How willing are you to really thrive? It might sound like a crazy question. After all, who wouldn’t want to be truly happy, calm, focused, moving forward on your most important goals? Who would choose to feel overwhelmed, stressed out, stuck and unhappy?
But take a minute to really think about it. Are there little changes that you would like to make in your life that you know will make you happier – working out regularly, daily meditation, making more time for friends and family – that you never seem to get around to?
Is there some secret dream that keeps calling to you, but somehow even taking the smallest first step seems too hard, too overwhelming?
Do you keep chasing for the answers “out there” – some new guru who will make it all OK, some book that promises you all the secrets to success, some expert who will tell you what you should do?
What is really keeping you from living the life you are meant to live? Look closely and with your eyes wide open. What is really standing in your way? Are they real barriers or just excuses?
The reality is that the biggest barrier between you and real happiness is you and your willingness to give up your drama, abandon your victimhood and step up to the plate.
One of my favourite quotes is a Zen saying: “enlightenment happens instantly after years of work.” Happiness works the same way. Happiness comes when you have the courage to give up trying to be a hero, and commit yourself instead to small everyday steps. It comes when you realize that you cannot will the world to be the way you would want it to be, but you can choose how you respond to the world as it is. It comes when you stop looking for happiness, and start living your life as fully as possible.
Of course, even if you are willing to give up the drama it still requires work and daily practice. The actual tools for thriving are ridiculously simple – break the big goal into manageable chunks, build a supportive structure around yourself to help you focus, regroup regularly, take the next step no matter how small, and meet the world in a spirit of adventure and experimentation.
We can help with all those things.
But first, you need to be brave enough to take the first step.
As bizarre as it sounds, most people seem addicted to their suffering. Some people do it in big, dramatic ways – self-sabotaging in obvious ways that drive their friends crazy. Most of us do it by playing small – accepting a lukewarm existence instead of truly living, stuck in victim-mode, waiting for the day the world will suddenly change to make us happy. And in the meantime, we waste most of our energy blaming, fretting, or beating ourselves up instead of steeling our nerves and taking that next step.
So, I really want to know: how willing are you to really thrive?
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