yam trying to find them!”

“Can I help you search?” asked our Good Samaritan?

“That would be very mush apprec.. apprec… apprec… Thank you!”

After some time, it was obvious the keys were not there.  The Good Samaritan asked:  “Where were you when you dropped them?”

“I wuz in the flower garden over there in the car park an they dropped right out of my fingers…!”

“Then why are you looking here, and not over there where you dropped them?”

“Silly..  There’s no light over there!”

We can laugh at this funny story, but is there a real life parallel here?

#Where are you searching for what you want from life?

I went to the woods to seek enlightenment
Image from flickr.com

Are you looking where it’s easy to see, where it’s easy to be, rather than where “it” actually is?

Are you looking “out there” in things, or other people for the answers you need from a lot closer to home?  It’s easy to bury ourselves in work, or distract ourselves with toys, technology, titillation or temptation.  However, there comes a time when we realise that if we REALLY want to achieve what it is we said we wanted so long ago, that we have to get real, and go looking for it in the right place.  So where are you searching?

Searching for answers in toys
Image from thisnext.com

The right place may not always be in the light. The right place may not be easy.  The right place may be uncomfortable for a while.  The right place might be hard.

But being in the wrong place is eventually a lot harder and darker and less fun than looking in the right place!

Where are you searching?

Why are you searching there, rather than where it is?

Are you searching in the wrong place because you don’t know where to look?  Or because you are afraid you’ll find it?  That’s the scary one – fear of success can really mess up your party, and your life!  Getting over this is actually not as hard as you think, once you realise it might be a problem for you.  Read on…

“The true value of a human being can be found in the degree to which he has attained liberation from the self.” ― Albert Einstein

How do you know where to search?

The answers are usually within.  Within us.  Starting with the will to be honest with ourselves, and get clear with what we truly want.  And why we want it.  Once we know what we want and have a powerful reason why, the how will soon appear.  It always does.  Internal motivation works that way.

Whether the how, the method, strategy or direction to what you want is through a person, an opportunity, knowledge or whatever, once you have clarity and the motivation to pursue it, you will find a way.  However, that’s the hard way….

Many years ago, Thomas Alva Edison, working in conjunction with a team of researchers at his Menlo Park studio, invented the first practical light bulb which was great for looking in dark places.

You may not need a light bulb in your search, but you may need assistance to find what you are looking for, both in the early stages when you seek clarity and empowerment, and later, when you need a goalsetting strategy and a support team.  Where are you searching now?  Perhaps there is an easier way.

It’s all here for you.  We have a program that can change your life, pretty much as quickly as you choose to plug into it!  Your search must start with yourself, and that is where the program starts, creating a safe and supportive environment around you, teaching you how to get clarity on what you really want from life, enhancing your powers of awareness and observation, teaching you life strategies and consolidating your lessons every evening.  Your goalsetting activities are recorded daily, habits you want to break or create are recorded so you can see your progress with them.  Advanced life skills are bundled in so that you can change your life, in the next 90 days!  Permanent, positive change.  Is that what you were searching for?  Click here to discover it now!

If you feel this post has helped you to stop searching under the lamp-post and start looking where your goals are, then please, share this blog, pass it on to your friends and associates.  Perhaps you could be the one who helps them to start looking for what they want from life in the right place too!

Til next time, fair winds and full sails!

Ray Jamieson

“Do not look for happiness outside yourself. The awakened seek happiness inside.”
― Peter Deunov

Please also refer to my other posts on #Empowerment, to assist you with your specific challenge.

Integrity, Spirituality and Empowerment

Financial Empowerment

Empowerment for Men

Empowerment for Women

Personal Empowerment

Empowered by love

I FOUND IT!
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An Angel Without Wings

A whole city of Angels!
Image from swotti.com

“If I got rid of my demons, I’d lose my angels.”
― Tennessee Williams, Conversations with Tennessee Williams

An Angel Without Wings.

God is forever creating new Angels.

One day some time ago, he finished another Angel – but was having a bad day and forgot to give her wings.

“Darn it!” he thought.  “Well, I won’t put her back.  I’ll give her extra serves of love and courage, a radiant smile and she can go to earth and be an Angel down there, where she won’t need wings.”  So he put her on earth, as a baby.

