Facing Life On Life’s Terms
By Justus Kallhoff
Education and Life Transformation Specialist
To Face Life On Life’s Terms, One Must Be Willing And Able To Confront What Is.
The definition of Confront means to stand face to face, to face up to, to bring into the presence of, to face, meet or deal with a difficult situation or person.
Most problems are best solved by a direct approach to them. Some people have the idea that if they don’t look at their problems, the problems will just disappear. Nice idea, but completely unworkable because problems just have a tendency to pile up worse than ever, if unhandled.
Feelings of low self esteem and anxiety can inhibit your motivation and ability to feel confident in life.
We all know the feeling of what it is like to have doubt or anxiety whenever we are faced with a difficult situation. Surprisingly, we get to have these feeling, almost on a daily basis. Many of us choose to just go with the easiest path because we know we can do what we have done before. One interesting characteristic about the mind is that it will continually keep running back to what is familiar. It has a default setting. We choose to do what we know because it is the easy option. We may have been told, in the past, that it was the right thing to do, or we may have seen it displayed by people we trust. Whether it was your parents, friends, family or even familiar faces in the media. For instance, we may have grown up watching our parents drinking in an attempt to handle life challenges and stress, or we may have watched our loved ones overeat in an attempt to avoid painful emotions. We may have also discovered that it is easier to drop out of that course before we fail.
However, choosing to change the way we respond to circumstances in life, takes a great deal of courage and ability to face what is really happening. We need to ask ourselves whether the choices we have been emulating for so long, are actually the choices that will bring us the greatest personal happiness and success. We have to stop and ask ourselves whether that chocolate cake is really going to help me to avoid my feelings and is that next drink going to really give me the true confidence that I need to face my fears?
Does it make sense for us to continue doing those actions we know we can do because it is familiar? For most people, change is something that we fear because it might mean that we lose something we love, or we have this belief that if we change ourselves, everything around us will change. Like relationships you have with friends, family or even romantic partners.
This is a fair belief…. Because it is true. As we change, so do the lives around us. I’m sure you have seen plenty of times when someone goes for that job they have always wanted or decides to eat healthier. It sparks inspiration in others. It is almost as if it finally grants someone the ability to do something they fear, because they have seen someone they trust, do it.
Funny isn’t it? We have all these opportunities to change yet we wait and wait and wait to do it. Until someone we trust, does the same thing we have wanted to do for so long. Now that they have done it and they are successful in it, somehow you feel motivated, by some magical powers to attempt to succeed in something you once thought was impossible.
Well the magical power you have observed is the ability to confront. You have watched someone successfully face up to the experience of what is, and in doing so, they have managed to create change in their lives. Now you want a piece of this and the desired outcome.
Your ability to confront comes from trust. Trusting that you have the ability to gain the best outcome for yourself no matter what. It is a win-win situation when you think about it. I mean, If you really do put in the effort to confront something and it doesn’t go the way you had visualized, or you didn’t hear the words you needed to hear, you now know exactly what it is that you need to do next time. Alternatively, you may have succeeded, and what once seemed to be impossible is now completely tangible and possible.
So now that you have chosen to confront something or someone, you may recognize some familiar feelings of discomfort. These feelings are something we all know so well. An awkward silence after a disagreement and that neither parties have addressed. Being hungry when you decide to go on that new diet. Being in a relationship with someone you love, but you know it isn’t right for you. The pain you feel when exercising for the first time in forever. Or, it could be the compulsion to do something that you know is not in your best interest.
This moment of discomfort is the pinnacle moment of growth and personal development and if learned to handle correctly, one will move forward to new and greater motivation and confidence in one self.
Unfortunately, what patterns do we tend to repeat? Remember that the mind will go back to what is familiar. We leave the conversation because its awkward. We reach for the nearest snack or cave on our diet, because it’s just not the right one. We continue with the relationship because we think that it will get easier or believe that the problem might just go away. We stop exercising because we can’t handle the pain or we drop out of that course that we always wanted to do.
You don’t need me to tell you what happens when you do this. You are far too familiar with it.
So, let me tell you what happens when you finally decide to change. When you finally decide that you are going to confront life on life’s terms.
Firstly, your whole perspective on life changes, how could it not? At first, you saw the task as impossible and now look at you. You are doing it. You have just achieved something incredible. You have pushed through the moments of discomfort and challenging mindset beliefs and now you have managed to succeed in something that seemed daunting at first.
What kind of things do you think run through your head in this moment of success? You start to say positive things to yourself, you question many things that you believe to be impossible, you begin to feel more motivated and confident in your abilities. Now you have done something that was difficult at first. Guess what? You can build upon that fundamental win that you had.
Secondly, your life changes, as do the lives around you. You suddenly become an inspiration to others without even trying to inspire them. You get to watch others become inspired because of your display of courageous confronting of thoughts, feeling, actions and behaviours.
Thirdly, you do it again, and again, and again!
You have just had a major upgrade in your entire operating system, now it’s time to see what else you can do that once seemed difficult.
You see, when you’re in these moments of discomfort, of course it is easy to go with what you know, and it is okay to do that sometimes. A question I ask my clients all the time is
“If you died tomorrow would you be happy with what you have done today?”
Your next minute isn’t guaranteed. Live the life you want to live by confronting what will seem hard at first, but becomes easy when you have finished confronting.
Live and Learn Services offers a Clear Mind Communication Masterclass, whereby you get the opportunity to practice Mindful Drills that will give you the skills to successfully confront life on life’s terms.
After completing the Mindful Communication Drills in the Masterclass, a graduate walks away with skills that they can apply to all aspects of their lives:
Learning to confront life enables you to move forward with confidence.
BENEFITS OF LEARNING TO CONFRONT LIFE ON LIFE’S TERMS:
1. Excel in your personal and professional life.
2. Gain the ability to pinpoint the obstacles that stop you from getting what you want.
3. Know how to bring harmony into every situation in your life.
4. Alleviate your stress at home, at work and in social situations.
5. Learn what true self-discipline is.
6. Master the skills to confront problems head on.
7. Enhanced capacity to handle challenging circumstances.
8. Greater confidence and awareness.
9. Dissolve negative and destructive mindsets.
10. Greater Happiness in one’s life.
11. Experience greater vitality and health.
12. Improved intellectual capacity
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