“If you can change your mind, you can change your life.” ~ William James

 

A few days ago I watched a video about a man, we’ll call him Joe, who had been a paratrooper during the Gulf War.

Joe returned home, his body battered from too many landings, with doctors telling him he would never again have the ability to walk unassisted.

Buying into this nonsense, Joe gave up.

He succumbed to a wheelchair, gained weight and lost hope. Years later a tiny spark was lit in Joe and he started to question his diagnosis. Joe started to reach out to yoga instructors and after 10 refusals, he finally found an instructor that would assist him on this path.

On the video you watch Joe fall down numerous times trying to hold various yoga poses, but each time Joe gets back up. After an allotted amount of time we finally see Joe hold his yoga poses and Joe starts to lose weight. Joe gets the encouragement from himself that he needs to continue. As the video continues, we finally see Joe walking unassisted and at the very end of the video we see Joe running.

Removing ourselves from the life we were brought into is much easier than removing ourselves from the mindset we have bought into. How many false realities are we buying into without realizing the damage?

While I was in my third year of college I took my first graphic design course, I had always been an artist, just not a graphic artist. This was a different path for me, but one I was excited about and a little nervous. At the end of the course my professor took me aside and she confided in me that I might want to think about a different course of study, she felt graphic design was just not my area.

I was devastated…this was my major, my future profession. The next semester I signed up for a few psychology courses, which I enjoyed, but that little voice still spoke to me not to give up on my dream. I finally found the strength to ignore this person’s opinion and though I wasted a semester on other courses, I learned to listen to my own voice and not that of someone who was trying to derail my progress. Today I am an art director at an advertising agency with numerous design awards to my name.

I didn’t add that story to boast, well maybe I did. But I am not boasting the awards, I am boasting in the fact that I may have believed the negative feedback for a small amount of time, but I didn’t set up camp there. Just like Joe, I stopped listening to that self-deflating voice and started listening to the voice that would empower me.

What other thoughts have we bought into that need changing? Maybe it’s a parent telling us that we will never amount to anything. Or a teacher telling us that we aren’t smart, or some individual telling us we aren’t attractive, courageous, creative, inventive, etc… As long as we buy into these untruths, we will never reach our true abilities.

How do we change it? First we have to eliminate the power we give to the negative influences in our lives and then we have to stop the chatter in our head. We all know the chatter; it’s that voice in our head when we attempt something scary, something that tests our confidence or separates us from our comfort zone. Maybe it’s taking a class at the local college, or applying for a new job and that voice nags at us that we aren’t bright enough to be in that class or we aren’t experienced enough to secure a better job.

That’s when it’s time to stand up, redirect ourselves, and realize we live the life we have bought into.

 

Relephant: 

The Single Reason Why You Must Persevere.

~

Author: Trisha Idoni

Editor: Travis May

Photo: YouTube Still