ThriveologyPodcast – Thriveology

Ever feel like you are just running around on that hamster wheel, stuck and repeating?

That’s the Stuck Cycle.  It starts with stress and ends with stress.  In between are the behaviors you do to cope (but that only leave you feeling worse).

Here’s a little secret:  most people live in the Stuck Cycle.  That’s the bad news.

The good news is you don’t HAVE to.  Right now, without knowing it, you are choosing it.  And guess what?  I was in my Stuck Cycle earlier.  I just followed a few steps to break it.

In fact, there are 3 steps to breaking your Stuck Cycle.  Ready to break it?  Learn the 3 steps in this week’s podcast.

“Life is not pass/fail but trial & error.”

How do you live your life?  When something doesn’t work out, do you see it as a failure, or another attempt?  When something tough comes along, do you take it on as an experiment, or walk away?

We know it as children.  Every skill is a trial & error.  You don’t learn to sit up, crawl, walk, run, talk, read, ride a bike, or a myriad of other things, the first time you try.

You just keep on trying.

There aren’t many able-bodied babies laying on the ground, staring up at the ceiling, saying, “Well, that crawl thing is just not going to work out.  But I gave it a shot.  I’ll just hang here.”  Nope, they pull themselves up and try again.

So, when do we forget that?  When do we start seeing everything as pass/fail?

Trial & error.  Life is full of little experiments — attempts.  Keep attempting long enough (with a little reflection and learning) and pretty soon, the experiment pays off.

When did you stop your experiments?  What are the places you believed you had failed, when it was only a failed attempt?

Take on the Trial & Error Mindset!

Where did we get the notion that life should be one smooth glide down Easy Street?  Never has been, never will be.  Life is full of struggles, times of discomfort, and challenges.

Thank goodness!

Growth only comes from the struggles and challenges.  What we call “stress” is what gives us strength.  We rise to a challenge, learn new skills, and get ready for the next challenge.

Don’t get me wrong.  I am not encouraging you to chase after struggles and challenges.  You don’t need to, since they will come your way.

The question is what you do when a struggle DOES come your way.  Do you duck-and-hide, proclaim “life is unfair,” or do you take it on as a challenge?  A challenge is something to move through, overcome, learn from, and grow into.

And THAT is the power of a struggle or challenge.

Life is an episode of:  Discomfort ==> Change ==> Comfort ==> Discomfort (and repeat).  We have periods of comfort, AFTER we have moved through the discomfort, the struggle — UNLESS we avoid the discomfort (or try to).  Then, there is no growth, there is no new capacity, and really no comfort.

When the discomfort comes, will you take it on as a sign that it is time to grow?

Learn how in this week’s podcast episode.

(And, hey, if you like it, can you share it below?)

About a month ago, you may have made a few resolutions.  Or maybe you didn’t need a resolution.  You already had a direction.  You knew where you were headed.

How’s it going?  Are you on-track??  Focused???  Making progress????

If you aren’t, consider yourself normal.  But before you console yourself too much, you don’t have to stay stuck.

Yes, losing focus is normal.  No, it does not lead you toward a rich and thriving life.  It just protects the status quo.

Stephen Covey notes how the “Important and Urgent” of life usually gets done, because it has to get done.  But the “UnImportant and Urgent” often gets our attention, after the important and urgent.  The “Important and Not Urgent” is where we often lose our focus.  Sometimes, we get lost even in the “UnImportant and Non Urgent,” which is a huge time-suck (think TV, FB, etc., etc., etc.).

Why do we lose focus?  We humans are funny that way, aren’t we?

Here’s the problem:  those “Important but Not Urgent” can suddenly become URGENT.  Health, for example, is important.  But we often don’t pay attention. . . until something bad happens.  THEN it becomes urgent!

Or how about relationships?  A marriage is important.  But until it is a crisis, many people don’t realize it is also urgent.  Then, there is a crisis, and it becomes URGENT.

Let me suggest 4 steps to regaining your focus.  Listen below and regain your focus!

In the last podcast, I suggested giving up a Fear Life, and moving to a Fierce Life.  That was not a life devoid of fear, but one that chose a path in spite of fear.  It is the courageous life, lived with clarity and purpose, and with intensity.

