The Strong Within Affirmation Podcast
Education:Self-Improvement
388 Problems Are Actually Questions Asking Me To Be Better | January 2018 Tuesday Week 4
Tag Me Tuesdays-#388 January 23rd The Strong Within Daily Affirmation Podcast
Problems Are Actually Questions Asking Me To Be Better
The highest levels of performance come to people who are centered, intuitive, creative, and reflective - people who know to see a problem as an opportunity.
~Deepak Chopra
It was a chilly day for San Francisco on October 25th 1964 when the Minnesota Vikings came in to play the San Francisco 49ers. In the fourth quarter of the game future NFL Hall of Famer, Jim Marshall nabbed up a fumble and ran towards the end zone with no one on his heels. He saw the field goal posts and knew he had to bolt and get there no matter what the cost. And after running 62 yards making it in the end zone and throwing the ball into the stands, he waited for his teammates to meet him in the end zone with a congratulatory celebration.
A San Francisco player made it to Jim first and thanked him for what he had done. And Jim Marshall was confused. He looked up in the stands and his quarterback yelled at him…”Jim, you ran the wrong way.” Jim had scored a safety for the other team on accident by running 62 yards the wrong way. Jim was so embarrassed, as he knew this was a mistake he would never live down. He’s even quoted as saying, “it’s probably one of the worst mistakes you can make in football.”
Jim was devastated, and he thought his coach would let him have it for making such a mistake, but coach Norm Van Brocklin said, “Beanpole, you did the most interesting thing in this game today." Jim wanted to hide from embarrassment. He figured that there’d be laughing and booing, but he said there was a weirdness in the stands. And instead of letting his embarrassment control him, he decided to numb himself to his hurt emotions and play his best. And he actually caused another fumble from the 49ers, as a teammate picked up the ball and scored the winning touchdown for the Vikings.
Now you’d think that the story ended there, that I would tell you when you make a mistake to pick yourself back up and use it as fuel to help you change the outcome…but there’s more to this story. Jim’s play has been named one of the top 10 worst plays in the history of football. He’s been nicknamed Wrong Way Jim. And while he’s a Hall of Famer now, that play changed his life into making him more than just a football player.
After the game he had a friend ask him to come out and speak at a nonprofit organization event. Jim tried to avoid it, but his friend persisted, and so Jim decided to face the music like he did when he continued to play after his mistake on the field. His anxiety was through the roof before the event, and when he walked into the room where he was to speak, he received a standing ovation. Jim said he received tons of calls and letter from people telling him that what he did was give them the courage to talk about and face their most embarrassing moments. His mistake actually helped people to free themselves from their self-imposed prison. He later co-founded an organization to help kids deal better with their mistakes and become responsible members of society.
Mistakes are unavoidable, how we deal with them doesn’t have to be. We want to hide from the things that embarrass us, but they are our greatest teachers. And one big reason we feel embarrassed from mistakes is from the fear of the ridicule we might get from others, and yes there’ll be people who won’t let us forget what we did, but that’s because those people are living in a world where they find pleasure in other people’s pains. And the reason they find pleasure in our pain is it gives them a distraction to not look at their own mistakes.
Mistakes, embarrassments, and problems that we deal with, are really questions that are posed to awaken ourselves and see if we are willing to face the music. They’re questions asked internally if we’re willing to get up and try again no matter how many times we’ve fallen, failed, or how embarrassed we might feel. These trials are asking us how creative we can be in making our misfortunes something more than just a mistake.
And how we approach our mistakes can be answered in two manners:
1) We say, “I can’t overcome this. It’s physically too hard, it’s mentally too hard, or something or someone is keeping me from being able to do what I want.” 2) Or we can adopt the mantra of… “I can make this good, no matter what it is.”
And what I’m saying isn’t some trivial positive fluff telling you to get over your problems, to let them go. It’s quite the contrary; I’m asking you to rise above your problems by seeing them differently, by becoming different, and being changed because of them…being changed for the better.
You can be like 70-85% of humanity who will take a problem and complain that there’s nothing you can do. That it’s not your fault, that it’s unfair, and it’s just your luck that nothing works out for you. Or you can become something more, you can begin seeing a problem as a question not as a definite end…as you ask how can I make this good, how can I be forged through the fire and come out stronger and better because of this?
Today’s Personal Commitment:
What embarrassing mistake has kept you prisoner, and why is it keeping you prisoner? I’m not saying you have to shout it out to the rooftops for everyone to hear, but if it’s keeping you from growing, and moving on, maybe you need to look at better ways of dealing with the issue.
I know in my life the things I was embarrassed about kept me hiding. They kept me from moving forward or trying something again. My depression and thoughts of suicide made me think I was so different and no one would understand my pain…and so I hid in plain sight in all my pain…dying a little more each day. But until I could talk with a good friend who cared for me, he helped me to understand I wasn’t the only one thinking this way, and I wasn’t so alone…it freed me from my prison of fear. It freed me from thinking no one could understand me and that I was so different. It opened my eyes and awakened me to better possibilities.
We get so self-absorbed thinking that everyone is focusing on us pointing their fingers at us, and there are people like that, but those are the saddened people in this world. They need to focus on someone else's pain to make it through their own. Their pain has nothing to do with you. I know that idea is easy to say but much harder to wrap your mind around, but the more you work to understand it in your bones then the freer you will be.
So in the first question, I asked you what embarrassing mistakes have kept you prisoner. I want you to begin thinking about how you can free yourself from embarrasment’s grasp…because in the end, the one holding the key is you. And it’s not as bad as you think it is when you decide to face the music. The more you face the music, the more you’ll start living your life by asking the question of how can I make this good? The power is always yours to make a mistake a beautiful detour in your life, as it changed everything about you…for the better.
Problems Are Actually Questions Asking Me To Be Better
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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