Present Outlook

I’m going to start my own business one day…

I’d like to run a marathon one day…

I’m going to get a new job one of these days…

I’m going to paint the house pink one of these days…

Sound familiar?

We’ve all said the above or similar and then not followed through. But to quote Mark Twain – “the secret of getting ahead is getting started“.

How many good ideas are sitting half-started in someone’s garage? How many good ideas are rattling around in someone’s head while they sit on their couch in front of the TV? How many good ideas are developed over a couple of beers after work, only to remain unrealised?

Do you have an idea or a dream like this? Something you’d like to do but haven’t?

Perhaps you have a very good reason for not having done it – you’re too busy, you haven’t got the time, there are other things going on, the time isn’t right…

Are they reasons or excuses?

When we think about our dreams it’s quite natural to think of them as something that will happen in “the future”. But over time we keep putting more and more of our dreams into the future. Pretty soon the future becomes a pretty busy place, but what about the present?

Popular reasons excuses for why we don’t start things:

• Too difficult – Is it really? Sometimes things seem difficult to begin with but you won’t know until you give it a try. Perhaps there is an easier way to do it? Or could you downsize to a more manageable option?
• Not the right time – If you wait for conditions to be perfect then you may never get around to it.
• Don’t know where to start – Sometimes our imagination gets the better of us and a good idea can seem overwhelming. There are so many things you could do that you don’t know where to begin. If you’re not sure where to start, just start doing something. Once you get going you’ll figure it out.
• Too busy – Are you really that busy that you can’t follow your dreams? If you really want something surely you can find the time somewhere.
• Laziness – This is often the case but we kid ourselves that it is one of the other reasons.

It’s fine to start with a dream or a goal as something you want to achieve in the future. Just don’t let it sit there forever. Unless you get started, you’ll never become successful. The secret of getting ahead is getting started!

What is it that you’ve been putting off for the future? What’s stopping you from getting started on it now?

Image: Wikipedia

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I just read about comedian Eddie Izzard running 43 marathons in a row (6 days a week for 7 weeks). The remarkable thing is that he did very little training before hand.

What I love about this story is that it shows how greatly we all underestimate our potential.

Eddie Izzard isn’t a naturally good runner, his physical abilities are modest. Yet he has managed to go where many people wouldn’t even dream of going. Where most of us wouldn’t believe is possible. Where medical science would probably recommend against going.

It isn’t his body that has got him through this. It isn’t freakishly large lungs. It isn’t a lifetime of dedicated training leading up to it.

It was his determination to do it.

It was mind over matter. Even though his body probably felt like it was falling apart, his mind kept pushing him on.

Is he gifted with an unusually high amount of willpower? Probably not. He has just decided that this is something that he wanted to do and so he was prepared to suffer in order to achieve it.

In fact Eddie isn’t even unusual in his achievements. Terry Fox did more than this and he only had one leg! Other similar feats include Cliff Young, Dean Karnazes and of course Forest Gump ;)

Is there something you want to achieve that you feel is unattainable? That is out of your reach and just unrealistic? Perhaps it’s worth reconsidering in the light of Eddie’s performance?

You never know, you might surprise yourself!

Here is Eddie Izzard talking about Darth Vadar going to the canteen on the Death Star:

Image: Wikipedia

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Around a century ago a Frenchman named Emile Coue coined a phrase that could change your life.

It’s an often quoted phrase that you’ve no doubt heard before, and one that initially doesn’t seem terribly remarkable.

Coue was a psychologist and pharmacist who believed that most mental and physical illness was a result of the person’s thinking.

He discovered that he could help the recovery of a patient simply by praising the effectiveness of the medicine to the patient.

We are often our own worst enemy. We think negative thoughts all the time to a certain degree and over time these negative thoughts take their toll. They taint how we see the world. Autosuggestion, or affirmations can counteract this.

Coue experimented with different phrases for different conditions but his most well known affirmation is:

Day by day in every way I’m getting better and better.

- Emile Coue

The beauty of this phrase is that it implies that:

• there are improvements taking place in your life right now,
• that these will continue to take place into the future,
• and that these improvements will happen in every area of your life.

Now if you mumble this phrase to yourself half-heartedly a few times it’s pretty obvious it will do nothing for you.

But if you concentrate on really meaning it. If you focus completely on the affirmation and say it with real feeling and conviction for 10 minutes then you will start to notice an effect.

In fact the best approach is to do this for 10 minutes every evening before you go to bed. If you do this for two weeks then you’ll be raving about how awesome it is.

I try to be an ‘open-minded skeptic’ when it comes to these things, and rather than take someone else’s word for it I tested this out for myself.

I was stunned at how this effected me when I did it. I was feeling a bit tired and run down physically at the time and, perhaps ignorantly, I thought that if it was going to work then that would be an obvious area where there was room for some improvements.

But what I found was that it effected the way I was thinking. And it did this in a way I could never have anticipated. It is something that has to be experienced to be believed.

My experiences with this have utterly convinced me of the tremendous power of the mind. Sometimes the way we use our minds ends up having a negative impact on how we feel. But this affirmation is a really potent way of using your mind to help yourself in a very positive and uplifting way.

But I will reiterate: it won’t work unless you give it a really good go. You have to really do it as well as you possibly can. You don’t have to shout it out at that top of your voice, but you should say it with conviction and sincerity.

It will probably feel a bit weird at first – but it’s definitely worth it!

Image: Wikipedia

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Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.

- Winston Churchill

Winston Churchill can say this with some authority. After all he was a washed up ex-British Prime Minister after the Second World War.

Although he led Britain, and in some ways the world, through an extremely turbulent time, he eventually lost his position as Prime Minister.

But did he fade away?

No.

Despite the fact that he failed to retain his position, and everyone thought his career was clearly in it’s dying days, he managed to make a comeback and regain his position.

He failed, and yet he came back.

He didn’t fade away.

He didn’t give up.

It’s not an easy task to become Prime Minister of Britain once. But to lose office and then reclaim it at the age of 76 can’t be easy either…

Never give in, never give in, never; never; never; never – in nothing, great or small, large or petty – never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense.

- Winston Churchill

Again, he can say this with some authority as his life is an example of living this quote.

He must have found it difficult. He must have felt humiliated after his defeat.

Part of him must have wanted to just give up and move on. But another part of him wanted to have another shot at it. And that was the part that he listened to.

When you face a challenge, which voice do you listen to? The one telling you to give up because it’s too hard and you’ll never make it?

Or the one telling you to carry on because you just might succeed?

Image: Wikipedia

More famous failures.

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