30 Days of Encouragement - Day 4

Have you ever had an idea that seemed a little unconventional but stirred a passion within? If you have begun pursuing or working at it then great…. If not… Why not!

What happened to if? I can tell you one or two things stopped or stifled your idea.

1.- the voice of your brain gave you a gazillion reasons why you cannot do it, or

2. – the voices of your friends talked you out of it

Even if you are in some unfortunate physical position and are hindered, there is still some version of your dream that you can work on.

Undoubtedly, the first objection to your innovative idea comes from the voice of your brain. Your brain begins to search itself to find if there are any examples of people who tried what you are considering.

If it finds some examples, it begins to analyze them. It looks to see if they were successful or if they failed. It tries to recount for any reason that made them successful or that caused them to fail.

It then compares the attributes of these example people to your attributes. This is where the problem begins. The voice of your brain will compare detail by detail and give you all of the pros and cons.

I mainly find that the brain voice concentrates on the cons 90% of the time. It will even go back into your childhood and remind you that at the age of 8, you were stung by a bee. [as if that were relevant.... ]

The brain voice causes us to develop and lean to the habit of comparing ourselves to others. Their accomplishments v.s. our accomplishments. Their popularity v.s our popularity, their likes v.s our likes.

This is a habit that we need to learn to avoid because it only frustrates us and piles more reasons on the "Why I can't" mountain. We all need to develop the habit of never comparing ourselves, our status, our efforts, or our dreams with those of other people.

To our ears, their stuff sounds so much better than our stuff. We hear what they are doing and our stuff doesn't seem to be as big or as profitable as their stuff.

So, instead of focusing on the steps to make our stuff what we envision it to be, we tend to belittle our stuff and count it out. Please Stop! This can only bring misery...

But, as we all know, as soon as you consider doing something, obstacles and difficulties just seem to find you and jump up in your face.

Distractions come, circumstances come, reasons why you can't, and the voices of those who don't see you being able to reach your goal start to resound in your ears.

Make it your business to deal with all of the things that try and get in your way. Develop the attitude, Jason Nesmith, in the movie, Galaxy Quest, "of, "Never give up; never surrender"

Another issue is our definition of success. What does success look like to you? Is it money, money, money? Is it power? Is it peace and contentment. All of us dream of having unlimited wealth, but why? Is it because our society has told us that having a boat-load of money means that you are successful?

Many people who have worked hard for years and have made millions are still not satisfied. Even though the can buy what they want, there is an emptiness within their soul.

Once you make the decision of what success looks like for you please note that your decision will be something that you will have to fight to maintain.

The ideas of other people can pressure you to buy a new house, a new car, to max out our credit cards, to get two or three jobs... All in pursuit of what they call success.

Your friends, family, and people you admire may not think much of your passion. But, it is not for them to give you their approval. They may tell you, "There's no money in that!" - But how do they know.... they aren't doing it.

Where it seems there is no money for others doesn't mean that there is no money in it for you! You may be the very one to make a literal fortune in that area. ----

They may say, "You don't know how to do that!" ---Even if you don't know how to do it today doesn't mean that you won't learn how to do it tomorrow! Take a class, search YouTube, Google it, read a HubPages article! In this day and age, you can learn how to do anything you want to do - there are no excuses left.

What is in your heart to do, to be, to say? That is where your focus should be. No dream, no success story started BIG. Everything begins as a seed, and seeds take time to grow.

Don't kill it before it germinates. Try it, even if it doesn't work out, you will have the success of having tried to accomplish it. And, along the way, you may discover another passion that actually will be successful.

Today's encouragement is "Don't let people or yourself stifle your dream!"

Either find some people who understand and support your dream or stop telling people about it---

Save yourself some mental stress, emotional trauma, and physical time. Stop thinking about it and just be about it! --- Be Blessed

[Phillippians 4:13]