Author Topic: Motivation Monday #13  (Read 2409 times)

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Offline theredpill

Thank you CLains!

Offline CLains

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CHALLENGE

"Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once." - William Shakespeare

Most psychological and spiritual growth is the result of challenges. In particular real challenges that stretch your self-concept, skills, beliefs and mental or physical capacities. Real challenges are brought about when there is a greater demand from yourself and your environment. It's those moments when your skills and best efforts are called upon, and you must push your will, strength and courage to keep up. When the right challenges are presented you can enter a state of flow where your sense of time and self-consciousness melts away; when you're in that zone you feel your best, preform your best and grow as a human being.

But how do we choose the right challenges - the real challenges? First of all, challenges are not simply goals. A goal focuses on the extrinsic purpose of the action, we can achieve a goal without enjoying it, without feeling that it is significant, without growing and without feeling challenged. Second, even if we realize that achievement of the goal changes things, that does not mean it is progress - we can change a lot of things about our lives, and brag about all the changes we're undergoing, without any genuine progress being made.

The stress we feel in life is rarely related to real challenges, the kind that stretches our abilities and makes us feel engaged and growing. So whatever mundane murmur of "do to-do" we get from our surroundings, it's important to rise above and activate real challenges in a way that brings back the zest of engagement and progress in our lives. With that said, lets jump into the practical steps we can take to set real challenges.

Choose Fulfilling Challenges

Choosing a trivial challenge is no good. We need challenges that we find fulfilling, challenges that are inspiring and meaningful. Here I list five different point to keep in mind when choosing a challenge.

#1 Find a challenge that activates a state of flow

In general terms we should aim for these are activities that challenge your whole being - requiring singular focus, and forcing you to pay undivided attention and concentration to the task at hand.

#2 Find a challenge that stretches your efforts and capabilities.

Step outside your comfort zone! Find something that is just beyond your current abilities, something that requires you not only to engage fully, but to grow and learn with the challenge.

#3 Find a challenge where you can score performance.

Build progress checks into your challenges - it forces you to be realistic, exposes you to outside influence, makes it easier to feel what you are doing and creates a sustainable habit.

#4 Find challenges that have a sense of completion

There needs to be light at the end of the tunnel, especially when you are tackling huge challenges. Allow yourself to have pride in your achievements.

#5 Find challenges that allow sharing of experiences and achievements

Talking about and celebrating your achievements with others is important for our feelings of fulfillment. If we are all alone in our achievements, they can feel empty and hallow. This also means we should seek out friends and environments where pride in achievements and celebration is encouraged rather than frowned upon.

Focus on the Journey and Don't Fear Rejection

Two mental villains of setting new challenges is unmet expectations and a paralyzing fear of rejection.

We help to slay the first villain by noting that when we consider the reason for doing something, the why of it all, we should not focus on the extrinsic reward of our actions, i.e. the expected outcome or destination, rather we should focus on the intrinsic rewards associated with the journey. When taking up a challenge, learn to enjoy the process and your own effort - true celebration is as much of the heroic struggle as it is of the treasure uncovered at the end.

To help slay the second villain we should note that rejection is extremely rare. The kind of rejection people fear, associated with a break-up or being fired from a job for lack of skill, occurs only a few times in life, and meanwhile we encounter hundreds if not thousands of people who are encouraging and enthusiastic about our potential progress and even sympathize with our struggles and failures when they occur.

And even when the occasion rejection occurs, do we pay attention to that above everyone else? Or do we chose to ignore or at best sympathize with the mean spirit that tries to tear us down?

« Last Edit: July 14, 2015, 01:08:36 pm by CLains »