Often in our day, we get bogged down with the aspects of our lives and our daily tasks. Because of this, we end up slowing down our journey towards a future goal – usually in an area we view as self-improvement. After we slow down, we get to a point where we stop pursing our task all together. We often tell ourselves that it is just for a little bit, perhaps a week, a month, a year etc… and that we will pick up where we left off later on.
I have often heard sayings from a financial / business perspective such as “If you aren’t moving forward you end up going backwards”, referring to a business becoming stagnate and getting past by its competitors. This concept applies to us and our daily lives as well. Just because we aren’t moving forward with our goals does not stop others from changing around us; and it doesn’t stop our lives from changing either.
If you are working on personal improvement keeping up your momentum is a vital item. Take an exercise program / outdoor activity as an example. You may decide to start walking to get in shape and be spurred to action. You keep up your activity for a bit and notice improvement but then something else comes along and you stop your activity. Since you no longer keep your activity going you start to lose all that you have gained … in a sense going backwards. This simple example is viewed in almost all our actions on a daily basis. With no movement on our part, things often fall behind, get old, decay etc… even if it just from the passing of time.
Standing still is an action in itself; making no decision, is a decision in its own right.
My quote for the day:
All change is not growth, as all movement is not forward.
Ellen Glasgow
Many times we become anxious, angry or fearful over the simplest of things. It could be something as small as a dirty dish left in the sink, or stepping on a dog’s chew toy that will trigger a reaction. In truth these items are not what bothers us, instead they are a simple spark that ignites what we are holding onto inside.
Many times we can pinpoint what is troubling us after the fact, after we work through our emotions and look into what is truly bothering us. A majority of the time what is bothering us can be boiled down into a simple phrase – “Loss of control.”
As we go through our lives we are often impacted by things we have little control over. In turn we focus on things we can influence – i.e. the dish in the sink is something we (or anybody) can easily just wash. These tend to keep our emotions in check yet do not assist us with our underlying difficulty.
This difficulty comes back to haunt us when we forget about it consciously. Often we become so fixated on what we turn too that we neglect this emotion, yet it still remains with us, silently controlling our actions. This hidden emotion starts to cost us in other areas. We often become distant with others, depressed, step on people’s feelings, lash out for no apparent reason etc… These actions develop simply because we are fearful or become angry with the feeling of losing control in our lives.
In truth our feelings towards losing control are natural, many people have difficulty with accepting that some things are beyond our influence and no matter what we do items will always be beyond our grasp. What we cannot do is to have these feelings silently control us – that is truly ironic – to be controlled by our feelings, especially about having a lack of control – is the very thing we are fighting against in the first place. Instead recognize the feeling / emotion, realize that the feeling can influence you easier than you it, make your peace with it and move on. Spend energy on other areas and do not let this emotion control you.
Quote for the day – “Let us be silent that we may hear the whisper of God” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
