This week my blog is focusing on perseverance; never give up on what you believe in. The idea being, to get you change your way of thinking. Instead of focusing on your setbacks, turn your attention to your comebacks! Throughout our lives we will experience several failures and setbacks, its part of life's wonderful pattern. How we chose to react during those times, defines if we succeed or struggle going forward.
Life is not a spectator sport, its about experiencing life to the full.
As we go through life, there will be times where we need to take risks to achieve something new. These "risks" could be anything form taking on a new challenge, to pushing ourselves out of our comfort zone. Whenever we find ourselves in these positions, it inevitably means we will encounter some form of resistance or setback. Our minds are wired to keep us safe - that's it's prime function, so when faced with a risky situation, our basic instinct is to survive, to fight or flight. Our mind doesn't want us to take risks. It's radar is set to seek out potential threats and constantly reminds us to avoid any risks at all costs. Feeling fearful, nervous or anxious is how our mind tries to get us to stay away from the potential threat, making us feel uncomfortable is part of its plan. Our mind doesn't give two hoots about our aspirations or goals. It's simply not interested in becoming the best we can be, its job is purely to keep us safe! The biggest challenge we face in life, is our own mind. In reality it's our biggest critic! It knows our strengths and weaknesses, our likes and dislikes and it knows what can trigger our fears. It has copious amounts of memories to refer back to, from when we have felt similar pain and struggles and takes great pride in reminding as often as it can. So any time we feel uneasy or face potential harm, our mind will kick in like a formula one race car and shock us into avoiding the situation by fighting our way out of it or fleeing. Our minds are sneaky little devils playing clever games and strategic moves to keep us safe. It will even give us mis-information, little white lies or pray on our insecurities to rationalise its own actions - all in the name of keeping us safe. In the past it could be said that some of these clever moves have in fact kept us safe, but things change over time and in many cases the situations we now find ourselves in, the risk is no longer a threat to our lives and therefore it no longer is serving us well. Instead we find ourselves competing against our own mind. We need to override its safety mechanism and look at the situation as a challenge/opportunity instead of a threat. We have to learn how to trust our own decisions and look at the comeback rather than the setback. Instead of having a meltdown when we fail, accept what happened, learn from it and move on. The greatest athletes in the world know that in order to grow you have to fail first, its part of the process. Thomas Edison, the inventor of the light bulb had many many failures before he succeeded, so did James Dyson. They focused on the comeback, by learning form the errors to adapt and reset. Having a lapse is allowed, it shows you are developing and not sitting on the couch. All too often we set ourselves goals and when we fail or make a mistake along the way, we think thats it and give up. Instead accept failure as part of the journey, learn from your mistakes, build from it and become stronger, get back up and believe in what you can achieve. It really is mind over matter! If you would like to learn more about mental toughness please visit our website and get in touch. Drop me an email and let me know what you think, I would love to hear from you. Visit our website and check out our other blogs, there's something in there for everyone.
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