Earth was a harsh environment for the Angel baby.  Life kept putting obstacles in her way, challenges to solve and the burdens of other people to weigh on her also.  There always seemed to be something else to do, someone else to heal, to care for or to help.

“My Angels have a lot of work to do,” he told Saint Peter.

But with the extra love and courage in her heart, the Little Angel’s smile shone like a beacon through all her trials and tribulations.  She became an inspiration to those around her.

God said, “I will give her more to do.”  He sent more needy people her way.

Life’s ordeals and unscrupulous people took away all she had, her health, her marriage, her money and he thought, “Surely this will try her out!”

Her courage never faltered, still her smile shone and her love inspired those who knew her.

St Peter looked down and wept at what he saw!

“God!!” he cried.  “You can’t keep this up!  She has already done more by her example than many of your other Angels and raised her children to be like herself.  Her example inspires all in the world that see her.  Please ease her burden, so that she may freely work for you!”

“Perhaps, Peter, you are right.  I will think on it.”  God was pensive.  He stroked a whiskered chin with his thumb.  “I’ll tell you what I will do, Peter.  I will give her the love of a wonderful man, surround her with true friends and shower her with peace of mind and satisfaction for what she does.

Maybe in the future her burdens will ease – but right now, My Little Angel Without Wings has much to do.”

WWII Fuzzy Wuzzy Angel in Papua New Guinea, assisting an injured Australian soldier. Angels come disguised in so many ways!
Image from en.wikipedia.org

“For truly we are all angels temporarily hiding as humans.”
― Brian L. Weiss

 

There are many angels without wings, just like this one.  You know who you are, Dear Angel.  You know when you are an angel to someone who needs you, someone whose challenges need some extra attention and you can give it to them, even though your own troubles and challenges almost overwhelm you.  You know so many people count on you and you just have to be there for them.  Take a bow – you are not alone!

An Angel at work!
Image from humanrights.gov.au

But you feel alone, Dear Angel, so much of the time.  You feel like the pain you bear will overpower you.  You feel like the isolation your situation causes will bury you in loneliness.  You feel like no-one else would understand your situation, even if you knew how to explain it to them.  And yet you keep on. And you keep praying.  Because that’s what an Angel will do.

More power to you.

This world has need of an angel like you.  We need more of you, many more of you.  If I could create the “Angel without Wings Network”, you’d be in there, with all those other special angels without wings, helping each other and helping heal the world.

There is an Angel Network.  However, it doesn’t cater for angels like this one, or perhaps an #Angel like you.  You are an Angel in hiding, a secret Angel that only a few people know about and appreciate, unfortunately.

Even Angels have bad days!
Image from fanpop.com

What I do know is that you, our Dear Angel, need help.  You need to give yourself the best possible chance of making it through this, and out to the bright spot on the other side.  And to do that, you need a loving and supportive environment around you.  You need encouragement, morning and evening, to keep going.  You need to see your achievements each evening, so you know your day has been worthwhile, valuable to someone and satisfying to you.  You need your own goals to aim for and to achieve, and you need to be taught how to rise to all the challenges that life is and will continue to throw at you.

Maybe we can help with that.  Everything you need is in a program created to empower people and Angels facing challenges, just like you may be.  The support, the positive encouragement, the education, motivation and inspiration each day, right here with you, every day.

Need a hand getting through life? CLICK HERE FOR ASSISTANCE!  Let us empower you to make it, no matter what life throws at you.  After all, an Angel without wings still should feel what it’s like to fly!

If you feel that this post has empowered an Angel, or made an Angel feel she could fly again, please share it, reblog it and pass it on to other Angels without Wings.  You know who they are.  Every angel should feel like they have another Angel to share with, and to fly to at times.  This could be your time to fly!

Til next time, fair winds and full sails, Angels!

Ray

“Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.”
― Anonymous, Holy Bible: King James Version

Old Habits Die Hard

Intense conditioning and programming of habits under way!
Image from git-security.com

“The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.”
― Samuel Johnson

Norm was fresh out of the army.  For six years, it had been the ‘spit and polish’ routine, and “Yes Sir, No Sir” had been the way of life.  Now, all that was finished, Norm was back home for a while.  It felt good, having the chance to break away from all the routines and settle into the easier going life on the farm for a change.  Well, that was the intention. Old habits die hard!

