“Don’t raise your hand or the teacher might call on you.  If the teacher calls on you, you might be wrong.  If you are wrong your classmates might laugh at you.  If they laugh at you, you might never make friends again.”

At times this is how I felt growing up.

Don’t stick out.  Don’t have the opportunity to fail.  Try not to be noticed.

I’m dropping this.  I don’t know how this was uploaded into my consciousness, but I can’t have it in there anymore.

To be successful I need to operate on a new paradigm.

Stand out.  Fail often and learn from the failures.  Get noticed so that you can affect more people.

It’s going to be uncomfortable (there’s that word again!) because its going against my programming.  Luckily working through discomfort is a skill I’ve been building!

I just wrote a long post about consistency and my failure at writing a blog every day.  Then I tried to post it and it was deleted.  Desperately I scrambled to look if wordpress saved it only to find that, of course, it did not.

(EXPLETIVE) (EXPLETIVE) (EXPLETIVE)  was my first thought.

This has happened before.  In fact it was one of the excuses I used in not writing for a whole freakin year!

I’ve learned a lot since then so I will not use one tiny obstacle as an excuse.  So I’m writing this immediately after the last one was deleted (and saving it this time….fool me once…)

Obstacles.

They pop up all the time.  Mostly when we least expect them.  In fact, unexpected obstacles are the worst type.  They can be damaging.  They have the potential to send us spiraling out of control.  Our routines might totally be thrown off or our goals might be put on the backburner.

Obstacles are bad.

….If you perceive them that way.

You can also look at obstacles as stepping stones or THE WAY.  This perspective has come to term with the fact that obstacles WILL HAPPEN and do in fact happen all the time.  Obstacles are EXPECTED AND EMBRACED.  They can be viewed as a good thing.  Maybe they cause you to find a more creative solution to a problem or make you more conscious in your preparations.

It’s all about perspective.

So today I’m looking at retyping this blog as a good thing.  In fact, the ideas flowed a heck of a lot easier the second time.  I’m going to embrace the small inconvenience and use it to make me better!

…and this time I’m going to save it before I post!

(Read The Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday for an entire book about this idea)

“Much of our behavior is literally contagious; when you make positive changes in your own life, you are unconsciously shaping the behavior of an incredible number of people.”- The Happiness Advantage

This idea is incredibly important.  You want to make the world a better place?  You want people to be nice? More positive?  Do you want your kids to grow up to be healthy and happy?  Do you want your coworkers to smile more often?  Do you simply want to see positive differences?

The way to do this is to start with you.

You need to be healthier and happier.  You need to make the positive change in yourself.

Change the only thing you are responsible for and, quite frankly, the only thing you have control over- Yourself.  

People always say “you are a product of your own environment.”  And in some instances that is completely true (mostly subconsciously).

But I feel like that thought can be dangerous; it takes the responsibility off the individual.

If I’m just a product of something else then it’s not my fault I am unhappy, lazy, zoned out, depressed, angry.

That’s a bunch of crap.  You aren’t on earth to simply exist as a product.  You are meant to be the producer.  The one whose morals and beliefs are permeating the community around you.  The one who is affecting change.

You CAN make the change you want to see in the world.  But you have to start with YOU.  And it’s not going to be easy.  In fact, it is much easier to be the product- to let your surroundings shape you and form your personality, shape, moral compass, beliefs.  Being mindless is a piece of cake.  Being mindful?  That’s the challenge!

But it’s a challenge I believe all of us can take on.

So today I challenge you to improve you.  However you see fit.  Whether that’s going for a run, doing yoga, taking on a new skill, stepping outside your comfort zone, calling an old friend, letting go of a grudge, meditating, uncluttering your house, or joining my friend Calvin’s 100 Club (100 days to learn a new skill).

Whatever you may choose, just step up to the plate.  You got this.  You rock!