What doesn’t have to be hard?
If you’re talking about “life” then it seems like most people think it is hard. Just listen to the following statements;
“Nothing worth having comes easy.” That’s compliments of Theodore Roosevelt.
More classics…
- “Life is hard and then you die!”
- “If it were easy, it wouldn’t be worth anything.”
- “Don’t trust it if it comes too easily.”
It doesn’t have to be hard…
You see, if you don’t try, you can’t fail – but you can’t succeed either. It takes faith to move from comfort to uncomfortable.
When you were little, tying your shoes was hard. Hey, for me that was before Velcro strips, you HAD to learn. You used your fingers to figure out what two plus two equaled and then a teacher showed you another way and math became easy.
You learned you had to keep your eye on the ball if you hoped to hit it – from a coach and you ran to first base. Or you stumbled over how to pronounce words when you started to read and your mother helped you.
Here’s what all those actions have in common: YOU LEARNED HOW TO DO THEM!!! And you didn’t have to learn them alone.
How many of you have a teenager in the house or one that’s a grandchild? You’re struggling over how to use your “smart phone” – misnomer or what – or your email, or how to search a site on your new computer. And they say, “It’s easy.”
And you look at them and say – yeah, for you!
Because everything does become easier when you know how! And the beauty is that there is someone out there who has achieved what you’ve wanted to achieve. It’s easier than ever now because of the internet. It can help you find people to connect with.
What’s your hard place? What’s your hard excuse?
Do you think starting a relationship is hard, a business, writing a book or song, planting a garden, starting retirement? How about a new job, losing weight, moving – fill in the blank?
Sometimes it’s not the fear of failure that stops us — it’s the fear of success.
If I change, then “they” might not accept me; want to spend time with me; love me…
We’re prepared to try and change someone else – it would be so nice if they did this or didn’t act like that. Oh, we’re all for changing others.
And when we point out the areas in their lives where they could be better, do better and they don’t listen, well some people, we say; just don’t want to be helped.
But what about you?
Are you willing to let go of your hard place?
When you make a suggestion you’ll often hear, “Yes, but” the two most quelling words in a sentence, followed by all the reasons it won’t work:
- “I tried that once and it didn’t work”
- “I don’t have the money”
- “I don’t know the right people”
- “That might work for you, but not for me”
- “I don’t have a degree”
- “I don’t have the right training”
- “That might have happen to you, but it won’t happen to me.”
And then there’s “I don’t care what you say, it’s just too hard.”
Those are excuses – not reasons. Once you recognize that, then change can happen.
Here’s how to conquer that:
Make a list of all the successes you’ve had in your life.
Trust me, it’s going to be long once you start thinking about it! Those are your VICTORIES. Yours!! Take the one dream you’ve longed for and take one step toward it and when you accomplish that step, take another.
I heard two phrases two years ago:
- Done is better than perfect
- Don’t die with your music still in you
Once we learn how to do something, we forget how hard it seemed. We don’t think about picking one foot up and placing it down a few steps in front before we pick up the other one and move it forward – we just walk.
We don’t think about all the parts of the automobile we had to learn to master before we learned to drive.
Once we master anything, we tend to forget the learning part.
Pick up a smooth stone, from your garden or anywhere. Put it where you can always see it. A smooth stone has gone through a lot of tumbling. It once was part of a mountain. It was plied loose, sent down to be tumbled in water over and over again until it became smooth to the touch. We get tumbled around like that – big tumbles like illnesses, loses of loved ones, habits we wish we could break and eventually we get worn down – but that’s just a way to reveal our true beauty inside.
The hardest stone on earth is a diamond – but it can still be shaped from a lump into a dazzling stone that glimmers in the light. If no one believed that could happen, if no one had tried, we wouldn’t see the beautiful possible inside. Use that smooth stone to remind yourself that it just appears hard – scientists tell us that every item is just atoms moving so fast we perceive them as solid. This stone was once part of a mountain and now you can hold it in your hand.
Benefit from the Adapter Factor today
Linda Lynch-Johnson is available for keynote, breakout sessions and spousal programs for your next event.
Let her help you use The Adapter Factor to thrive. She can be reached through her agent, Jennifer Lier at Las Vegas Keynote Speakers by calling 702-706-4037, or by using the button below…
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