Learn To Embrace Change, Not Run From It

Change is inevitable in life. 

You can either resist it and potentially get run over by it, or you can choose to cooperate with it, adapt to it, and learn how to benefit from it. When you embrace change you will begin to see it as an opportunity for growth. The worst thing one can do is not to try, to be aware of what one wants and not give in to it, to spend years in silent hurt wondering if something could have materialised—never knowing. If you want to be really successful, and I know you do, then you will have to give up blaming and complaining and take total responsibility for your life; that means all your results, both your successes and your failures. 

That is the prerequisite for creating a life of success.

You either create or allow everything that happens to you.

Building A Tolerance For Doing Hard Things

We challenge ourselves not to improve our immune system. Not to increase our metabolism. Not to reduce anxiety. Those things might be nice ancillary benefits but they are not the point. The purpose is to become the kind of person that can do it. How do you expect to do the big things that scare you—that scare others—if you haven’t practiced them? Why do you think you can endure the cold reception of a bold idea if you can’t even endure cold water? How can you trust that you’ll step forward when the stakes are high when you regularly don’t do that when the stakes are low? 

What gives you any confidence you’ll do the hard thing when people are watching if you can’t do that even when no one is watching? To do big scary things, you have to make a habit of doing small scary things. You have to build up a tolerance for doing scary things…You have to get to a place where when something’s scary, you have the power to say, ‘I don’t care, I’m doing it anyway.’ 

We want to cultivate the willpower, the strength, that allows us to be the kind of person that pushes through, that does the things that are scary. 

Positive Mindset

Cultivating a positive mindset is one of the most powerful things you can do that will immediately change your life if you did nothing else but cultivate a positive mindset; because it’s going to make a difference. 

How you view things in life changes everything. It changes the way people view you, and it changes your daily interactions. It is very important to develop a positive mindset through your daily habits and thoughts. It’s better to have a positive attitude because your life will be better. You can tell yourself to have a positive mindset, its about being self-aware. It’s about being mindful. If you recognise that you’re having these negative thoughts and you tell yourself; hey enough of that, I don’t want these negative thoughts in my head. Make a conscious effort to surround yourself with positive, nourishing, and uplifting people -- people who believe in you, encourage you to go after your dreams, and applaud your victories. 

I need to have a positive mindset, that makes a difference; that’s what makes your life better in a huge way. You only have control over three things in your life - the thoughts you think, the images you visualize, and the actions you take (your behaviour). How you use these three things determines everything you experience. 

Become an optimist

Be a balanced optimist. Nobody is suggesting that you become an oblivious Pollyanna, pretending that nothing bad can or ever will happen. Doing so can lead to poor decisions and invites people to take advantage of you. 

Instead, be a rational optimist who takes the good with the bad, in hopes of the good ultimately outweighing the bad, and with the understanding that being pessimistic about everything accomplishes nothing. Prepare for the worst but hope for the best - the former makes you sensible, and the latter makes you an optimist.

Mantra for 2024

"I can do hard things. Doing hard things has intrinsic value and they’ll make me a better person even if I end up failing. There’s value in doing hards things. You’re able to do hard things and you’re going to get value our of it no matter what actually happens. 

Whether it makes you a famous novelist or not; or whatever that dream happens to be."

Conclusion

There are two basic motivating forces: fear and love. 

When we are afraid, we pull back from life. When we are in love, we open to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement, and acceptance. We need to learn to love ourselves first, in all our glory and our imperfections. If we cannot love ourselves, we cannot fully open to our ability to love others or our potential to create. 

Evolution and all hopes for a better world rest in the fearlessness and open-hearted vision of people who embrace life.

Be driven by love, not fear.

Stay mindful,

Pach Deng