Les Brown: Hard Times Go to Your Heart and Into Your Soul

For most of us, life offers abundant opportunities for both laughter and tears. The good times you savor. The hard times go to your heart and into your soul. Our ability to handle life’s challenges is a measure of our strength of character. And yet, where do we learn how to deal with those challenges, hard times and difficulties? In school, we are taught how to read and write.

But what about the keys to living? Where do we enroll in Life 101? Where are the classes dealing with the loss of a job, the death of a loved one, the failure of a relationship? Unfortunately, those lessons are mostly learned through trial by fire and the school of hard knocks. The message of my book It’s Not Over Until You Win is that no matter how difficult your life may become, no matter how hard it gets, there is always reason to keep on going and fighting because you can survive and thrive.

My suggestion is that, after you have been knocked down or pushed back by life, you should acknowledge the setback, understand why it happened, and then make a leap ahead of where you were when you were hit. That’s how to become the person you always wanted to be.

         Sometimes the Hits Just Keep On Coming

We are living in very challenging times. Pressured in the workplace and stressed out at home, people are trying to make sense of their lives. How do you keep on going when life knocks you down? It’s one thing to be positive when things are going well, but it is something altogether different when life catches you on the blind side:

• When someone you love is taken away
• When a catastrophic illness strikes you or a family member
• When your “lifetime” job is suddenly downsized
• When the relationship that has kept you going falls apart
• When you go through the emotional torment of a divorce
• When your grown children refuse to grow up
• When your teenagers decide they are adults

There are times when you want to say to life: “Please give me a break. Just give me a chance to catch my breath.” But life doesn’t listen. Sometimes, as soon as we raise our heads, it knocks us back down. Such is life.

Believing Is Powerful

Believing in yourself requires knowing that your life has value and there is hope. You don’t have to be on top of the world already to look up. No matter what your circumstances are, there is a reason for you being here. How can you begin to believe in yourself more? One way is through internal encouragement. Concentrate on doing volunteer work, working out, taking a class—anything that makes you feel good about yourself. Find positive expressions that work for you, and put them on cards where you can see them during the day. One of my favorites was given to me by a friend: “Good things are going to happen to me.” Say it repeatedly, but each time put the emphasis on a different word or phrase.

GOOD things are going to happen to me.

Good THINGS are going to happen to me.

Good things ARE going to happen to me.

Good things are GOING to happen to me.

Good things are going TO HAPPEN to me.

Good things are going to happen TO me.

Good things are going to happen to ME.

We have to live life with a sense of urgency so not a minute is wasted. Failure, defeat and loss afflict us all. Expect it, and learn to deal with it. And then learn to get back to life without waiting for an invitation. One way to do that is to trust in a power greater than yourself, and to believe good things are going to follow—great things will occur when you get up, dust yourself off, and go at life with renewed determination and courage.

Source

The River or the Goal Article by: Earl Nightingale

If you’re going to be a success as a human being, you have to fit into one of two groups, or belong to both of them.

The first group belongs to what I call “the river.” These are men and women who have found, often early in life, although not always, a great river of interest into which they throw themselves with exuberance and abandon. They are quite happy to spend their lives working and playing in that river.

For some, the river may be a particular branch of science; for others, one of the arts. There are some physicians, for example, who are so wrapped up in medicine that they hate to leave; even after a 16 hour day, they can’t wait to get back to it.

These people are happiest and most alive when they’re in their river — in whatever business or career or profession it happens to be. And success comes to such people as inevitable as a sunrise. In fact, they are successes the moment they find their great field of interest; the worldly trappings of success will always come in time. Such people don’t have to ask, “What will I do with my life?” Their work is a magnet for them, and they can’t imagine doing anything else.

We all know such people, or about such people. Doing what they do is even more important to them than the rewards they earn for doing it.

The second group of successful people are those who are goal-oriented. These people have not found a particular river, necessarily, and can be quite happy doing a number of things. It’s the goals they set that are important to them, and they’re quite aware that there are many roads that can lead to their goals.

Someone once said, “Americans can have anything they seriously make up their minds to have. The trouble is that most of them never make up their minds about anything.” Goal-oriented people do make up their minds about what they want, and they keep their eyes and their enthusiasm on the goal they’ve established until it becomes a reality in their lives. Then they set a new goal, if they’re wise.

One of the problems with this latter group is that after achieving a number of goals and becoming quite successful, they can run out of goals and become listless and unhappy. But not the river people. Their interest in what they’re doing never fades.

So if you’re going to be a big success, chances are you need to be a river person or a goal-oriented person, or both — the two groups are not mutually exclusive.

Source: The Essence of Success by Earl Nightingale

Tips for Setting Goals

A clinical associate professor of psychiatry, Dr. Ari Kiev, writes, “Observing the lives of people who have mastered adversity, I have noted that they have established goals and sought with all their effort to achieve them. From the moment they decide to concentrate all their energies on a specific objective, they began to surmount the most difficult odds.”

Dr. Kiev continues, “The establishment of a goal is the key to successful living. And the most important step toward achieving an objective is first to define it. I’m sure you have at least 30 minutes a day in which to list your thoughts. At the end of that time, choose from the possible objectives you have listed, the one that seems the most important, and record it separately on a single card. Carry this card with you at all times. Think about this goal every day. Create a concrete mental image of the goal, as if you’ve already accomplished it.”

The doctor points out, “You can determine your special talents or strengths in a number of ways, ranging from psychological tests to an analysis of the unexpressed wishes in your dreams. No method works for everyone. You might start, for example, by clipping and posting newspaper articles that interest you. After 30 days, see if there isn’t some trend suggestive or a deep-seated interest of natural inclination. Keep alert to the slightest indications of any special skills or talents, even when they seem silly or unimportant.

“From this exercise, you should be able to get some sense of potential strengths. Whenever you discover a strength or talent, think of five possible ways to develop it. Write these down on a card as well, and check them periodically to keep them fresh in your mind.”

So take the good advice of psychiatrist Dr. Ari Kiev, and don’t be afraid of failure. As Herodotus wrote, “It is better by noble boldness to run the risk of being subject to half of the evils we anticipate than to remain in cowardly listlessness for fear of what may happen.”

Source: The Essence of Success by Earl Nightingale

http://www.nightingale.com/articles/the-river-or-the-goal/