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Thursday 2 July 2015

Step One: Stop Creating the Problem

It’s easy to push one’s hopes and dreams aside when entangled in life’s challenges. While trying to keep up with the pace of modern life, we don’t find time for doing what we love, never mind think about how to change direction. Often it’s true that for a limited time one cannot find one’s way out of a hard place, but when misery becomes a never-ending cycle it could be a comfort zone that one is too afraid to step out of. Life can be harsh at times and it’s tempting to turn misfortune into an excuse to avoid finding one’s way.

There is no way out of the web of fear and worry if one continues to spin it through one’s daily actions. Part of the problem is our dependence on others who all spin their own webs that interact with ours. This is especially true when it comes to financial matters. But when one has a vision for one’s life, I believe that motivated action and perseverance will bring it into being. When we don’t know the way from where we are to where we want to be, the first step is to stop creating the problem. While we cannot stop participating in all our problems at once, we could look at what is closest to home and begin with what we can change. It could be as simple as choosing to look beyond perceived limitations, or facing one of our fears that we have been unwilling to deal with.

When the wheel has been set in motion and the will to change is present, I have found that allowing one’s actions to revolve around fear becomes increasingly unbearable. While courage builds, spaces open up where one has let go of filling one’s days with meaningless activity. In these empty spaces where we learn to find our feet, our strength of resolve is tested. It is here that we have to confront the voices of self-doubt that try to persuade us that we are smaller than our vision has shown us we can be. Here we have to resist the temptation to return to our old ways and be willing to step into the unknown.

As soon as we stop re-creating our problems, a multitude of possibilities open up. In this space we see that the world does not define our potential, but we define the world. To change a problem, the best (and sometimes hardest) place to start is with ourselves.