You work all day and it’s a HARD day.
You come home.
You cook for the kids.
You cut the lawn.
You do the laundry.
You clean the house.
You trim the shrubs.
….and now it’s time to work on your dreams?
THAT is the reality of what most self appointed guru’s are asking you to live your life doing.
Here’s a fact:
It isn’t going to happen like that.
Not in real life.
One of the biggest reasons people feel unmotivated is because it seems too difficult to make the changes they want to see in their lives.
After doing all that...stuff, when you finally get a “free moment” isn’t it easier to sit back and do nothing, moan and groan about how awful everything is, and dwell in the river of mediocrity.
That IS what it feels like.
But it only feels easier to do that because we’ve gotten USED to doing that.
In truth, you are already working hard at staying right where you are.
How long have you been in the life situation you are in right now?
When you feel pain through 12 hours or more of the day, the last thing you are going to actually
Take action on is something new that is also uncomfortable. Face it. It’s much easier to think, “I deserve something good. Something fun.”
And that is true.
What you’ve been doing is like balancing on a fence. Momentum wants to pull you in one direction, while your exhaustion, fears or doubts are pulling you in another direction. It takes tremendous endurance to stay balanced between two powerful forces like that!
Since you’re already working hard at staying stationary, it is a mathematically simple matter to shift your focus and redirect your energies to begin moving forward. But emotionally?
WOW, it’s not so easy.
How to…?
It seems like a major leap to move from where you are to where you’d rather be. Like here’s you and here is the moon…
Take note. There is probably just ONE SIGNIFICANT THING that stands between you and your ability to move forward. This one thing will be different for everyone, but review the most common reasons below and see which is happening in your life:
Fear:
You’ve gotten it into your head that something bad will happen if you begin working toward what you want. You have a feeling of dread or doom, and you feel sure that you’ll somehow screw it up or fail. You don’t want to experience that feeling of failure, so you choose to not try at all.
You work all day to get where you are when you come home. Tired and paid. Now you are going to work at “success?” “Achievement?” You’re going to work hard at making something good happen in life but you don’t KNOW it’s going to happen?
What should you fear more: taking a chance and possibly failing, or never trying at all and creating a certain life of mediocrity?
When you look at it like that, you’ll see that fear of failure is ridiculous. It seems overwhelming at times, yes. But it means nothing in the big scheme of things. So you may stumble and fall a few times. Big deal! Just get your backside, in gear, and get moving again!
It may sound overly simple for me to say that, but once you experience it for yourself, you realize how wild a fear of failure really is.
Doubt:
Even if you don’t fear failure, you might lack confidence in your own ability to overcome challenges and create the life you want. You might even doubt your ability to know the right path for you.
The only way to know for sure is to try! If you want to make positive changes in your life, you HAVE to be willing to believe that you have what it takes.
You have to believe that even if you don’t initially have what it takes to succeed, you can work on developing it. Do you think that ANY successful person was just born that way? Obviously not! Each and every successful person has to go through a learning curve, and continually push themselves past their limits.
They had to start small and take one step at a time, honing their skills, developing new ones, and further strengthening those too. You are no different. In all probability, you have the same exact ability to do what successful people do.
When I go to Vegas and sit at the blackjack table, I meet a lot of people. Most of them are surprisingly happy. (They had better be wealthy or they need to sit at a different table.)
Sometimes we introduce ourselves. One time I was playing with the guy who played Minnie Me in Austin Powers. Another time, with the Producer of Wedding Crashers. Another time with the owner of a NINE figure hedge fund. (WOW)
The thing is, we were all just a bunch of guys sitting down playing cards and having fun.
And, all of us were in town working.
And all of us agreed we loved our work.
Laziness:
Let’s be honest; sometimes we all feel lazy. We like taking the easy way out as often as possible. We’d rather sit and stare at a television screen or computer screen because we don’t have to think too hard, or work too hard. We can just collapse into a vegetative state and not have to overcome challenges or face our fears. Unfortunately, this creates a set of consequences all its own, some of which you may be experiencing right now.
Let me share a secret with you: you can still have your periods of laziness AND excel beyond your wildest dreams! It’s all about balance.
But not that kind of balance that leads to eternal mediocrity.
It’s about doing what you love. It’s about literally living your dream.
I wouldn’t be serving you at all if I told you to avoid the activities you enjoy. You NEED those things.
I’m just like you. I work hard. Every time I learn to work smarter, I do and then I work harder TOO. But that’s in large part because I love my work.
The difference is I like to plan my business with my pleasure and as my pleasure.
For me, Las Vegas is great fun. I really do love to play blackjack (particularly when I'm ahead of the casino and they are paying for the hotel room), relax in a penthouse suite, see a provocative show. For me it’s all good.
And I do that at night.
In the daytime I work training or mentoring or whatever it is I’m in Las Vegas for.
If I want to play more, all I have to do is more gigs in Vegas. Not rocket science.
You need to have a fun social life, and plenty of downtime to relax and recharge. But you also need MORE than those things. You need a sense of pride and accomplishment about what you do. And what’s cool is that you can work at something you love and play at something you love too!
So, what’s stopping you from moving forward? Is it fear, doubt, laziness, or something else? Identify your inner blockage, (oh! Great book title written by a plumber or gastroenterologist!) and then take steps to blast it the heck out of your life. Stop working hard at mediocrity, and start working hard at success. Let your inner momentum carry you forward toward the life you truly want – and deserve.
Do you want to live your dreams? Really? Dreams you can fulfill in the REAL WORLD? Use the free resources on the left hand side of http://www.kevinhogan.com/ I'll see you there!
Kevin Hogan, Psy.D. is the author of 16 books including The Psychology of Persuasion, Covert Hypnosis and Irresistible Attraction
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