The Strong Within Affirmation Podcast
Education:Self-Improvement
382 My Dreams Pursue Me | January 2018 Wednesday Week 3
Wisdom Wednesdays-#373 January 17th The Strong Within Daily Affirmation Podcast
My Dreams Pursue Me
“The world is like a reverse casino. In a casino, if you gamble long enough, you're certainly going to lose. But in the real world, where the only thing you're gambling is, say, your time or your embarrassment, then the more stuff you do, the more you give luck a chance to find you.”
~Scott Adams
I was on social media, and I saw a picture oh Dwayne Johnson, a.k.a. The Rock, working out and he was wearing a shirt that said chase your dreams. My perception of the Rock is a hard worker no matter what he does. And I recall watching a video of him talking about his life right out of college.
His dream was to play in the NFL, and he was in the city of Vancouver playing his first pro game for The Calgary Stampeders in the Candian Football League at the age of 22. And 2 days later…he was cut from the team. If he would’ve gotten that wish, he wouldn’t be the person he is today. He wouldn’t have realized the different dreams he’s come to now. He said that “playing in the NFL was the best thing that NEVER happened. You have to have faith that the one thing that you wanted to have happen was the best thing that never happened.”
But, It’s hard to know what direction to go in life. That what we want may not be the best thing for us. So how do you move forward, if your chosen direction isn’t right? And what do you do, if you’re unsure if you should give up on your dreams? I think it’s a complex question because we’re looking at our answers from only our point of view.
We want to know every twist and turn, we want to be fortune tellers who know what the future, we want to be absolutely sure that we didn’t waste our time. But when we think that way, we’re blocking ourselves. We’re holding ourselves back and only giving half our heart living inside uncertainty.
I spent years putting only half my heart, half my spirit, half my energy into things just in case I was wrong, and so I kept one foot in and one foot out of the door just in case. And while I thought I was being clever, and playing it smart, what I was really doing was playing it safe. And by playing it safe, I was actually living a dangerous life. I was making my time almost irrelevant.
I lived dangerously by feeling sorry for myself thinking I didn’t get what I want, I spent years complaining how it is too hard or how things never goes my way, and I spent years wasting energy on being only halfway committed to something. Because what I didn’t consider—is what did it matter if I got what I wanted or not, if I gave my whole heart to something? We spend so much time looking at poor old me, and how it’s so sad it didn’t work out. And by keeping our focus upon all the tragedies in our lives, it cripples us. It keeps us from achieving better things in our lives, and it keeps us from moving towards the new goals we’re meant to obtain.
When you give your whole heart, your whole spirit, your full beliefs into the work…it will produce something great. Even if it’s not what you expect, you change the way dreams happen by operating your life in this manner. It’s no longer about chasing an elusive dream. It’s about pursuing the better you. And when it’s less about a specific outcome…dreams will find a way to you. You will be reversing the equation, and you will be reaping the rewards that come with the betterment of creating the best you.
We live our lives in fear. We’re afraid to love again after having our heart broken, we’re afraid to work towards something in case we’re disappointed again, and we’re afraid to live because there’s so much uncertainty within it.
And while life is uncertain that isn’t something to be afraid of, it’s something to rejoice in, because even if you didn’t get exactly what you thought you should’ve…you’ll find you got something so much better by committing yourself to a pursuit. You will ALWAYS find a peace in the pursuit of becoming the best person you could be. So, if you put your attention to fear and failure…you’ll find and create more of it. But if you focus more towards industriousness no matter what the outcome, if you focus on love in the moment for what it is, and if you focus on living fully in whatever direction you face…you will always see beauty. You will always find magic. And you will always be rewarded. Maybe not exactly how you expected, but with something even better than you might have imagined.
On a side note, sometimes goals don’t happen on our timeline. We give up too easily, and when we don’t put our whole heart and soul into something we prolong the time being able to obtain it. But if you focus on the betterment of YOU during your pursuit, you’ll never be disappointed by what you create along the way.
Today’s Personal Commitment:
I decided to talk about this subject today because I was feeling sorry for myself. I was feeling lonely as I was telling a negative story about past relationships. And I have to be very aware and catch this type of thinking, as it’s easy to just go into autopilot and feel sad for myself. I’ll think things like, no one will ever love me, that relationships are too hard, or that I’m meant to be alone. And those are all limiting beliefs. They are ways to keep me stuck in fear. They are reasons to keep doing things halfway and put the blame all on me, or someone else, never truly growing from the situation.
So I want to ask you:
-What’s that place, your kryptonite, that you go to and feel sorry for yourself?
-What are you doing in your life that’s keeping your foot halfway in the door and halfway out?
-What are the things you’re afraid of; what are the stories you’re telling yourself that are keeping you from fully committing towards what you pursue?
Alfred Lord Tennyson said, “it’s better to love and lost than never to have loved at all.” And when someone tells us that quote to help us in harder times, it’s not appreciated much. Our eyes narrow as we shoot daggers of pure hatred at the person only trying to help us. While we know they’re only trying to help, we get upset because we don’t want to hear it. We don’t want to look at the brighter side of things. We want to rationalize why we should stay in our pity, hurt, and anger.
The appreciation for that quote doesn’t come until we get far enough away from the heartbreak. And when we can do this, we get clarity that the end wasn’t the end of something infinitely; it was the beginning of something different.
Goals are hard endeavors because we make them life or death and say it will be forever. We’re asked as young children what do you want to be when you grow up? Which conditions our young minds to think that when we grow up we’ll only be able to make one choice, and be stuck there…so we must choose wisely. By thinking that way, it keeps us frozen because we don’t want to make a mistake and be stuck forever.
-So, what is something whether big or small that you can commit yourself to fully this year?
-What is something you can do this whole year, even if you aren’t getting exactly what you want during your pursuit of it?
-And how can you put your whole heart, mind, body, and soul into the task not for the reward of what you expect…but in knowing you’ll become better by this no matter what the outcome?
If you’re going to be changed, don’t be changed by bitterness, anger, or from the frustration of things not going your way. Be changed because you were open to putting in the resiliency of committing yourself fully to something no matter what the outcome would be. That’s one of the most freeing things you can do—to be open to all possibilities while focusing on being the best you wherever your attention is at the moment.
My Dreams Pursue Me
The Rock- Best thing that never happened.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iye7YYJt6A
Thanks for listening. I'm sending great energy your way as we become Strong Within together,
Personal Development Life Coach-
Chris O'Hearn
Contact info- email: chris@strongwithin.com phone:865-219-3247
Music by:
- Zest by basematic (c) copyright 2011 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license.
- I Have Often Told You Stories (guitar instrumental) by Ivan Chew (c) copyright 2013 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license.
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