I started to write a post about set backs the other day, but I couldn't really find the words I wanted to say - I knew what I wanted but not really how. To be honest as I type this I'm not sure I have the right words either, but I'll let you be the judge.
Failing sucks - it can hurt emotionally, physically and even financially. One of if not the hardest thing about making a real change in your life is failing to make that change over and over again - day after day you make a promise to yourself that today I'll do this or I won't do that and at the end of the day all you have is a broken promise to yourself.
Let's for a moment pretend that all of those failures or broken promises go in a bucket. Now we all fail a lot so lets have two buckets to catch all the fails and a stick to pick up those buckets and carry them on our back. I mean that is what failure feels like right? A large bucket or two of weight, preventing you from moving forward and each failure or set back make it harder to move forward...
Many things have been said about failures or troubles including in the bible, the bible says we ought to be thankful for our troubles (more or less). I'd have to agree - Failures and setbacks can either weight you down or lift you up...
Ready for a little trip down memory lane?? Remember when we had a reason for personal change and set a goal? OK close your eyes - just kidding then you can't read... Imagine you're in the woods it's cool out and the sun is going down, you hadn't planned on camping but here you are none the less. You start a tiny fire - see the flame in your mind notice how small it starts out. You add some twigs to the fire and the flame gets strong, hotter and bigger! You add a log or two and sit back to enjoy your warm fire - in the distance you hear thunder. The rain starts, you bundle up and hope your fire doesn't go out. To your delight the fire is still burning bright, mostly because of those logs you added.
So where am I going with this - the flame is a few things really, it's your goal, it's you in some sense. When you start to make a personal change in your life you tend to be weak in that area and easy to "put out", your goal can be extinguished before it ever really got started. Twigs to the rescue!! Twigs are your failures, yup failures help to feed the flame of our failure at least they can if you use them. Remember our big buckets O fail - think of them as coal to super heat the goal furnace!! The logs are our reasons for personal change, to weather any storm we need strong reasons that really keep our fire burning.
Setbacks and failures are a major part of life and most personal change - they can fill your bucket full of coal or water - you decide how you want to feed your fire!
No comments:
Post a Comment