Good morning to you. Today we are going to cover the topic of how our minds can put obstacles in our way. Think of the last time that you were focused on getting a goal finished, and then some stressful part of life just got to you, got in your way. Your mind has now put up an obstacle for you. You become worried over something that is out of your control and the worry now controls your thoughts.
I used to call this the “faith or fear” line. I have heard this said and believe that the mental workings of faith or fear are complete opposites. You cannot have both of them working at the same time. So the mental obstacles are fear entering your mind and telling you that you are not able to move forward with what you had planned.
Now, when you think about this, it’s not as if you couldn’t continue towards your goals if you were able to work around the distraction, but you need to learn how to work past those obstacles. In my years of working for Starbucks we needed to be able to multi-task. When I was a training manager, we used to play a game to get people to think while they had to continue doing the work with their hands.
So let’s break down the two subjects of faith and fear and see how to switch from one to the other.
FAITH. This is a belief in the unknown. You do not see what is about to happen but you completely believe that it will happen and it will happen the way you have it planned. Or it will happen and everything will go right. The minister from Family Radio had complete faith that God was coming back this past Saturday to rescue those who believed from a world that was set to be doomed. Then there was the complete faith of those who didn’t believe it would happen – some because they think there is no God; others because they simply didn’t believe this was the time. They had the complete faith that it was not going to happen. Both parties had faith just in opposite actions. So you see how your faith in what you’re doing or working toward can make all the difference in your outlook.
FEAR. This is also a belief in the unknown. You see it happening in your mind, but you just see it going wrong. No matter how much you plan for something to go right in your life you believe it will not work. You have a fear of the unknown. Tonight while I was working on writing this blog a very severe storm came through the Dallas area. Tornados came down, there were warnings to go and hide in a safe place. Yet as a family we were outside with our neighbors watching as the clouds were forming over us. Some would be running in fear of those clouds, yet with the eyes of faith I looked. Certain things made me cautious and go back inside the house and turn on the TV. After the storm was over we were left without power. But I still had to get this post set in my drop box for my editor, so I had to get in the car and drive to a wifi location. Several others who were driving on these wet roads were in fear as they drove because of the high water. I was in an SUV and off the ground so I drove in faith.
Bottom line these are two controlling devices that are in your mind. They both involve a belief in the unknown, yet they believe in opposite outcomes of the unknown. The interesting thing to me is that whichever outlook you have, that is probably the outcome you will get, so you can actually make it happen.
If you have let fear control your outcome, then you have set yourself up with an obstacle that is controlled by you. You must turn your fear into faith to remove this obstacle in your life. Two ways for you to do that would be:
- Set smaller goals to achieve first. Once you have reached a smaller goal you will grab some self confidence. As your confidence grows you will then have growing faith to take bigger steps into the unknown.
- Visualize success. Mentally review in your mind a picture of the faithful thinking, see the goals coming true. See yourself moving past anything you can. This will not always happen in the beginning but as you practice it more and more you will start to see your faith grow.
Today is a good day to help make faith grow in your life. For no matter which view of the unknown you feed, it will get stronger with use. Just like a muscle gets stronger with exercise, faith and fear get stronger as well, the more you exercise them. So keep the faith.
I’m Tim Gillette, the Rocker Life Coach. It’s time for you to live the life you always wanted, to love what you do and those you share life with. Let us help you become a RockStar in your world