The first day back, and his father decided to bring in a load of firewood.  While Norm and the other boys polished off breakfast, Dad put the chainsaws on the truck, along with a few crow bars and axes.

Breakfast over, the boys trooped out.  Suddenly Norm called out, “Hang on a minute,” and darted back into the house.  About a minute later, he reappeared, with a silly grin on his face.

“I don’t have to polish my boots for you bunch.” He said.  “Let’s go!”

#Old habits die hard!

“Some rules are nothing but old habits that people are afraid to change.”
― Therese Anne Fowler, Souvenir

We all have conditioning drilled into us.  Conditioning is habit – we all have habits and have had for many, many years.  Our lives run by habit and that’s generally OK.  Takes a lot of pressure off remembering what to do, like breathe, walk and so on.  Subconscious programs are developed when we learn and develop habits.  We may not even realise they are running, while they take control of our lives.  Maybe we’d like to change them, but old habits die hard.

A habit to change?
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Not all conditioning or habits are good, and some may need to be changed as we outgrow them.  We do outgrow habits and their subconscious programs.

Habits and subconscious programs are like railroad tracks.  Hard to get off, once you get onto those rails.

A program in motion
Image from wikipedia.org

Programs can fail or go wrong, without us realising until it has happened.  That’s when trouble hits and we find the program no longer serves us.

Can someone please explain this to me?
Image from gizmodo.com.au

Getting off tracks and out of habits and programs can be a challenge.  Old habits die hard!

A bit of a challenge changing tracks the hard way.
Image from ptarm.tumblr.com

However, done correctly, changing an unwanted habit or program can be easy!

Changing habits should be this easy!
Image from leungkm.blogspot.com

You just need to install a new program.  Not all old habits die hard, after all!

“Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.”
― Jim Ryun

My Darling wife bought a new computer today.  A beautiful object, a work of art.  However, it’s useless.  It has no programs installed.  YET.  The program is in the box, ready to download.  Then, the computer will be ready to do the most amazing things for her.  With the new program installed.  Doing what SHE wants it to do.

Isn’t it lovely?
Image from zdnet.com

This is also how to change a habit you no longer want, a habit that is running as a subconscious program in your life.  Insert a different program into your computer.  Change your program!

One new program/habit coming up!
Image from http://www.mln.com.au

Yes, it can be done.  There is a program specifically designed to enable you to change habits, simply, quickly and without getting yourself off track and into trouble.  Creating a controlled environment around you, supportive, encouraging, and one that celebrates your successes and supports you into new habits and conscious programming of your mind and your life.  Old habits die hard, but only when you don’t know how to change them properly!

Click here to find out more about changing habits, and learning new ones that can make life so much better for you, in any way you desire.  And kick that old, unwanted habit to the kerb!

“A nail is driven out by another nail; habit is overcome by habit.”
― Desiderius Erasmus

If you found this post to be empowering, and supports you into changing old programs and unwanted habits, please share it with your friends and associates.  Reblog it so that other people can gain these benefits too.  They will be grateful you did.

Til next time, fair winds and full sails,

Ray Jamieson

 “Warren Buffett chuckled and said to me “I hope it’s not my bad habits”. Good Habits once established are just as hard to break as bad habits, and bad habits are easier to abandon today than tomorrow. So what are you going to do about it?”
― Lucas Remmerswaal, 13 Habits.com the Tale of Tortoise Buffett and Trader Hare

What a great New Habit!
Image from thingstodococoabeach.com

Empowerment through Challenge

A leap of faith
Image from daretoleap.co.uk

“Being challenged in life is inevitable, being defeated is optional.” ― Roger Crawford

There are times when the road seems too hard, the climb too steep, the challenge too great.  There are times when the most reasonable decision would be to give up, admit that the challenge was just too hard, and go home.

There are also people for whom that is not a choice.

Their choice is to press on to succeed or literally to die trying – or not trying.  Sometimes, the challenge MUST be faced, whether we like it or not.  At these times, heroism surfaces.

