It’s all part of the journey: from that first sip of java in the morning, to the final word before I close the book at night, to the minute it takes to close my eyes and appreciate that for which I am grateful, to the family I love, the job and clients I enjoy, the passion to write, speak and inspire – the dedication and the discipline to grow.
Who wants to sleep?
Yet so many people do, at least in terms of ever going inside themselves to change the outside reality of the world around them. John Mayer wrote a song some years ago, Waiting on the World to Change, to me that’s the definition of being asleep, of allowing life to happen to you, instead of you making things happen. Change is inevitable, growth is optional. And growth is not easy, especially if you are not wide awake.
Are you awake and aware? Do you ever stop to think about what you really want? Do you write it down? Do you know your true talents and abilities…your gift? Do you use that gift to help other people? Do you want to do more, or have more, or be more than you are right at this moment?
Or are you comfortable closing your eyes and simply falling asleep to dream about a bigger, better life?
Time to wake up.
As you stimulate tremendous growth in yourself, you will see that many people you know and love are, by comparison, sleeping. They’re sleeping in school systems, in government, in business, and industry. Some of your family and friends are sleeping. People stop their progress when they feel victimized. How do you respond to them? Do you drag them along? Perhaps if they are family or close friends. But you can’t let others stop you. Try to love and enlist them to change the community or the environment that they’re in. Such tough love is mature and effective leadership. You want the people around you to live the life that they deserve to love and are capable of living. Knowing how to help yourself grow, you know how to help other people grow.”
The excerpt above is from the book, Smart Talk For Achieving Your Potential, by Lou Tice.
He paints a pretty stark picture of what life is like for many – the concept of simply being asleep. Whether you think you are, or you think you’re not, or you don’t want to think about it at all, or you think it’s all just hocus-pocus and hot air – that’s up to you. But the point is you should be UP. You should be wide awake not only to the reality of where you are, but where it is you want to go, because from here to there is not a straight line. The line is winding and filled with joy and with adversity.
Be grateful for the joy and embrace the adversity. Faced with challenges? Feeling down? Things not going right for you? The world around you off-center? Your life going sideways? Then it’s time to hug it out. Wrap your arms around the challenges and problems and find a way to bust through.
Maybe you say you can’t, there’s no way, it’s just too hard. I can only tell you this. You’ve got to wake-up, you’ve got to get up and you’ve got to grow up. And I don’t mean maturity, (at least not in most cases), what I mean is it’s time to grow. The secret, if there is one, is personal growth. Changing who you are inside to change what happens outside. Changing how you perceive yourself and realizing you are so far from your potential it is simply ridiculous. We all have no idea of the magnitude of what is inside of us. We all use so little of our brains and our hidden talents that if you knew what you were truly capable of accomplishing it would scare the life out of you and get you to truly LIVE. The journey is to overcome fear and doubt, to realize you are amazing and to go out every single day and work toward what it is that you want.
I’m not preaching and I’m not lecturing – I’m just reading, learning, writing, serving, working and finding a way to affect and change other people’s lives which in turn transforms my own.
I’m just like you. We all share in this human experience together. I’m nowhere close to who it is I want to be, or who it is I am becoming. But I’m determined to work my ass off to get there and enjoy and embrace every step along the way, both joy and pain.
I’m going to say it again. The secret, if there is one, is personal growth. Change is not easy, it’s hard and it can be lonely and it can be scary, especially to other people, because when you start to change your reality, you also change the reality of those around you and many people don’t like change. They like comfort, safety and sticking with the way things always are, or used to be. They don’t want to change their story.
They just want to stay asleep.
YOU can’t. YOU won’t. YOU aren’t. It’s easy to say and takes no effort to do. If your eyes are closed and your mind is in slumber then your dreams are simply that, just dreams, with no hopes of them ever becoming your reality.
Bulls**t.
YOU can. YOU will. YOU are. Growth is not for the faint of heart. It’s discipline and action. Daily discipline, daily affirmations, daily visualizations, daily tasks, the daily grind to move forward ever so slightly in the direction of what you really want. It’s called the compound effect. Nothing in life which is of value, especially the opportunity to achieve your potential, ever comes easy.
But there is no way, no how, no shot you will get even close if you are simply sleeping through life. Want a head start? Search any word on this blog. There are more than 400 posts. Go ahead give it a shot, search dreams, goals, discipline, change, growth… you name it. Then read the blog related to that idea. Or read even a single Sunday Series and realize people are making it happen every day. They are facing their challenges, or the challenges of those they love and they are moving forward, becoming more.
Time to wake up. Got sweet dreams? Then go out and turn those dreams into your reality. Wake up, get up, GROW up.
Until next time, thanks for taking the time.
Mark
(markbrodinsky@gmail.com)
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Mark Brodinsky: Author, Blogger, Speaker, Speech Writer, Emmy Winner, USHEALTH Advisors
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