How often have you heard people say, 'you have to love what you do.'
And is that necessarily true? Possibly not...what is true is that we have to love the opportunity, the opportunity to build life, future, health, success and our fortune.
We don't have to love it, simply learn to appreciate the opportunity that exists. I've recently experiencing the same with learning skills connected with a new interest; hey it's been challenging!
Think about it...
It could be making that first prospecting call, having the courage to take the step to pick up the phone to do the dial to speak with someone we don't know. We may not love taking action however we do love the idea of what could take place on the other side of the call when we truly connect with another.
I've been in sales and trained many teams across a few years, experiencing my own fear and felt theirs too. Its easy to spot what the other person could be doing, the key though is to be spotting if for ourselves to know that there is a reward on the other side of what seems like an overwhelming moment. We seem to treat moments like it's a lifetime, yet on reflection, it was only a moment...I'm liking this.
Why is it that we find ourselves moving from sheer exuberance for the new opportunity to the depths of despair at an alarming pace?
And this piece from Jim Rohn, an American entrepreneur, author and motivational speaker changing the lives of many and someone I admire after having had the opportunity to attend a weekend workshop with, a few years back - puts a great perspective on the topic.
So the guy says...
"I'm digging ditches. Should I love digging ditches?" The answer? No, you don't have to love digging ditches, but if it is your first entry onto the ladder of success, you should be thinking, ''I'm glad somebody gave me the opportunity to dig ditches, and I'm going to do it so well, I won't be here long.''
“Teachers open the doors, but we must enter ourselves”
So often we can be inspired by just having found something new to do and even though we're are making mistakes of all proportions in the beginning and it's not ideal, we have to give ourselves credit for taking on a new discipline that we're yet to learn.
Have I been through stages of beating myself up for not being all over a new opportunity from the get-go?
Oh yeah!!
Did it get me anywhere - yes and no, not as I had envisioned. My energy was zapped, drained my tank of enthusiasm, fed by self doubt 'maybe I'm not cut out for this.' And not where I saw myself headed, that's for sure.
When we embrace the disciplines associated with a new opportunity, our self-confidence begins to grow, just like watching a seedling pop through the soil with those delicate green leaves, truly magical! We begin to move from skeptic to believer, talking to people who find it to be the most thrilling opportunity in the world. This is big and more often in the beginning when we're just getting started, we don't always see how big it really is.
What have you started this year full of hope for and maybe fallen off the wagon?
Before we're tempted to get discouraged and worse still give up, note to self - success is based on long term commitment accompanied by faith, discipline, attitude and action towards.
Imagine you're taking a walk on a path in a beautiful garden, stepping from stone to stone. You may not like the stone you've just set your foot on right now however this stone connects to the next leading to the way forward - to where the opportunity is.
“How much I missed, simply because I was afraid of missing it.”
