Tag: personal development

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Someday is the stealer of dreams. Not in a way that is obvious, but hope unused leaves so many of us with this hole inside of us we can’t explain. Now someday is so different than unused potential. Most, if not all of us will leave something on the table when we bite the dust, it is inevitable. If you believe that the universe and our possibilities are limitless then you would also have to believe that your potential is infinite therefore you would have to be leaving something on the table at the end of it all. The only way we could completely use up all of our potential would be if that potential was finite, if it was a limited resource we had to be careful with and based on what we know and see every day from incredible humans that just isn’t the case. So it really isn’t unused potential we should be worried about but that of the wasted variety. The un-grasped opportunity that was perfectly befitting our skill level but we were just too scared, lazy or comfortable to try. Those are the stealers of dreams. Those are the errors we that haunt us into our long dirt nap.

Really the term someday should be a swear word. It shouldn’t be allowed in our vernacular at all. It has taken more dreams, visions and change for the good to the grave with it than cancer or any other disease we can think of. Someday puts us at ease, makes us feel like It could or will happen if we just wait, It is always just over the horizon. It feels so much like hope that we don’t notice it is different. Someday only becomes today if we work, someday only happens if we take the dream in our head and we start to take action towards what we think we want. Often though we see our dreams as unattainable. They are too big and we don’t understand how to start, they scare us, there is too much change or we have priorities. So many dreams have been undone with these excuses, compounded with just a little bit of someday. Waiting for the perfect time is going to leave you waiting forever, there is no perfect, it is an excuse just as scary as someday. Your dreams are only meant to inspire, but I am not sure if you are always meant to achieve them, they are there to serve a purpose, to motivate you to take action, not necessarily to be the thing we attain. Which hopefully is freeing, maybe that helps you get started and alleviates just a tiny bit of the anxiety achievement creates for so many of us.

It is too bad as we have developed tools to make communication easier we have forgotten to communicate with ourselves. To be in touch with who we are and our own confidence. You aren’t dreaming your dreams for anyone else but you! And guess what, no one else can achieve them but you either. So why worry about what others think of what you are doing, why care about the opinion of someone who probably is just jealous of your dream or isn’t willing to put the work in to actually accomplish theirs. When it boils right down to it there are only 32 starting QB’s in the NFL but an absolute endless supply of armchair quarterbacks telling them they made the wrong throw or call or whatever. I guess it just boils down to are you going to let someone not even in the arena never mind the game you want to play dictate whether or not you are going to play?

So fuck all of the naysayers, screw your someday procrastination and get to work. Take the risk, do anything today that moves you even a fraction of a step towards your dream and then do something that moves you another fraction the next day and then guess what even if it takes forever, isn’t it a lot more fun moving towards your dreams than waiting for them to come to you. Go be an active participant in your own rescue, in your own life. No more passive bullshit, you were not put here to be mediocre! Look at it like a movie and be the superhero that saves the day don’t just be the extra in the back ground.

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For a large part of my life I let my emotions guide me. I followed where they took me and for moments it was incredible. It was as high as high could be, but inevitably there were lows. The problem was those lows would be so much more intense and usually so much longer than the height of any high. And at some point that became too much to bare. Now I managed this typically with alcohol, not in the way that most people do, I didn’t binge, I didn’t get drunk every day but I drank and I drank every day. It was enough to take the edge off and I was heading in the wrong direction. But what I had really done, where I had really gone was to a place of constant numbness. I used frustration and edginess to protect myself from having to feel anything else as I was exhausted, burnt out and raw from the over stimulation of allowing my emotions make my decisions for me.

For a large chunk of my 20s this worked for me as my life was simpler, the lens I saw the world through was a little more rosy and I lived in a pretty positive environment. That environment was false and I was naïve. I live in a part of the world where oil dictates the economy and when oil tanked so did the hospitality industry and as more stress entered my neck of the woods I just went along with it. I was too young and had only really done the work on a surface level to try to be a better leader. I not done the deep work required to be an emotional being that still functioned with any consistency in the real world. I got jaded, I blamed, I spent most of my time trying to be right and point out why everyone else was wrong. I treated those I loved the worst. I am sure this sounds similar, I guarantee in some ways you can relate. I had all of the same signs that so many others did around me. Depression, anxiety, I ate like shit, drank too much, didn’t exercise and spent so much time talking about the past or the future. I never talked about the here and now. It was always better in the past or it would be in the future, if I could only get this to work or change. Funny thing is at almost the same time I would sabotage my positive future talk which was at least almost good. I would tell myself I didn’t deserve that, it would never happen to a guy like me and my personal favorites of your just a piece of shit that slowly destroys everything you touch or no one cares about you they only care about what you do for them. Those last two I personally loved and reserved for when I really felt like driving myself into the darkest places possible.

Now the verdicts still out. I can’t tell you if anyone cares about me personally or if they just care about what I do for them. That lens still slips over my eyes from time to time. But what I have learned is that the only way it is going to change is if I change. If I change my view of myself.

I am by no means an expert. I still have tough days. I still treat myself like shit and wallow in my own self pity on occasion. The thing I notice is that it isn’t as intense and I don’t wallow for as long. The biggest change for me. My emotions are now just guideposts. They are not the guide. I do not follow them. I use them to tell me when I am starting to head off course. I know this is such a subtle discrepancy and a lot of you may argue that it is really semantics and for sure it could be. But the way I view it in my head is what truly matters so let me try to explain.

I believe everything can serve a purpose in our lives. I didn’t always believe this or want to believe it but as you pay impartial attention it becomes undeniably true that the key to unlocking a great life is to utilize your emotions rather than them utilizing you. I am sure at this point in reading this you are like ok we fucking get it but how the hell do you do that? Aren’t emotions just our natural reaction to what happens to us externally? Yes. For sure they are but that doesn’t mean they need to be active participants in how YOU react externally. It was actually our good friend and Doula who imparted this thought while my wife was in labor. She simply told us that “almost nothing is an emergency and you have time to think”. I have carried this thought with me almost everywhere I go and it was this simple shift in thinking for me that helped me create more discipline in my life and unlock what I feel is trending towards real emotional freedom. Which is the freedom to feel the way I want to rather than the way the situations in my life may dictate. Now I am not professing any expertise. I’m just a guy on the path reaching for the next guidepost. I still get upset at the guy that cuts me off, I am no Dalai Lama or Mother Theresa. But those reactions are less and I can move them to productive action much quicker than I could before. I am an active participant in my emotional life versus just a guy in the boat heading down the emotional river waiting to see which rock would sink me next.

I really appreciate all of the support so far. Let me know in the comments what you think or if you have any questions. I would love to answer them. And if you are enjoying my content it would mean the world to me if you subscribed here and found me on the social media!