The unlikely heroes are those people facing chronic illnesses, chronic pain, the “invisible diseases” such as Depression, CFS and Fibromyalgia and other illnesses that at a glance, people afflicted with them show no visible symptoms.  Other people with little choice are those whose children face a challenge and as parents, they must continue.  There are people struggling on minimum wage, raising families on incomes below the poverty line, with no safety net and where failing the #challenge means starvation.

Invisible Illness – unsung heroes
Image from noonegetsflowersforchronicpain.wordpress.com

There are movies produced about some of the heroes.  We may never know the truth of their heroism, such as in the tale of “Lorenzo’s Oil”, where a father studied his son’s disease and in the movie, found the cure for it.  There are real life parallels to this tale now, especially since genetic engineering has become an acknowledged branch of science.

There are other heroes, such as where a person has been wrongfully convicted and either they or their partner studied law in order to challenge and perhaps overturn the decision.  Heroes where the underdog came through, changed their world, and that of many others too.

Heroes of everyday challenges
Image from themotherhood.com

On a day-to-day basis, there are many heroes facing a challenge that will never make headlines, but is just as real.  The single mother, trying to raise her children, without support, on a budget far below what is necessary, in circumstances that can at best be described as a challenge.  The small business owner facing tough competition in a changing market, struggling to survive.  A person with low self-confidence and low self esteem looking for a new job, a career, or even just a friend. The dyslexic person in the admin role, trying to write a report.  So many people face challenges that to others are no big deal, but to them, it’s their life!

There are times when a challenge has created a break through in thinking and a whole new invention, solution or branch of science has resulted.  The problem has been solved because someone either “broke through” the problem with advanced thinking and higher intelligence, or they “broke with” the thinking; they tried something totally different, lateral and creative and found a back-door solution to the problem!  Only challenge provides this opportunity and it is how humanity has advanced.

Can you break through to succeed where others have failed the challenge?

It’s possible, but that doesn’t mean you always get your old life back.  Sometimes, it’s not there to reclaim.  You may overcome the challenge but you cannot unlearn the pain you endured.  You will be a different person, even if your old life is offered to you again.  It may not feel the same, because you are now changed, evolved.  You’ll need to grow into your new life, even when you succeed and overcome the challenge!

“Embrace each challenge in your life as an opportunity for self-transformation.” ― Bernie S. Siegel

Where do you turn, when it is YOU facing the challenge?

The first thing to remember is that we are not alone in this.  Maybe there is no saviour nearby, but that doesn’t mean help is not available.  A quote from Einstein said “Man cannot solve the problems he created with the same level of intelligence with which he created them”.  In other words, to solve a problem, access a higher level of wisdom, and to do that we need to find or become someone with more wisdom.  Become smarter.

How can we become more intelligent when facing a challenge?

Specialised knowledge is required to solve a specific problem.  Go to the source of wisdom in that area.  Research, learn, outsmart your challenge.

Financial challenge – perhaps too much debt?

The local library has resources on debt and creditor control, but also resources on creating more income and cashflow.  Life Change 90 presented the Financial Empowerment blog recently.  It also has brilliant strategies on how you can become financially empowered by accessing higher financial wisdom and thinking.

Social challenge?

Personal development, working on your Self Confidence and Self Esteem can make a huge difference.  There are simple and easy ways to improve these critical areas of your life, when you know how.  These blogs HERE and HERE provide a pathway to tools, resources and education in those areas.

Health Challenge?

There are two parts to a health challenge:  Firstly, finding the cure and recovering from your illness, if that is possible.  Secondly, managing to live and function and have a quality of life while you face your health challenge.

Starting over in a new life
Image from amputee.com

Facing a health challenge can be debilitating.  Whether it is pain, energy levels, tiredness, nausea, headache or more, when it is constant, it wears you down, slows thinking and numbs your feelings and emotions.  It is relentless.  The most positive person will face times of despair when it just seems too hard, too painful and just too much.  We wrote about this in the Challenges Of Chronic Illness Blog.  All the while you are feeling so miserable, you also face the medication, the hard work that you and your mind and your physical body must still do to actually look for and implement the cure and the healing process.  It’s even harder if there is no recognised cure and symptom management is your only apparent option.

What does your particular challenge have in common with all other challenges?

There are a few aspects of facing a challenge that are common to each, and therefore have a way of being handled and managed.  There are specifics which are unique to each individual challenge, and you will learn to handle these once you get the fundamentals down. Let’s look at the common aspects for strategies towards success.

