A time to reflect
Part 2 — Continued (Saturday Page 26)
SO do you know what your skills, gifts, talents and abilities are? If you’re having trouble determining what they might be, there are heaps of ways you can help define what some of it might be. Get a pad and pen and go sit somewhere quiet then answer these questions;
1. What skills have helped you succeed in the past? Doesn’t matter how small or big those successes were or in what capacity they happened or how old you were when it happened. Write them all down to the minutest detail because they’ll lift your spirit;
2. What empowers you? For example, what fuels your motivational engine?;
3. What are you passionate about?;
4. What are your hobbies & interests?;
5. What compliments do you tend to receive but ignore that others are saying about you?;
6. What skills or abilities have helped you overcome hurdles & challenges in the past?;
7. What subjects or issues do you easily retain information about?
8. What comes easily and naturally to you & that you love doing or thinking about?;
9. What areas of your personal life do you require assistance with? Be totally honest with yourself & refrain from sugar coating any of it; and
10. What frightens you? Answer this one truthfully. Because this is where the rubber meets the road.
When you’ve taken the time to do a stocktake on yourself, you’ll most probably see a pattern emerging. If there’s a frequency of an emerging pattern it’s most probably a guide to what you’re good at and possibly, what scares you and is most probably a stumbling block in the areas of building a strong personal partnership as well.
They’re inextricably linked to apathy or a fear of moving forward in a new direction. You should explore all of it in greater depth and detail because it’ll give you a magnified close up of a lot about your life and the changes you need to make to turn your life around.
The other thing you can do is ask people you like, respect and trust what they think you’re good at and what they feel is a standout in your personality or skills. And ask them what they feel could be some areas of weakness too? Or go online and do a personality and aptitude test. Or speak to a good career coach or a relationship counsellor.
Because sometimes we need an independent pair of ears and eyes to help us remove the roadblocks especially in a close personal relationship such as a marriage partnership or business relationship.
And if you’re game enough to do the questionnaire you’ll be amazed at what you discover about yourself and just how good you really are. Yes, I’ve done both - the stocktake and the personality profile. And I’ve also sought the help and advice of various different types of counsellors. And they’ve helped me tremendously.
You’ll find there’ll be some eye-opening truths about yourself that you really need to take heed of and build on. Because all of us need tools to help build a successful relationship - be it in a personal partnership or in a business. Because they’ll help give your confidence a massive boost and also give you direction as to the things that could really help you and work for you. It matters little which side of the track you came from, which village, island, community or family you’re from.
You can think of every conceivable excuse in the book to justify why you can’t make a go of it, but it’ll change nothing until you change just one vital thing about yourself and that’s your thinking. That’s right, your thinking! You are who you think you are! And, for whatever reason, you may have given control of your thinking to some really crafty characters who have been masquerading as you.
In a way they’re counterfeits who have very stealthily taken over your thoughts. Some call it stinking thinking where the smell of all your failures, regrets, disappointments including all the other mountain of challenges in your life just hang around like a bad smell.
You deserve to make a success of whatever it is you’ve been thinking of going after. There’s no perfect time than right now to put a stake into the heart of apathy and procrastination.
Get excited about life and what it is you’re wanting to go after. If you’ve been dying to do that one thing you’ve been afraid of doing, just go ahead and do it. Give fear the flick. Because fear is an impostor. And if fear’s got you by the short and curlies, then you’re the one who’s giving oxygen to your fears. And that’s how fear gets a foothold then starts gaining control of your life.
Yeah, I’ve had my ding dong battles with my own fears. But in the process I discovered something. My fears weren’t outside of me. They were actually between the six inches of my ears. You see they were living inside of me with all their cousin brothers like they owned the place.
What’s even stranger still is, the more I thought about my fears the stronger they got. Thinking about my fears became like a giant stink on steroids. They began growing these massive muscles that eventually squeezed my confidence like a boa constrictor. And I became a prisoner of this massive army of negative self-sabotaging thoughts. You see, I was always grappling with this question, "an I good enough?"
I felt so unworthy that it would echo inside of my brain like an age old horrible song playing over and over again. It was on instant replay and knew exactly when to start playing.
This question was like someone was holding a gun to my head. And it stopped me dead in my tracks all the time. See, that’s the beauty of our brain. Just when we need it, like clockwork, we self-sabotage ourselves.
Would you like to know something. I never ever questioned the negative questions that would somehow miraculously drop into my mind whenever I needed a confidence boost to do something challenging. And for some foolish reason, I always answered in the negative believing the tripe. Just take a moment to think about that. Do you question your self-sabotaging questions?
Because most of us think the questions actually belong to us. In a way they do. But why do we get so territorial about these negative self sabotaging thoughts and questions that stop us dead in our tracks? And how come they have such a stranglehold, ruling our life with an iron fist?
Funny how those very awkward questions stop most of us like someone has just put a gun to our head.
We’ll, here’s a little test — ask the gun toting negative question to just go ahead and pull the trigger.
See, nothing will happen simply because it’s always shooting blanks. It always has. Because it’s fake. Yep, you and I have been held to ransom by a string of fake gun-toting negative, self-sabotaging questions. And we’ve believed the lies.
Now that the lies have been exposed are you going to stay stuck forever on that treadmill of lies you’ve been walking on wondering why you never seem to forge ahead in life? What have you got to lose? No point thinking about losing and losses. Many of us have had them in bucket loads yet we’ve survived to live another day. Get back up, dust yourself off and go again. You’ve got nothing to lose and everything to gain.
All of us came into this world with nothing and we’re going the same way we came in with nothing. So you might as well give it all you’ve got and enjoy the ride and the satisfaction of doing whatever it is you’ve always wanted to be or do and have the satisfaction of knowing you gave it your best shot. Look in the mirror. What do you see? Have a chat to that person staring back at you. Tell that person you were born for such a time as this and that you’re better than what you think you are.
Tell that person he or she is and a valuable contributor to this life. Do it every single day until you begin believing your positive self talk instead of the lying cheating selfsabotaging questions plaguing you. And let that person know you’d like to make a few adjustments.
First, you’re going to fire all those negative self-sabotaging questions that’s been blowing up all your dreams. And despite your fears, despite your failures, despite your regrets, despite every single individual who’s told you that you’re fooling yourself, just go do it anyway. So what if you fail. You have nothing to lose but time. It’s ticking. All of us are on the same life journey of discovery.
And you are just as important as the next person. The time we lose thinking about losing, we’ll lose forever. Lose that thinking because it’s stealing time from you. And there’s not much time left. The clock’s ticking. Come on then. What are you waiting for. Go for it and give it everything you’ve got. I look forward to hearing your story.
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