"I tried that once and it didn't work!"
Wednesday, January 23, 2008 at 12:59PM You may perceive yourself as the kind of person who is overly-sensitive, too easily discouraged and quickly gives up on yourself before you give yourself a real chance. You may forget, but you didn’t always think this way. Something happened to shatter your self-confidence. Right now is the perfect time for a crash course in the benefits of risk-taking. Choose to remove the foggy glasses to perceive differently.
1) Discern your innate patterns. As an infant, when you were learning to walk, chances are, you didn’t perfect this skill right away. Infants instinctively exert effort to pick themselves up, after each fall. Since you likely walk upright these days, or at least have experience doing so, you weren’t completely discouraged after your first attempt at walking. You can reflect on other instances where you weren’t easily discouraged. Take when you learned to ride a bike, when you learned a sport or another physical skill. You can train your mind to tap into thought patterns that developed your sense of discipline, patience, focus and a growing appreciation for moment-to-moment experience.
2) Uncover causes of inhibited temperament. Differences in temperament influence different thought patterns in each of us. There is a period in the past when most people feel less inhibited than they feel now. Something happens to trigger that mental change. It has been suggested that preconscious activity in the brain triggers the onset of emotions and only though life experience can each of us become more aware of how they influence our behavior. Harmony and equilibrium can be reviewed throughout your lifetime. What you sense would enable you to achieve these states would evolve (or not) with you.
3) Rethink your perception. Six prominent issues tend to adversely affect people’s risk-taking; ignorance, attachment/ fear, anger, pride, misunderstanding and self-doubt. Each feeling or sensation can be broken down into different parts which help to explain why your mind permits it to form and intensify to control you. As you learn to work backwards, you can realize that each one is linked to something you believe exists when you actually fool yourself. Each one is a clever illusion constructed by your ego which has as its purpose to prevent you from proving who you really are and what you can do. How long will you continue to buy into this irony? You can be your own worst enemy yet, you can also evolve your mind to be your own best friend.
Reader Comments (12)
"I tried that once and it didn't work!"
Yes, I can closely relate to your advice here.
This is a great post. I have observed many people use the "tried it once, didn't work approach" to life. Following the advice that you outlined will help most people understand what is holding them back.
Trial and error is a certainly a trait of software development. You are privileged to explore what works and what doesn't work as you strengthen your abilities in programming languages. Imagine how different life would become if you always got things right the first time. You wouldn't learn feelings of confusion, determination, curiosity, triumph and a sense of motivation would be foreign. Life is structured to be challenging and rewarding, provided you choose to perceive that way.
I can also relate to knowing people who live by this philosophy. They aren't always ready to accept the truth. Such a situation is an opportunity to gain insight into feelings of helplessness and to realize we can only control our thoughts and actions.
Its helpful to note that free will means we each choose how to respond and what will unfold in our lives. Self-development is a choice. We can all learn to let go of some ways we perceive ourselves and the world. Only by leaving the safe harbour of our past will we rediscover the underlying truth of our innate gifts and potential.
Excellent post. I really like the example of learning how to walk. I think that we learn how to walk daily.
We learn how to walk through situations, around them, away from them, and sometimes we walk back into them. It's when we get up that we learn to stand.
P.S. I am transferring my blog to a new URL as of next week, please make a note of it and change your bloglink. I will leave the old one up for archives.
Thanks for your support and I hope to see you there.
New URL: www.soulmeetsworld.com
P.P.S. I will be adding your link in the process of transferring everything. :D
I love how you build on my "learning to walk" analogy.
People seldom realize whether we stand up tall, slouch or, assume posture in-between, this indicates how attuned we are (or not) to our emotional imbalances. As we learn the reasons behind these imbalances, we evolve much closer to the truth of who we are.
The idea of, "If at first you don't succeed, try try again," mentions nothing about why you might have chosen to fall or, not get up in the same way as before. To blindly assume standing up taller is the only answer ignores what the mind, body, spirit may be saying.
Sounds like you have a very healthy attitude. If you decide that to heal means to embrace your true self, then you accept and love everything about you. This implies you're ready to let go of contrary beliefs and attitudes that keep the real you hidden. You choose to see all experience as beneficial and you begin to move beyond the idea of "mistakes."
It seems that it is based on fear: ignorance-fear of the unknown, pride-fear of not living up to your self value. You certainly can be your worst enemy. When that happens to me I have to remember that no one cares. And no matter what they say, the will be cheering for me later when I accomplish it.