Look beyond your obstacles

22 May, 2016 - 00:05 0 Views
Look beyond your obstacles DO NOT USE WITHOUT OK FROM PHOTODESK-- Steve Jobs Photo by Albert Watson Online permission CANNOT CROP, CANNOT ADD TEXT OVER PHOTO

The Sunday Mail

Within any obstacle that you face there is a path.
It is your responsibility to see this path and follow it. Every challenge is pregnant with possibilities beyond your wildest dreams.
Every crisis is an opportunity-in-waiting. See differently and do not let others interpret the shape of opportunity for you.
There are opportunities in this hour that will never come again. Do not run when others are looking in. Do not fear when the bold are taking action.
Wandering eyes that stare are everywhere, but eyes that see are special. What you see in your mind is more important than whatever seems to be happening.
What is happening in you is more important than what is happening to you. Where are you looking? What are you seeing?
The popular chorus that everyone is singing is not the only reality that is happening. Choose your reality and focus.
Do not join the chorus of complainers that are in dismay. Look and learn. Choose to see differently. Do not just wallow in the mud of the popular negativity pool.
No one will change your life on your behalf. Look within you first and let the change begin there.
See your potential and the power within. You are more powerful than you think. You can make a difference. You are a mover and a shaker. One is never too small a number to make a difference.
It may all look difficult, disturbing and dark. Such is the nature of the night. Never think that simply because its nightfall, everyone is asleep.
Whatever happens, never let someone else do the thinking on your behalf. Do not surrender your personal power.
When you point fingers and blame, you are surrendering the power to make a difference. You think the problems is “them”.
You slump into waiting for someone to start the change process. It is easy to become a passenger and complaining spectator in life.
Let the greatness within you rise.
Let power within you bubble forth. Rise up from despair and start taking action. Do not be discouraged by the small steps of today, they are the matchstick that lights a bonfire.
You are not dead yet; therefore, stop behaving like one of the living dead.
I have problems, you have problems, we all have problems. It is not the problems that define the agenda, but our mindset.
Your personal drive to out-think, outwork and outlive your problems and be part of the solution is your most important asset.
Like any path to greatness, obstacles are your paving stones. They will always be there to tempt you to turn back and pack away your dreams.
It may look hard, yes, because ready-packaged solutions delivered to your door step are the easy way.
Reality is malleable. Everyday miracles are happening, destinies are being shaped and wonders are being created everywhere.
Your past is not evidence that you cannot make a difference. Your present circumstances are not terminal. You certainly have left, but you have not arrived. You are more than what you have shown to date. Poke at your ceilings and challenge your limits.
In a PSB documentary entitled “One Last Thing” in November of 2011, Steve Jobs said: “When you grow up you tend to get told the world is the way it is and your life is just to live your life inside the world. Try not to bash into the walls too much. Try to have a nice family life, have fun, save a little money.
“That’s a very limited life. Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact, and that is — everything around you that you call life, was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use.
“The minute that you understand that you can poke life and actually something will, you know if you push in, something will pop out the other side, that you can change it, you can mould it. That’s maybe the most important thing. It’s to shake off this erroneous notion that life is there and you are just gonna live in it, versus embrace it, change it, improve it, make your mark upon it.
“I think that’s very important and however, you learn that, once you learn it, you’ll want to change life and make it better, cause it’s kind of messed up, in a lot of ways. Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again.”
Learn life different and do life differently. Poke at it, change it, challenge it and go for it.
Choose to expand your world and begin to look at things differently. You cannot forever live in the grey zone. Do not accept your current reality as a given, because it is not.
Look at what is working that you can build on. Have a big and exciting vision that you focus on. Look at your words because they are creating your world and shaping your behaviour and attitudes.
Look at your mindset because that is the control room of your life.
Your thoughts are being manifested. Look at reality as a malleable matter because you can shape it the way you want if you really want it bad enough.
Look at what is working.
It is common to chronicle everything that is not working and is broken down. You do not need any special skills for this. That is the highway of the critic. It requires great character and boldness to see that in any place and human system there is always something that is working.
Finding the good is good character. If you can find that which is working and build on it, you have momentum as your friend.
You are not obliged to follow everyone who has joined the negativity crusade. Within the rubble there is always treasure. Within the mess there is always a message.
You have amazing power when you embrace the positive view and become a change agent. You know what I mean because you know what it feels like when you are filled with positive and inspiring energy.
You also know what it feels like when you are negative and when all you can see is doom and gloom.
Build on strengths and what is working. Look for those things that are working and build on them. In this way, you can make the weaknesses irrelevant.
There is always something you can build on. Choose to be a builder and a difference maker.
Look at your words.
Observe yourself talking and audit the words that you are using. Mark Twain once said: “A powerful agent is the right word. Whenever we come upon one of those intensely right words the resulting effect is physical as well as spiritual, and electrically prompt.”
Such is the power of words. Words have power, they create your world and shape the present and future.
The words that you habitually choose affect the way you communicate with yourself and how you interpret and process the things that happen in your life. To change your life, start by changing your words and speech patterns.
Your mouth could easily be negating all the wonderful plans that you have written down.
If you have an impoverished vocabulary, you will have an impoverished life. If you have a negative vocabulary, your life experience cannot be any better than negative. It is not the size of the vocabulary that matters but its content.
Words are the creative force in life. Adopt transformational and empowering words as a lifestyle.
The words you attach to your experiences became your experience. You will not change your life until you change the things you speak to yourself and others habitually.
Negative polarising words lead to polarity.
Hate speech is the mother of violence. Words form the thread on which you string your life experiences. To change your life, change your “word string” from negative to positive, from polarisation to nation-building.
Find empowering words to direct your attention towards. Even in the midst of challenges, intentionally direct your attention to solutions through positive and empowering words.
Look at your thoughts.
The mindset that you carry is more important than the challenges that you face. When you change your thinking, your life changes.
Even if everything around you changes and you do not change your thinking, you will just recreate your current circumstances.
Look carefully at the thoughts that you think.
You can never behave yourself out of problems that you think yourself into.
Watch your thoughts as you would a movie. If you do not like what your thoughts are reflecting, change the channel.
Thoughts are things and give shape to things and meaning to experiences. Refuse to be imprisoned in your mind to the past hurts, abuses and ills.
You cannot blame forever and be held mentally hostage.
Choose to break free. Through your thoughts, you can be a catalyst for change, growth and improvement. See things not as they are but as they can be. Gear up, rise up and position yourself to make a difference.
Race to create and to bring solutions. See yourself as a protagonist. You are powerful and inspired to make a difference.
Think strategically and see possibilities. Most solutions are not as far as you imagine. It happens in your mind first before it can happen elsewhere.
Go for greatness.

Milton Kamwendo is a cutting-edge international transformational and inspirational speaker, author and coach. He is a strategy, innovation, team-building and leadership facilitator. Feedback: [email protected], Twitter @MiltonKamwendo and WhatsApp +263772422634

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