“When I look back on all these worries, I remember the story of the old man who said on his deathbed that he had had a lot of trouble in his life, most of which had never happened”
— Winston Churchill

I dug up this old quote because I keep hearing so much about fears these days. A lot of people are in the middle of a worry-fest and really need to release their fears around the situation. Why?

First because we don’t even know what we are dealing with yet, and therefore worrying is expending a lot of energy on something that we can’t even put a real name to, let alone do anything about right now. Secondly, it is a complete waste of her time to focus any of our thoughts into such an unknown territory. As this anonymous quote points out well, “Worry is like a rocking chair—it gives you something to do but it doesn’t get you anywhere.” And we all have plenty of better things to do and bigger places to go. Remember, “energy flows where your attention goes”. If you focus on negative outcomes (worry) you will attract negative outcomes. If you focus on solutions, you will attract solutions.

So my advice for those who fall into the common habit of worry; keep living and solve the issues when they come up, because if they aren’t real enough to fix right now, they may not exist at all.

“You know what makes my problems bigger then everyone else’s? They’re mine.”
— Fictional character of the sitcom “Ally McBeal”

Ah, the lure of our story. The drama of our challenges. If only you could have heard the stuff going on in my head at 3 a.m. while I was doing my best to meditate myself to sleep for at least a couple of hours last night.

And it seems, no matter how much I know all the advice and I live my advice, nothing I could consciously and logically tell myself last night seemed to tame the inner voice, my ego running on fear.

Thankfully, I have a very good life coach who today helped me to see that I was just being overly critical of myself and that I simply didn’t let myself recuperate from some very challenging situations these past weeks.

So the moral of “my story” is that everyone will have problems pop up in life. That is what life is about. Remember to be bigger than your problem, deal with it, and allow yourself the time to heal. Then keep going. Move forward. Take over the captain’s chair from your ego that wants to keep you moving slowly and cautiously even in the best of weather.

I think I am ready for a good night’s sleep tonight.

“Our problems are man-made, therefore they may be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings.”
—John F. Kennedy (1917-1963), speech at The American University, Washington, D.C., June 10, 1963

I recently heard an “internet-marketing guru” give some advice on the best way to create a successful business. The first step is identifying what an existing problem is and then figuring out how to solve that problem. Once you find the solution, you sell it and help others who have the same problem.

This made me think how this could apply to our lives as well. When we are trying to change our lives for the better, the first step would also be identifying what the problem areas are in our life.

This awareness of the problem is the beginning of finding the solution. To truly change you need to learn from the problem. Learning, in turn, involves doing something new with your life. And success is selling yourself on the answer.

“Successful people are not without problems. They’re simply people who’ve learned to solve their problems.”
— Earl Nightingale

The universe rewards action. If you have a goal, but you don’t have a plan, it actually could more accurately be called a wish. And even more so, if you have problems and you reason that if you run away from them or turn your back on them, they will somehow just disappear, you may be running for a long time.

That doesn’t mean that you should stop dreaming. It is those thoughts that will help you create your reality. Realize though, that there will not be a magic pill that suddenly changes everything to good in your life. But there can be a magic mindset that allows you to see the situation from a different perspective.

Be a success. Face your problems. Work on them. Set goals and take actual action steps to bring you closer to solving them. Review your goals and see what areas still need work. Revise your goals if your ego has tricked you to make them unattainable, and therefore sabotaging your efforts right from the get-go.

Live in the now. Be grateful for all you have in your life and be responsible for everything that is happening in the present moment, for you are creating the stepping stones for your future “now”.