I love watching life. The other evening I was on a bus coming home from a great day out. It was after 8.00pm. There were two men sitting in front of me and one was talking about his job. He had been forced to work late again to finish another rush job. He didn’t like his boss, the salary was poor and there was no chance of promotion.
As I sat and listened to his sad ranting I thought about the story of howling dog told by Celestine Chua.
A dog sat on the floor of the entrance porch of a house and howled at everyone who passed. He howled day in, day out. Eventually after many weeks a new resident to the area visited the house and asked why the dog howled so much.
The old dog owner explained that the dog was sitting on a nail. “Why doesn’t he just move away from the nail?” asked the new resident.
“That’s because he doesn’t find it painful enough yet” replied the owner
How many of us are in that position in life. We are not happy where we are and we moan to anyone who will listen but yet we are not uncomfortable enough to take some action.
In life we have at least 6 options when we discover we are sitting on that metaphorical nail.
Go on as if nothing has happened – We repeat the same situations day in and day out and expect that something will change. It is amazing how the years can pass just doing this. There you will be banging your head against a brick wall and wondering why all you are getting is a headache.
Questions for Action: -
If you do nothing what specifically will change about your situation?
What will your life look like in 5 or 10 years?
How do you want to be remembered by friends, family and colleagues?
Wait for the miracle – We sit and howl just like the dog and wait from someone to come along and sort out the situation for us. We become a victim. It is someone else’s fault that we are unhappy and they should jolly well come and sort it out!
Questions for Action: -
If you could create your own realistic miracle what would your life look like?
What one small step can you take to make things more comfortable for yourself?
Accept it – Acceptance is totally different from putting up with something or tolerating it. When you tolerate something you carry around the weight of that toleration with you like a pair of large dumb bells.
We say things like “it’s not that bad” or “better the devil we know”. Then there is my all time favourite “everybody has their ups and downs”. This is not acceptance this is defeat. We are not being honest with ourselves and we are effecting our emotional and psychological health.
Acceptance is similar in many ways to forgiveness. Acceptance and forgiveness both come from the heart and they are all or nothing states. True acceptance is difficult if you are in pain.
Questions for Action: -
Are you 100% at peace within yourself about the situation?
Are you absolutely certain?
If you could change one small thing , what would it be?
Change the situation – This might mean changing our own perspective of the situation or our perspective about the people involved in it. It might mean changing ourselves but it never means changing someone else because that is something that is not in our power to do.
Question for Action: -
What would need to alter to make the situation better?
Is there an alternative way of looking at the situation?
Walk away- Have you ever worn a pair of trousers that is a size too small? It’s not very comfortable but often in life we live in situations which we have outgrown. It might be a job or a relationship. You draw a line and step over it onto a new part of your life. It is not about running away, it is about moving on with dignity and a plan.
Questions for Action: -
If you could wake up tomorrow morning believing that anything you wanted to do was totally possible what would you choose to do?
What would that look like?
What would it give you that you don’t have now?
Wait until the pain too strong to bear – Sadly this is what many of us do. We wait until things are so bad that we have no other option but to move away from the source of the pain. Often by this point stress has affected our health or a relationship has deteriorated beyond repair or we are seriously in debt.
Questions for Action: -
Are you choosing to stay in this situation because you want to, you feel you should or you are all out of options?
What is the cost to you in terms of self belief, health or money of doing nothing?
If you felt strong and fearless what would you do?
I suggest that you take some quiet time to consider your answers and write them down. You might be very surprised by your answers.
This is the first of a series of posts. The next in the series will look at the biggest hurdle to cross when making your life better- fear.
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