Challenge Fundamentals

We all need goals!
Image from traducirco.com

First:  Goalsetting.  It is vital to the life of every person on the planet, but handled differently when facing a severe challenge.  When life is easy, you can set huge goals and risk everything on them because you feel invincible.  But that’s not now.  Your goals need to be small, step by step goals that you might mark off in hours, or even minutes.  The increments to your milestones might be tiny, but they are there.  When you achieve them, you must celebrate like crazy!  For a person learning to walk after losing their legs in an accident, running a marathon is not the goal; just standing up is the challenge.  When you make it, celebrate!  And when you take the first step again, celebrate that too!  The marathon can come later; right now, let’s just take one more step!  Keep your goals small enough to achieve realistically, without compromising other critical areas of your life.  Celebrate each in your own way when you achieve them.

Second:  Support.  Who do you have around you?  A team is important.  Not necessarily friends because sometimes they try to not hurt your feelings, by not telling you the truth.  Someone impartial.  Maybe a coach?  Your church minister?  Someone who can be a mentor to you and honestly let you know how you are doing, by providing objectivity.

Third:  A program.  You MUST be organised.  This challenge will wear you down unless you have a plan of attack for it, and you follow that plan.  The plan needs to address your goals, and keep you up to working towards your goals every day.  It needs to empower your motivation to keep you inspired, even through tough times.  Affirmations and encouragement, inspirational education, new ways to look at obstacles, and challenges to broaden your thinking to find new solutions.  It should make you think laterally, to give you a fresh perspective.

Fourth:  Personal development and education.  To rise above your challenge, you need to be more of you than you are now.  Self education, self development, growth and evolution are required.  Your program must provide a pathway to a new level of consciousness if it is to work for you.

Fifth:  Encouragement.  A platform and a process to recognise and celebrate learnings, lessons and achievements.  When you have a win, it must be acknowledged.  Every night, you need your program to register your activities and achievements so you can chart your production and progress.

Sixth:  A Supportive Environment.  Even if you are totally alone, you need an environment around you that is positive and uplifting, conducive to success and progress, even if much of it is internal to begin with; especially to begin with – the time of most challenge!  This is when self-discipline and focus on goals is most critical, to enable you to build momentum towards your goals, to consolidate new habits where necessary, and to leave the old ones behind.  Your program must create this environment around you.

To learn about and access such a program, CLICK HERE for the framework and the features you need to build in, and the benefits it will give you.  Plug your life and your challenges into this program, to look at your world in a new light.  The light at the end of the tunnel!

If you feel better able to handle your challenges after reading this post, please reblog it and share it around.  You may be doing a friend or someone in your family the favour they have been secretly praying and crying out for!

Til next time, fair winds and full sails!

Ray Jamieson

Please also refer to my other posts on Empowerment, to assist you with your specific challenge.

Empowered by Gratitude

Empowered by my Failures

Integrity, Spirituality and Empowerment

Empowerment through Emotional Intelligence

Financial Empowerment

Empowerment

Empowerment for Men

Empowerment for Women

Empowerment for Teens

Empowerment for Children

Personal Empowerment

What would an empowered man do?

Empowered by love

A new lease on a new life!
Image from onlytoptens.com

“The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They’re there to stop the other people.”
― Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

Empowered by Gratitude

Gratitude?

A new day, a new start
Image from aquabumps.com

“Isn’t it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?”
― L.M. Montgomery

Did you wake up this morning?

That’s something to have gratitude for.  Many didn’t.  What does waking up each morning mean?

When you wake up each morning, or whatever time you wake up, it means you have another chance to start life all over again.  Now I know that some people are locked into a pattern which is not easy to break free of, and I’m thinking here of people in chronic pain, people who are on minimum wage and who know that finding a better paid job won’t be easy, and so many more people who have life challenges to face.

But you woke up, didn’t you?  That’s the first step towards a new life, a life change if you wish, but regardless of how you look at it, your life starts again the moment you wake up each day and that’s something to show #gratitude for.  You got another chance to start over.

What can you do with a new day?

