Our Greatest Power

How to harness it

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately. I’ve been rummaging through my brain, skipping over the simple answers to the simple questions I pose to myself.

Perhaps I’m waiting on others to say something that will finally get me to do what needs to be done consistently and for the long haul.

But I know that’s all bullshit. I’ve listened and absorbed enough self-help material to know that nothing will push me over the edge to action but myself.

How can I ensure that I keep myself from sabotaging the pursuit of my own dreams? How can I keep myself from getting in the way of my success?

How am I going to get myself to stay the course? How am I actually going to make myself do those things that I say and know I need to do?

Why do I waste so much precious time? Why do I ignore the voice in my head or the feeling in my gut that constantly tries to steer me in the right direction?

Why do I get angry at myself or jealous of others’ success over the work I didn’t do?

Why am I so frustrated? Why do I feel helpless? Why am I like this and how do I fix myself and win the battle against my own mind?

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, and I realized that it’s too much thinking. I’ve skipped over the blatant and simple answers to such simple questions. I know what to do, but I don’t feel like it. Why?

I’m searching for something I can commit to, something comfortable.

The problem is I want to chase my ambitious dreams and be comfortable at the same time.

The reality is that in order to reach my dreams, comfort is the last thing that will get me there. The things that are going to work don’t feel comfortable, at least not at first. However, I just can’t bring myself to do the uncomfortable, right things.

And you know what? It doesn’t matter whether or not I have the willpower to do what needs to be done. My sob story doesn’t matter. If I want it, I need to do it. It’s the honest truth, and it’s staring me in the face.

We all know this, but how many of us are good at living uncomfortably? How many of us are willing to put off the things that give us instant gratification and pleasure and pursue the journey and its struggle instead?

How many of us are willing to be patient? How many of us are willing to sacrifice for the greater goal?

Our dreams come at a price. Our dreams require us to change, and how are we changing if we continue to do the same things that keep us put?

It certainly feels like I really want it, but I don’t do what needs to be done. In fact, I’m consciously avoiding it, all the time.

I must hate it, right? Maybe I don’t want it?

I don’t think that’s true. Tony Robbins would say the reason we don’t do the things we say and know we need to do is because we associate a level of pain with the task that’s far greater the pain of not doing it. If we could just flip that, if we could truly think about the consequences of not pursuing our dreams and associate more pain to that, then we could move toward change.

Brianna Wiest, a truly amazing and skilled writer, says that we sabotage our own success because there is some hidden barrier in our psychology that’s holding us back. We have to take an audit of ourselves, find the reason, and point out its flaws.

Wiest goes into detail about the ways you may be sabotaging your own success, what it means, and how to fix it in her incredible book The Mountain Is You. I highly suggest you take a read!

The question still remains, doesn’t it?

How? How do we do it?

People can tell you what you have to do, and they can all be right. The right answers are everywhere. I’ve just given two examples of people telling you how to overcome the barrier. But no matter what anyone says, you still have to do it, don’t you? Isn’t that the part that’s holding you up?

You still have to follow the advice. The problem you’re facing is not that you haven’t heard the information. The problem is that you haven’t acted. You haven’t done the physical thing of actually taking the action steps given to you. Why? Because it’s hard of course. And yet, it’s your only answer.

You have to do it. No one else can do it for you. And when I say “do it”, I don’t just mean for a few weeks, months, or even years at a time. You have to do it and not let go. This has to become your life. It’s the only way.

I don’t care what anyone says. It takes willpower to actually do the thing and hold onto doing it consistently, for the long haul, to reach your dreams. It takes willpower and perseverance and grit to continue down the path. No one can truly help you do it. We can only do what we’ve been doing: yelling at you to do it (and providing action steps).

You’re the one who has to take the action steps. This is the autonomy you have. This is your power. Your power is far greater than you give it credit for.

You may think you’re weak because you can’t get yourself to follow your dreams, but that’s just a testament to how powerful you are. How else would you explain our ability to do any and everything to steer ourselves away from the things that will most fulfill us when all is said and done? We utilize this power on a daily basis. The problem is most of us don’t have control over it. We need to steer it in the direction that leads to us accomplishing our wildest dreams, those same dreams that set our souls on fire just thinking about them.

I’ve said time and time again that the problem is we humans are in control. This is a problem because we humans, for some reason, will most likely use this control to steer us away from the destiny we would want to have.

Here I was telling you that you don’t have control over your power. If it’s getting confusing, let me break it down:

You have control over your destiny, the path you will take, and because of your lack of control over your power, you could very well end up taking a path you didn’t intend to take. At the end of the day, you still did it. Your actions trump whatever you may or may not have intended.

It takes as much control to “not” use your power as it does to “use” it.

Why the quotations around those two words? Because whether you feel like you are using power or not using it, you’re always using it. It’s a force that is constantly churning in whatever direction you steer it in.

When you are “not” using your power, you are still using it. It just doesn’t feel like you are because you’re doing something that’s comfortable.

When we do comfortable things, it feels effortless. Since we tend to associate “power” with effort, when it’s time to do something uncomfortable, it feels like it takes all of this “power” to do it.

Instead, what if you could train yourself to think that all you need to do is tap into the same power you’ve been using to not chase your dreams to chase them instead?

To reiterate, it certainly takes power to not follow your dreams. How else could you explain our ability to ignore the voice in our head that begs us to avoid a deathbed of regret? How else can you explain our ability to say we don’t have time to chase our dreams but turn around and find time to do things that don’t matter? How else can you explain our ability to lie to ourselves even though we know we can’t truly fool ourselves?

We want that path, but we see all of these bumps in the road. We’d rather go on the smooth road to ultimate failure. We’d rather lay on the deathbed asking the same simple questions. Only now, because it’s the end, we wouldn’t glaze over the simple answer. We’d look at that answer and wonder: “Why didn’t I just…”

Why what? Why didn’t you just…do it? Why did you waste so much time wasting time?

Maybe we’ll get it together. Maybe not. I hope so, for my sake and for yours, I truly hope so.