Getting Comfortable With Yourself: How Belief Changes Everything
Everyone has a purpose in life: an innate gift, given by God, that they need to discover. While there are several obstacles along the way, that inner voice is strong enough to cut through it all.
It’s all about listening to your heart, knowing what’s meant for you, and achieving it with passion, grit, and resilience.
Most people give up after experiencing failure, but that’s the wrong approach. The right approach is to keep going and keep believing in yourself. When one door closes, several others open. It’s all about keeping your senses open to other opportunities and moving ahead.
Nothing is unachievable if you try hard enough. Let’s discuss how you can also unlock success and inner peace by following the path ordained for you.
Age ain’t nothing but a Number
One of the most important things to understand is that age doesn’t matter as much as most people think. Getting caught up in this number harms your progress and makes you feel useless.
Society typically ties achievements with specific age groups: a job at this age, marriage at that age, and so forth. However, age isn’t the defining factor in your success, and it shouldn’t be.
Indeed, many successful people started early, but you’ll find an equivalent number of successful people who started late.
Perhaps the two biggest examples in popular culture one can relate to are Ray Kroc and Harland Sanders. The former founded McDonald’s at 52, while the latter started KFC at 65. That’s certainly not young, is it?
Journalist, author of the book Late Bloomer, and self-proclaimed late bloomer Rich Karlgaard cites highly relevant research about the age at which our cognitive abilities peak. Although some cognitive abilities peak at a younger age, things like deep pattern recognition, compassion, and communication skills really take hold in the 30s, 40s, and 50s—and these are the traits that make you a leader.
Acting on that Inner Voice
Most of us cannot stop thinking about success, and for good reason. We want to achieve something in life while doing what we truly love. Sometimes, we are confused about which path to follow, and that’s when our heart tells us where to go. Think about the last time you really wanted to do something and couldn’t stop thinking about it. You might have told others about it and encountered some naysayers, but you were still focused on doing it.
Sometimes, even your inner critic gets active and makes you doubt everything. But still, you have enough motivation to move full steam ahead and chase your dreams.
You are at the Heart of Everything
Passion isn’t just an external force that finds its home inside you. Your passion is who you really are at the core. It might sound a bit esoteric, but when you look closely, it makes perfect sense. When you’re aligned with your real passion, nobody can stop you.
The best way to discover your passion is to pause your brain for a moment and visit your heart. Your mind has been trained to keep you safe. It’s “rational” and always suggests you take the path of least resistance.
Sure, it’s creative and imaginative, but its survival mechanism kicks in whenever you want to try something different, something bold. And at that moment, switching it off for a moment can pay immense dividends down the line.
Exploring New Territories
If you’re doing something and are happy with it, it doesn’t mean you have fulfilled your life’s purpose. Sure, you might generally be satisfied with where you are right now, but there’s still a nagging inside you for something better, something bigger. It could be moving to a new state, a new company, establishing a new business, starting a new marketing campaign, and whatnot.
Now, if someone tells you that you deserve a bigger stage, a bigger company, or a better future, it doesn’t mean you should immediately stop doing your current work or assignments. You need to plan your future and how you’ll gradually move from your current work to the next one.
Doors of Failure and Success
Let’s face the hard, cold truth head-on: failure is an integral part of life. Even if you consider the lives of the most successful people in history, you’ll find out that they hit several roadblocks before they achieved success. And even then, occasional failures were part and parcel of their existence until they died.
A failed relationship, a botched job interview, a crumbling business, a burnt dinner - we encounter failures all around us. But why fear failure when it can be a stepping stone toward a better future?
What Does Failure Teach You?
Honestly, there is no better teacher than failure in life. It hurts and shakes our sense of perfectionism, so much so that sometimes it can be difficult to get back up. But failures teach us a lot, so let’s explore those lessons.
Resilience
If you’re truly determined to overcome failure, it’s impossible not to learn resilience after a failure. Resilience is a critical life skill that helps in many other areas of life, not just your career. By helping you develop a growth mindset and overcome adversities, it is a perfect stepping stone to building grit and long-lasting motivation.
Humility and Flexibility
Failure teaches you that you’re a human. Your ego might have grown a bit, but a dose of failures takes us back to the ground. It keeps our ego in check and keeps us humble. Flexibility is also a critical trait that you learn from failure. You might have designed a comprehensive plan only to find out that it faltered at key moments. But that doesn’t mean you should give up. It’s a signal to try harder and come up with something even better. You cannot repeat the same approach and expect different results. If you want to see better outcomes, you must become flexible and develop a better approach.
The Three G’s
The philosophy of three Gs can take you a long way, which is based on three principles: Go, Grow, and Glow. The first principle is to go boldly and confidently. When you’re walking your true path, don’t hold yourself back and give 100% to yourself and the people around you.
The second principle is to grow broadly by meeting new people that you wouldn’t have met if you had stayed at your previous workplace. They’ll expand your horizon, give you a fresh vision, and help you see things you weren’t seeing before.
The third principle is to glow brightly and be the light that others need. You could be the light at the end of the tunnel for them. When you walk your path and glow bright, you inspire many others to listen to their hearts.
Wrapping it Up
Finding your inner voice and acting upon it is the real purpose of life. Growth is challenging, but the rewards are worth it. Sometimes, a door closes, but another one opens somewhere else. Follow the three Gs to make the most of your time on this planet. Go towards your dreams, grow by learning from others, and glow to guide others. My prayers and good wishes are with you. Stay true to yourself and your purpose!
About the Author
Eugene Hamilton is a global speaker, educator, minister and consultant that is humbled that God has taken him on a lifelong journey of helping individuals, companies, organizations and schools reach their fullest potential. From being homeless at 18 to becoming a devoted husband and father, his goal is to help everyone that he comes in contact with understand the power of believing in your dreams and doing the necessary work to make them a reality.