Perhaps you can’t change everything in your life all in the next day, this new day you have given to you.  But you can change something if you need to, want to, or HAVE to!  Start small, with the single thing that will make the most difference if you change it.  A habit?  A thought?  Something you don’t do, but perhaps should?  Something, anything, but if your life is not exactly where you want it to be right now, at this time of your life, start making changes, little ones, to gently steer your life in the direction you need it to go.  Then show some gratitude, say a little “thank you” that you can do even this much.

How do you know if the change is the right one?

In a way, it doesn’t matter.  It’s the stagnation that is the death of a life.  Sometimes, any movement is better than none, but once you make a start, get some movement, you can steer from there.  It’s very hard to steer your car when it’s parked at the kerb.  You need to be moving, any direction at all, before you can steer it.  So start moving.  And show gratitude that you can actually move a little.  A little “Thank you” for the ability to move.

Image from http://innerdelight.com/thriving-in-times-of-change/

Gain some momentum.

Once you are moving, after your feet hit the floor, you started to move, you turned in the right direction, you got a little speed up.  Perhaps not much, but a little.  This is called momentum and there is power in momentum.  The weight of your movement, the mass of you moving along has a force.  Use it to shift other bigger things.  Point it towards obstacles, tack on another change or two and use your momentum to carry you through.  Old train drivers called this “getting up a head of steam” and there you go, you have momentum.  You are moving, steering, gaining power with your momentum and making more changes.  There’s something more to show #gratitude for, a little “thank you” for the momentum.

A head of steam!
Image from burnham-on-sea.com

This is called changing your life, a step at a time.  It’s simple, but not always easy, and much depends on where you are starting from, whether at the top of the slope, or the bottom.

“It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt

“It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt
Read more at http://www.pickthebrain.com/blog/10-quotes-to-change-your-momentum/#GZhkeeqdED5smDXI.99

“It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt
Read more at http://www.pickthebrain.com/blog/10-quotes-to-change-your-momentum/#GZhkeeqdED5smDXI.99

“It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt
Read more at http://www.pickthebrain.com/blog/10-quotes-to-change-your-momentum/#GZhkeeqdED5smDXI.99

Sometimes you need a hand.

Look around you.  How many people are there in your life?  How many of them do you think are feeling the same way each day, facing challenges and wondering how to make it?  There are a few, feeling just like you, and some feeling very challenged also, much more than you.  My Dad told me something that has stuck with me, when I was around 7 years of age and walking out on a frosty morning to milk the two old milking cows.  I complained about the cold frost on my boots and he said “I cried when I had no shoes, til I saw a man who had no feet!”  I didn’t realise he was quoting the old Sufi proverb but it didn’t matter.  I gladly walked down to the cow-bail, in gratitude for my boots.

There are many people who would like a hand, and many who would like to help you.  More than you realise.  Sometimes though, you need to take the first step on your own, to demonstrate to others that you are serious about the changes.

One way of making little changes that add up to a powerful momentum in a short period of time is to lock into a program that has these gentle changes built into it, and can help you decide what and when and where the most effective changes could be made.  That program also has a gratitude section in it, and without a doubt, showing gratitude for where you are already is perhaps the most powerful tool at your disposal! 

To learn more about this powerful program with the inbuilt gratitude program as well as all the other vital tools for changing your life, CLICK HERE NOW! 

You’ll be glad you did, as you watch your life change direction under your guidance, and build up a head of steam in a way that you will always want to show gratitude for!

Show some gratitude!

After all, you DID wake up this morning, didn’t you?

If you feel gratitude for the lessons I hope I have presented to your here, please reblog and share this post with your friends, family and associates.  Share your journey with them.  Everyone deserves an opportunity to look at their new day with fresh eyes and feel gratitude just for having the chance to start again, this new day.

Til next time, fair winds and full sails.

Ray Jamieson

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. 

Melody Beattie

By the way, if you are looking for some inspiration on how to make the most of your new day, please also refer to my other posts below on Empowerment: There might be something of special interest for you here.

Empowered by my Failures

Integrity, Spirituality and Empowerment

Empowerment through Emotional Intelligence

Financial Empowerment

Empowerment

Empowerment for Men

Empowerment for Women

Empowerment for Teens

Empowerment for Children

Personal Empowerment

What would an empowered man do?

Empowered by love