Sometimes, how we think about ourselves, our personal beliefs, hold us back.  We get caught up in “I’m not. . .” and “I can’t. . . .”

When I started running, I never knew when I could start calling myself a “runner.”  When I decided to run?  After my first run?  After my first race?  After running for a week, a month, a year?

Sometimes, it is the difference between process and product.  For example, the “product” that many people want are 6-pack abs.  They forget about the process of daily healthy choices.  They get stuck on the end result, not the path to get there.

This is true with living a fierce life.  That life is built one choice, one step, one day, at a time.

To be honest, when I was preparing for the last few podcasts, I found myself saying, “I don’t live a fierce life — I’m not fierce.”  I let my old belief system establish whether I am that person or not.  Do I always live fiercely?  No.  But can I choose to live MORE fiercely?  Absolutely!

And a fierce life is built one choice, one decision, one action at a time.  Slowly, you become FIERCE.

I used to wish for a fearless life.  You know, that place where you no longer have fears.  Only confidence and drive.

Don’t get me wrong.  I don’t want to live a life of fear, held back by fears and concerns.

I just no longer believe that a “fearless” life is possible.  Fear is too important and too deeply embedded in us.

In fact, I want to have some fear around.  Something needs to make me pause and say, “Is this safe?  Should I be doing this?”

And more importantly, for a full life, I need fear to point out the important areas and important directions.  As I have stated in other trainings and podcasts, fear is NOT an “Avoidance Indicator.”  It is an “Importance Indicator.”  Fear serves to point out when something is important.  It may be of safety importance, or it could be of epic importance.

If the goal is not “fearless living,” then what is the goal?

Fierce Living.

Living fiercely.  Focused, clear, intentional, and courageous.

How do you make the shift?  Listen in to this week’s training.

And then, live fiercely!

PREVIOUS PODCASTS IN THE FEAR SERIES

Over the years, I have met several people who told me they “had no fear.”  I immediately knew one of two things were true:  either they were unaware or or unwilling to admit to fear, or they were not pushing very hard.

That doesn’t mean that we should live in fear every day.  Only that fear is a part of any growth and development.

There are plenty of moments in life that are carefree and fearless.  But an overall life that is without fear is a life lived too small.

The danger, though, is being trapped by fear, reduced by fear, and boxed by fear.

People grow and change, though, through questions.  Asking, “I wonder. . . ” or “What if. . . ” or “How could I. . . ” lead to change, inventions, adventure, exploration.

Fear, on the other hand, lives in statements:  “You can’t do that. . . ” or “Be careful of that. . . ” or “I wouldn’t do that. . . .”

That’s the way fear keeps us hostage — by talking in absolutes.  Fear pretends to be the authority on what you can do, what you should do.

But fear doesn’t need to have the last word.  We can always sneak around fear, to find your bigger life, your better place.

Just ask the 2 Magic Questions I outline in the training, and you can move beyond your fear.

Grab a couple of sheets of paper and a pen, so you will be ready to follow the process.

PREVIOUS PODCASTS IN THE FEAR SERIES

I keep trying to figure out what the opposite word of “worry” is.  That would be when you are constantly thinking about all the good things that might happen.

My guess is, there is no such word, because worry is what people do, not the opposite.

In 1883, Andrew Carnegie had a character in a novel say, “I have been surrounded by trouble all my life long, but there is a curious thing about them — nine-tenths of them never happened.”

Isn’t that just the nature of worry?  We keep on worrying, even though the things we worry about almost never happen.  The things that DO happen are usually surprises.  But every now and then, we are right  something we worry about happens.  And we just use that as proof that we should worry.

We are in the middle of a series on fear, and I hear people lump “worries and fears” together.   But worries are just wastes of mental energy.  They are useless.  Fear, on the other hand, can point you toward the important things.  Worry just gets our attention, distracting us from more important things.

You can’t stop the seeds of worry, but you can certainly give them less room to bloom and blossom, the weeds of your thinking that choke out more important things.

Let’s address the 5 steps to weeding out the worries.  Listen below.