16
April
Journey Framework: Being aware of challenges
As opportunities come along our way, are we also aware of the challenges that accompanies them?
Challenges can take on different forms like:
- - having a limited duration to complete this opportunity in
- - having to deal with a level of complexity regarding the execution of this opportunity
- - having limited resources to work with.
Sometimes the environment itself, to realise this opportunity in, is so challenging that only a few people will want to do it and succeeding at it, i.e. “anyone can hold the helm when the sea is calm”. However, it is in accepting a challenge that one consciously lives and is called to be your best. Betty Davis frankly states that: “The key to life is accepting challenges. Once someone stops doing this, he's dead.”.
To be challenged is also to be put outside your comfort zone. Perhaps it is when we are out of our comfort zones that we experience ourselves the most. This is well described in the words of C. Joybel C.
“I have realized; it is during the times I am far outside my element that I experience myself the most. That I see and feel who I really am, the most! I think that's what a comet is like, you see, a comet is born in the outer realms of the universe! But it's only when it ventures too close to our sun or to other stars that it releases the blazing "tail" behind it and shoots brazen through the heavens!”
It is also during challenging times that I have the opportunity to measure myself on where I am on being my best.
So, with opportunities come challenges ... are you up to the challenge?
Copyright © : Dirk JO Devis – Frontier Coaching - 2012
»09
April
Journey Framework: Holding an appropriate attitude
As we progress in our journey towards being the best we can be, it is important to recognize the opportunities for improvement along the way, even in the midst of difficult situations.
However, attitude plays an important role in seeing such opportunities as well as our ability to engage and deal with them successfully or to avoid them all together.
The Oxford dictionary defines attitude as: a way of thinking or feeling with subsequent behaviour, indicative of a particular state of mind. Lou Tice in his course on ‘Investment in Excellence’ further describe attitude as: “an internal, emotional opinion we have towards someone or something, which affects our outside action, causing us to lean towards something (positive attitude), or lean away from and avoid something (negative attitude).”
Helen Keller relates attitude to keeping your face to the sunshine so that you cannot see the shadows. Now, within the context of her thinking, having a positive attitude towards opportunities for improvement will not only provide the light to see them, but also not to be unduly distracted by the difficulties surrounding them, those shadows pertaining to these “frightful things” along your way.
In addition, by approaching the opportunity in a positive light and with a commitment to actively embrace this opportunity, a context is created that attracts all manner of support to realise this opportunity. In the words of WH Murray, an established mountaineer: ”That the moment one definitely commits, then providence moves to. All sorts of things occur that would never otherwise have occurred ... raising ones favour all manner of assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way.”
The question now is: how do we get and maintain the appropriate attitude as described above? If our attitude is an outcome of a particular state of mind, by changing our state of mind we change our attitude. Furthermore, Dr William Glasser states: “If you want to change attitudes, start with a change in behaviour” and engage in that new behaviour (or action) over a period of time.
A way then to change your state of mind is to express an affirmative statement regarding your willingness to see opportunities along your way, which in turn creates a context that supports your subsequent commitment for action in order to consolidate this change of mind .... if it is your choice to do so.
Henry Ford states: “Whether you think you can or think you can’t – you are right.”
However, according to John C. Maxwell “You are only an attitude away from success!”
Copyright © : Dirk JO Devis – Frontier Coaching - 2012
»02
April
Journey Framework: Recognizing opportunity
As we progress in our journey towards being the best we can be, it is important to recognize the opportunities for improvement along the way, even in the midst of difficult situations.
It is important that we must not fear difficult and challenging situations along our path, rather fear the absence of them. It is actually in the midst of those difficult situations that we are given the opportunity to grow . Not to grow, is to stagnate.
When we observe life, you see that life is about movement, evolution, constant change, even to the extreme of adapt or die. So, with regard to personal growth, life does not stand still and as such provides us with an inherent “evolutionary tension”. This ensures continuous growth in our being with respect to our relationships and attitudes as well as in our ability to forgive others and subsequently ourselves.
So, those difficult situations brings forth this “evolutionary tension” for growth. It is our call to see this as an opportunity to respond in the appropriate way; embrace those difficult situations in the belief that this is a gift from life, giving you the opportunity to exercise your being at your best with joy, there and then.
As always ... it remains your choice.
Copyright © : Dirk JO Devis – Frontier Coaching - 2012
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