I don’t need it to be New Year Day to realize that something in my life could use some change. It is pretty sad that most resolutions fail. Resolutions are typically very important. They complete statements that begin with “My life would be better if__________” Failure is the norm for most people. The good news is that you are not going to be one of “those” people anymore because you will get the victory over those tough issues.
There are a few things I have been talking about on the topic of resilience. I try to boil a complicated topic down to a statement that can be remembered and used in the moment of need. These statements are in bold below.
The first statement is Resilience is the stability and joy created by hope in a secure resource.
This reliance on a secure resource brought us to the idea of options and the statement that The lack of options results in stress. Having options is the result of being able to access resources which were built up in advance of the moment of need. The resources that are available to us come from every area of life. There are nine areas of life and they are; Spiritual, Physical, Intellectual, Emotional, Vocational, Family, Social, Financial, and Hobbies. Each of these areas of life are accounts through which you give and receive. We want to build each of these accounts up so that we are able to give and receive lavishly in each of them. The statement to guide us into building up our accounts is This action will achieve the desired result.
This all sounds great but I know that the choices I make don’t always make sense. I wish that I always acted in my own best interest but I don’t. I know what I should do but I don’t do it. I know what I shouldn’t do and yet that is the thing that I do.
Perhaps you have noticed that same thing after dieting, running a marathon, or building up an emergency fund. You know that you should stay on track and maintain the results all of that hard work achieved but….
I totally understand because I have had all of the emotions that go along with this struggle. I propose that emotions are not only a casualty of the problem but they are the source of the problem. Let me explain. If I went to you with a problem looking for advice, I bet you could give me general direction on most anything I could ask. If I told you I wanted to get into shape you could make some suggestions. If I told you I wanted to lose weight you could help with that too. I know you would have something to say about that broken relationship. If I wanted to save some money or whatever, the list could go on and on, you could help me with direction on what I should do. We have a general idea of the answers to not only each other’s problems but also to our own. If we were rational and always made choices that are in our best interest then we would take our own advice and life would be better. The reason we don’t do what we know we should do is because of emotions. This is where it gets real for you and for me. Facing emotions may even be scary but we are not going to make this scary. We are going to make this simple so that it is something we can actually deal with.
What do you love doing? It is probably not difficult for you to get into the mood to do this thing. Making time to do it can be managed because other things can wait. It might be expensive but that probably doesn’t matter. The reason you do not have to struggle with doing the thing that you love is because your emotions are in alignment with doing that wonderful thing.
I’m just going to say it, life stinks when it is filled with things we should do and not with the things we want to do. It’s not that the things we should do are bad. It is probably just the opposite and that makes it worse. There would be no guilt or shame for failing to do something that didn’t matter. This doesn’t change the drudgery that a life filled with should do that and should do this is. The reason it is drudgery is because the heart isn’t in it. There is not an alignment between the thing you should do and your emotions. Things that we put our heart into are things we want to do. They are things we get to do.
This leads us to the solution to our problem. Create emotional alignment with the things that are important. What this means is make the things that are most important to you the things that you want to do. Change the really important things from being in the should do category to the want to do category.
This is really powerful because we are going to change our emotions. We are not going to be a captive of our emotions. Our emotions are not going to have the power to undermine the amazing life that is available to us. Our emotions are not going to lie to us and tell us we are not loved or that we aren’t enough or aren’t good enough. We are going to do the best things and we are going to do them because we want to do them not because we have to do them.
We will talk about many ways to do this but the big idea is that we will change our emotions by changing the way we think. I have a game I would like for each of you to play. Put a note pad in your pocket and every time you have a critical, fearful, angry, or negative thought in any way draw a down-arrow on a page. If you have a kind, hopeful, thankful, encouraging or generally positive thought make an up-arrow mark.
Change is going to be fun and it is going to be hard work. I am looking forward to hearing your story about how your life has become more resilient as you Create emotional alignment with the things that are important and Act in ways that will achieve the desired result which will give you Options which reduce stress and result in you having The Joy and Stability of Resilience.
That’s all for now.
Peace and love fellow traveler,
Jim