Hi guys! Welcome to Episode 259 of the Wildly Successful Lifestyle podcast! I hope you guys are happy and doing amazing things. I am recording this from Watersound beach Florida. I love that I can do this from anywhere. It’s freeing to me to know that I can. Don’t forget to share this episode if you love it, you never know whose life you might change when you share something inspiring with them.
You know that phrase….When the going gets tough…the tough get going. What exactly does that mean? Like they run away? They throw in the towel? No of course not. It means when things get tough, you gotta be tougher.
We live in a society that’s making us think we are soft. We’re becoming afraid of our own shadow. We are becoming more and more isolated, and that’s not a good thing. You know why? Because just because technology is making things easier and we have everything we need at our fingertips, life is still going to throw us curve balls, life is still going to knock us off our feet, and we are allowing ourselves to become I’ll be equipped to handle even the slightest discomfort as if we shouldn’t have to, but growth only happens when your uncomfortable. Think about the times you’ve grown the most..it’s when you’re going through hell that you know what you’re made of.
The good news is..we actually are not I’ll equipped. We are actually built to withstand a lot more than we give ourselves credit for. You and yes I am talking to YOU, your stronger than you think. You are more capable then you’re giving yourself credit for. Life happens, I get it. But just because life happens and it’s not happening the way you thought it would….it doesn’t mean you quit.
I went to school with this really smart girl and she had big dreams of becoming a fashion designer in LA. I believed in her. I believed she would be. She had something about her I thought was really great. She ended up moving back to her hometown after school and never left. Her life looks nothing like the dream she had. Ive often wondered what happened and I wonder if she’s happy. Maybe. She is.
Sometimes I think we get used to just accepting things the way they come to us, sort of expecting for things to be different and when they don’t happen the way we want them to we adapt to what we’ve gotten. And that’s ok if you’re happy where you ended up, if you’re happy where life has taken you. Where the problem comes in is when you’re not happy with what life dealt you.
Education wasn’t a big priority for my parents, college wasn’t something my siblings and I thought was even possible when we left high school.
My older sister was the first to start to break the tradition of going to college. I was so proud of her. She had a dream of becoming a teacher and she was going for it. She was doing this as an adult at the age of 34. Her grades were spectacular, she was loving every minute of it, studying and going to class, she inspired me so much and then out of the blue at the age of 35 she had a massive stroke. She had to learn to walk, talk and speak all over. She was one class and one final away from an associate’s degree at this point. Everyone would understand if she quit, she was in the hospital for months for goodness sake but nope she wasn’t accepting that loss, she wasn’t just going to quit because life through her a gigantic curve ball.
She reached out to her professor and they managed to work with her and in spite of her pretty serious brain injury she was able to successfully complete that class. She didn’t quit when she got her feet knocked out from under her, she kept going. Her Dr credited that hard work she put in so close to having her stroke to helping her Brain work find new pathways around the damaged part of her brain. Where would she be if she had quit when it got hard? Probably not as far along as she is today.
A fellow toastmaster member was recounting an experience she had on her first day of teaching school. She wanted to quit and never go back. It was her first day and she had a rowdy class. She managed to get most of them to quiet down but not one girl. She just wouldn’t listen so out of frustration she told the girl to step outside she was going to call her mom and they were going to have a conversation. So they step outside and she tells her to dial her moms number in her phone so she does with a little smirk which she thought was weird and they have a conversation about this girl not listening. They finish up and go back in the classroom and the class erupts in laughter. My friend has no idea why and she’s like what’s going on?? Well the bell rings and they all get up to leave and one little girl comes up to her and says Mrs fitz you know you weren’t taking to her mom right? You were talking to july and you were on speaker phone to the whole class. You can imagine her embarrassment. She wanted to quit. But had she quit that day, she would never had met Charles. Charles was a young man who was having a it of trouble in school. He simply would t do his work and often he wouldn’t come to class. One day he just told her I don’t want to do it and she looked him in the eye and said Charles, I believe in you. I believe you are meant for more. How can I help you do that? A few days later Charles left school for good and didn’t come back until a few years later when he came back specifically to see Mrs Fitz. He told her he had gotten in trouble and had gone to jail for a while but he changed and he wanted to come back and tell her thank you. Thank you for believing in him. She helped change his life simply with those words. He probably had never heard that said to him before and it was powerful. Where would Charles be today if Mrs fitz had quit when it got hard?
My sister decide to get a college degree at 34 even though that wasn’t something that was normal for our family. Then she had a massive stroke. If she haf quit when it got super hard life wouldn’t be better, it wouldn’t be easier. She’d still be living, it would be harder. She may still be struggling to talk or speak. But She chose the life she wanted, she didn’t fall to what life handed her.
If Mrs Fitz had of quit on that first day when it was hard and she was humiliated in that classroom, Charles may be in prison for life, we don’t know. But she chose to believe she could continue even though it was hard and she changed lives because of it.
They didn’t quit but they created a path forward for themselves instead.
Sometimes things happen and you think they shouldn’t have. Life gets hard and we think it shouldn’t be. You’re stronger than you think. Remember that the next time you’re going through something hard. Remind yourself that you are built to be strong. And never allow yourself in good times, to let yourself get soft, and if you’ve let yourself get a little soft, that’s ok. how do you move your momentum back towards empowering yourself? What do you need to do to make that happen? What do you need to stop doing in order to make that happen?
I read a quote this week that said “If you feel like you don’t fit in in the world you inherited, it’s because you were born to create a new one.”
My challenge to you this week is to know the difference between accepting what life has given you and creating the life you want.
Which path are you on are you allowing life to just happen or are you actively creating the one you really want? If you don’t like the answer…you’re built to change it, you were created to change it.
I love you guys. I’ll talk to you in a few days.