Tony Robbins, one of my favourite authors, likes to talk about questions a lot. In his book, "Awaken the Giant Within", he has a whole chapter dedicated to the Power of Questions. Have you ever noticed that when you ask yourself a question, your brain tends to come up with answers, even if not directly - you think of thoughts and memories which give you answers.
Here's an example: Suppose you want to lose some excess flab and you do the traditional thing and start some kind of diet and take up some exercise. However you don't stick to it for too long and you start to ask yourself the question "Why can't I ever stick with it?" and you might start to remember times in the past where you have tried and failed and this might trigger you to think "...because I am weak willed", or perhaps "I'm just no good at diets", or maybe even "I was just born to be fat" and so on.
So, the "Why Me" question can be a very dangerous one because if you ask it coming from a place where you see yourself as a victim, your brain will come up with ways to verify that thought and before you know it you'll have a whole bunch of reasons why this has happened to YOU, why life is so unfair, why you never get the breaks and so on.
Last week, I caught myself doing this. I received a massive financial blow which has dropped my income by a huge amount and slapped me with a large debt. I've been employed for almost a year and yet I am struggling. I am an intelligent, well educated person working as a software engineer. I am thirty five years old, and here I am, still struggling just to make ends meet. And then there came the question... "Why Me? Why am I still struggling? I should be doing better than this by now. I have every reason to be successful, why am I still failing?".
For an hour or so I wallowed a little bit but luckily I soon snapped out of it. Then I decided to try and answer my questions, but from the point of view of an independent observer rather than as a victim. I found answers.
One of the reasons I am struggling financially is because I was sensible when I bought my house and took out a 15 year mortgage rather than a 25 year one. I am paying now in order to save massively later on. Another reason is that the fees for my sons nursery are astronomical. But this is simply a fact of life. I knew I would have to pay the fees and that is that. It is also not permanent. In two years time he will be at school and a big burden will be lifted.
Job wise, I simply don't earn very much and that's because I only recently re-entered the job market. If I had been working in the industry for the last seven years like my partner, I would probably be earning a lot more by now. Business wise, I have no other income simply because I have not started any other business endeavours yet. So there you have it. I have answered my question and got practical answers back. I no longer feel like a victim and furthermore, because I have identified the true reasons behind my predicament I have a pretty good idea of the kinds of action I could take to rectify it:
- Lengthen the term of my mortgage, get the cash but prolong the debt
- Work hard at my job, build my career and go for a higher salary
- Start a part time business
Very often, when a situation comes up that causes us to ask the question "Why Me?", what starts as something fairly specific can end up being generalised and this too can be very dangerous. For example, imagine the following potential internal dialogue:
"Why am I still struggling financially at my age?"
"I have always struggled, will it ever change? Am I doomed always to be poor?"
"I never get anything I want, why do I always fail?"
"Why am I such a failure?"
If you ever hear a little voice in your head having a conversation like the one above, STOP RIGHT THERE! Snap out f it, stop being a victim, don't do that to yourself. Instead, imagine you are an outside observer. Re-evaluate your original question and see if you can find an honest answer without the emotional baggage that's usually attached to it.
It can be a valuable learning experience to answer your "Why me?" questions, but only when you approach them with the right frame of mind.
1 comment:
It takes a lot to change the way we think. Most of us would see this scenario and just think negatively and like you say wallow in it hoping that miraculously something will happen to change the result. Changing the way we think and approach little hurdles like this is key, any hurdle that comes our way needs a response from yourself that will react in a positive way.
Another force that doesn't help is that most people want instant results, their not prepared to wait and put the effort in. You chose option 3, to start a part time business. This is a massive task and one that will need a lot of time and energy up front before you start to see rewards. I remember when I launched a website and I worked solidly for 3 months and couldn't understand why it wasn't getting onto Google and other search engines. It really affected me and for a while I put it to the side and didn't work on it. I then received an email from someone 6 months later and I oculdn't believe it when I suddenly saw my website finally being ranked in the search engines. I checked my stats and sure enough instead of the 1 visitor (me) all those months ago, I now had a steady 50-100 visitors a month (that was huge for me). I was kicking myself at the time for not continuing my hard work, I could have done so much more in the 6 months that I neglected it.
Most people would look at your options and say ok I choose number 1 - I'll see an instant return because every month I can pay less towards my mortgage. To be honest, that's the option I think I would have liked to have taken. That's a dangerous decision though, because taking option 1 and saying I'm also going to do option 3 as a long term replacement for option 1 will take the emphasis off of option 3. You are doing the right thing by choosing to start your business and hopefully by having no other back up it will motivate you more when the pain finally kicks in. Sometimes you need pain to motivate you harder.
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