This afternoon I was going to meet someone to look at an office chair. I’ve been looking for quite some time, as I’ve wanted to replace mine and add another at my home office. I was excited at the possibility and the price of the chair that was advertised.
They gave me a general location, behind this business, east a block… they said they were ready to meet now. I messaged them and told them I was on my way. I arrived in the general area and messaged that I was close. They didn’t give me an address or the name of the building where they were. I stopped at each building that was in the vicinity… after the fifth, I messaged them and told them I needed the name or address…. no response. I continued for another 5-10min, frustrated that I had stepped out of a very productive day to feel like I was wasting my time trying to find where they were located. I messaged again, informing them I was leaving the area.
I was more than upset, I was feeling firey. I decided that I wasn’t going back and that the chair wasn’t worth any more of my time. I realized that I hadn’t felt that hot emotionally in a long time. Which made me wonder what parts of me have been subdued over time.
Sometimes it’s the pain and the disappointment that wakes us and stirs us to action or reinforces our feeling of being stuck in a rut and despair. So often we tolerate life, instead of celebrating life.
For me, I realized that a deep chord had been hit. It had nothing to do with an office chair. It had to do with the feeling of personal excitement, which I rarely feel, and the ricochet of a repetitive pattern of personal disappointment.
What do you do when your life experience seems indelibly stained?
When the reoccurring pattern keeps reoccuring?
When you’ve breathed out your problem, wrote it down lit it on fire, told a friend, vented to the heavens, and yet… there you are. Feeling like you are where you have always been?
We’ve both probably heard that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result. Have you heard that before? I’ve heard it said by many people over the years, and it sounds great. However, what do you do when you have done a 1000’s different things and expected a different result and find yourself in a languishing loop of…. “Here I am again”, now what?
James 5, tells us that if we are afflicted (in pain / anguish) we should pray. That’s nice. Why? My understanding and life experience is this… when we genuinely pray/ask… we open our hearts to receive instruction. AKA God’s word / an inspired message/idea. We set in motion a cause and effect sequence by prayer.
So what? The what, is that a new idea, allows for a new belief.
Let me rephrase the popularized quote, into something that I have found truly applies in life… “Insanity is doing 1,000 different things with the same belief system and expecting a different outcome”. Period… Period… and period again. Why periods? Just for emphasis’s sake… and I’m feeling feisty.
I don’t care how many things you may have tried or ways you have tried it. Or for those who don’t like the word “try”, I don’t care how many ways you’ve done it, or are doing it… if your belief system is the same today as it has been in your past as it relates to your primary pain points, then your outcomes will be the same too. Period. It doesn’t matter what books you read, course you take, including MASTER courses, funnels you make, or cheesecake you bake… if the story you believe hasn’t changed… your story won’t change either.
So stop trying so hard and doing so much… inspect what you expect. Specifically at a core and profound level. If you change the root, you will automatically set in motion changing the fruit. The fruit is your outcome. The root is the idea you have accepted… believed.
A note on that, if you are double-minded you won’t see the change you desire. Double-minded means being of two minds. Simply put, if I consciously choose to believe that I can be excited and also have a positive outcome, but my subconscious aka heart, still holds unto the bushwacking of…. this is going to hurt because it has always hurt and this is the way my story goes… and nobody knows the trouble I’m in, blah, blah, blah (insert personal blah here), then I won’t experience the end result I’m hoping for.
So now what? Either pray and express your desire to receive the instruction you need… and/or consciously choose how you will see your story and what you decide to focus your attention on each day… whatever you can do to make that real to you… so you feel it. When the two minds agree, you will feel alignment… or for those that don’t like the word feel, you will sense or have a “knowing”. This indicates you are close to the fruit you are hoping for.
When your belief systems change, your experience of the things around you changes too.
Pause for an interesting note:
One benefit of prayer vs you choosing the idea is that God knows all your blind spots. You don’t. God is the best life coach you could ever ask for, he knows every principle, and every angle that science is still trying to understand.
Back to your regular programming: (why do they call it that?)
For me… I realized I need to change. It is time to feel the fire again. It is time to have a zest for life. At the very least think of a simple outcome and feel the goodness and celebrate even before it arrives. Find what you can align with, start there… and build momentum. Often the smallest change is the fastest. Once we gain momentum that reinforces our new story, it’s amazing how dramatic shifts can happen. Think back on your life… Do you remember one or maybe two of these times?
If you are still stuck on the good ol days, you may be subdued and in survival like I have been. I recognize I’ve also made leaps and strides the past few years… but there is part of me that has been hidden under loads of unseen (mostly by others) dissappointment..
Can you choose to hope again? If you aren’t hoping already?
Yes, it’s dangerous to hope in some ways… we may be disappointed. However, in the words of Wayne Gretzky… “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”
For me, this means communicating and being vulnerable. Knowing that when I’ve done this in the past I have experienced more pain than I wish to remember. But, not communicating and sitting back as the clouds roll by, has caused me more ill than hoping and at least taking the shot… risking and risking again.
One of the most common regrets of people in the last days is that they didn’t risk more and that they didn’t say what they wanted to in the living years… song reference intended.
There is a country song that is worth a youtube listen… live like you were dying. Occasionally it’s good to remember that life is short.
So… I’m going to do what I need to do and risk… and if I fall, at least I will have moved forward, at least I will have dared greatly… and not been cold and timid, not knowing either victory or defeat.
What is one simple idea that would change everything for you?
Have you prayed lately? The message you receive is the gold… God spoke that you would believe and be saved.
When we change our beliefs, our actions and outcomes will shift like a kaleidoscope. Some beliefs have been rooted for quite some time. Perseverance will be necessary… but I believe it’s worth persevering to awaken and live and breathe again!
Today, instead of changing the actions, change what you accept… what you believe. Adjust your aim, fire, and fire again. Keep moving forward.
“Insanity is doing 1,000 different things with the same belief system and expecting a different outcome” – Jon Schauer
Living Years song
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hr64MxYpgk
Live like you were dying song
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLS-Dvuqt8k
Theodore Roosevelt
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”