I have seen so many people give up on themselves i.e. the old and the young. Personally, I’ve been in many situations in the past where I too felt like giving up.
It is not that you aren’t capable.
It is the stories you are telling yourself vs what you decide to expel before letting it enter you.
When I was 18 years old, I made a list of all the things I wanted to do in my life. I wrote poetry often, I knew people wrote about their day in a journal while I wrote my day or how I felt at that moment in a poem.
My daily life lacked a healthy verbal expression of myself. Writing on a paper made me feel better but something about it made me feel clear.
I have to thank my bringing up in South Africa, all the people, influencers (good or bad), experiences, family, everything that I’ve encountered even to one word said to me which has made me my own hero today and it’s pretty likely I will still keep saving myself all my life. Don’t get me wrong. No man is an Island.
There is something about the ages 0 – 20 that prepared this soldier for what was still to come.
Call it, “saving myself,” “I must, I can, and I will,” but let’s face it. It boils down to simply this
“I WILL NOT GIVE UP”
All the things that happen to us or what we do from 0 – 20 years of age will occur on different levels of experience as we get older. How different is any of the following:
- A bully pushing you around in the school playground at the age of 7.
- A group of friends excluding you in a high school event.
- A person being younger and intelligent compared to other workmates who are older and jealous.
- A person who is more mature and wiser compared to the young and inexperienced in the workplace who now feel insecure.
Now let’s change the setting of the last four points to being at a wedding or attending school events. Any different?
Have you heard this before? “Same old s*** only in a different place.”
You can’t change this culture, but you can change your reaction and mindset.
Okay so say you have a door. It has a lock. The lock is strong, but you decide you want to make your home safer and put a better lock. What do you need from all of the below?
- Work Gloves
- Drill
- Hole Saws
- Safety Glasses
- Door lock and installation kit
- Hammer
- Utility Knife
- Hearing protection
- Wood Chisel
- Tape Measure
- Sawhorses
- Screwdriver
The same theory applies to yourself when you want to achieve your goals i.e. whether is it to lose weight, to build a successful business, live in peace, gain more willpower, give up a habit, any but anything you’re trying to achieve begins with YOU.
Think of yourself as the example I’ve put here of the door. All types of people may arrive to you i.e. aggressive people, strangers, friends, family etc. Some will knock on you politely and some may try and break you open. There is a breaking point where you will have to surrender but if you haven’t reached that moment yet you get the tools you need to be able to work at or sustain your purpose. Just like the door people will knock, some might bang, while others might want to intrude. Get the tools you need to sustain your inner, physical and mental strength, slowly build a foundation on the right habits over time and you will have resistance. It all starts inside you.
Here’s some of the work you can do on yourself. 15 minutes of your day daily on some of these topics that come to my mind right now will take you a long way.
- Meditation i.e. Chakras, self-love, self-forgiveness, let it go, mindfulness, working on releasing shame and guilt, worthiness, remove negative patterns, working on self-sabotage, working on toxic behaviours, self-hatred, self-blame and blaming others etc. (you will know exactly what you need. YouTube is great with all the guided and non-guided meditations).
- Write your own affirmations and say a few daily.
Other things you can do
- Exercise or an activity you enjoy.
- Start with small things (e.g. if your goal is to increase your willpower or give up smoking. Start paying attention. Make yourself aware for 15 minutes before or while you feel the need to have a cigarette. Observe and ask yourself questions. Try changing your mindset in that 15 minutes before having a cigarette. Keep building on what you’re telling yourself every day for 15 minutes. If one thing doesn’t work keep finding a more powerful sentence or motivation the next day) Practise makes perfect.
If you can’t pinpoint why you’re stuck try sitting in silence for 15 minutes being mindful about your thoughts, body and surrounding.
Now you must be saying that I don’t have time for this. I kid you not, doing a 15-minute session on just one topic for a few days or weeks will pull you out on what you might have been subconsciously holding onto say for 10 years. Who doesn’t want to let go of subconscious or buried baggage that they didn’t even know they’re holding onto for so many years.
Look at it as cleaning out the trash, only in this sense all the internal unwanted and unhealthy things so that you can start getting more days where you start clean after meditation and that one session alone has given you energy, clarity, a smile and focus for the whole day. Balancing your inner and outer world is key.
A successful person is a person who can acquire good habits by practising and doing the work needed. One should be successful (not perfect) successful enough to feel strong about themselves on the inside which will bring the outward success without much effort.
Remember, most of your dreams could be in the form of a visualisation. You just don’t get there if you’re not willing to put in the work and take some risks.
Be patient with yourself. Success is in the little steps. Why? Because foundations should be strong!
T. Dench Patel
Thank you for the comments and support. Thank you for offering to donate if there was a donate button on here. I prefer not to take donations. You can support by either purchasing one of my books (Paperback or Kindle), The South African: True Colours, The South African: Roamer or my children’s book Light. These books can be found on Amazon mainly and other sites in your country.
The audiobook for The South African: True Colours is available on iTunes, Apple and Audible. The South African: Roamer and Light will be released soon.
Note: Do keep referring back to this site as much as possible, as I grow, a more profound perspective may form and so I will always come back to each of these articles to reevaluate them.
