Home Away From Home

Home can be more than just a place; sometimes home is people and a sense of comfort. We need to be able to recognize home when we find it. Home is the place we can go to recharge, the place we can go to feel safe and the place we can go when we need to be accepted. We have to find these places in our lives. They give us a chance to relax, to let the walls down. When we have a chance to renew our willpower we get a chance to regroup before stepping back into the hectic swirl of life.

These homes need to be more accessible then just the place we live. They can be a café, a group of people, or a gym. Starting our day rested is not enough. We have to be able to step into these homes away from home throughout our day. The revitalizing of will power and the injection of mental energy from just a few minutes at the coffee shop is amazing.

Life can easily overwhelm us and we all need safe places to retreat to when this happens. This does not mean retreating from the world or from the battle but more it means taking shelter behind the rubble that is strewn about us. These homes, these fox holes, give us a moment to reload, to know that others have our backs, and to devise a plan of action.

Find your home. Find your foxhole. Use them when you need them to help you be happy, strong and victorious.

Building on the Foundation

In this blog I have talked again and again about how confidence is the foundation that we build on when we change our lives. But a foundation is just a beginning; once it is poured and allowed to set we must keep building. The next stage of construction is to frame the building. The material of our frame will be action, and more specifically, well considered action. There is a place for intuitive action and that is not to be discredited, however when we are trying to complete a given blueprint we need to build in line with the design we have laid out.

Taking action can be scary. It means committing, and it means investing yourself in a process and rejecting others. No matter how confident we are, if all we do is stand on our foundation and scream our greatness into the wilderness we will still be wet when the rains come. I for one would rather be scared and committed now then cold and wet on a dark night.

We do need to choose our actions in a reasoned manner. We need to weigh the resources that we have against the gains we stand to make and the untried options that will be lost to us by expending those resources. Whether the action we are considering is a cross country move or asking for a raise, we need to weigh the gains and losses against each other in as broad a fashion as we can. And we need to do this quickly. When we over-consider our options and opportunity costs we can easily miss the moment to act.

When deciding to act it is often useful to also consider the possible follow-up actions. This way we do not become bogged down in a cycle of act-plan-act plan but rather our actions flow one from the next and we have less chance of feeling lost.

The Peace of Success

How do we measure our accomplishments? Is it by the praise others give us or by worldly position? Maybe the yard stick is how we feel about ourselves or the good works we do to help others. But actually, the real basic measure of our success in life is the contentment and peace we feel on a day-to-day basis when we know we have been tested and come out victorious. When we gauge our successes by what others say we are never satisfied because once the warm glow of a compliment wears off we need another fix. The same holds true when we look to the things we own to show how successful we are. Things are transitory. They wear out and break down. Successes do not.

We need to understand that our successes reside in us. These are the things we have accomplished that no one can take from us. They are the building blocks of future successes and the elemental components of confidence. If we find ourselves looking for outside sources of stimulation to remind ourselves what we have achieved we are displaying a lack of faith in ourselves. By understanding that our victories are ours not just on the battle field but in every moment of every day we can find a peace of mind and heart that is hard to come by in this world.

The accumulation of victories and successes can form a vault of treasure that can sustain us through hard times. When we know we have overcome a hardship, on our own or with the help of others, we know we can overcome again. This understanding that we are survivors, that we are the unvanquishable hero of our own tale gives us the strength to laugh in the face of dark times and loss. We have crossed one river. We are capable of crossing others.