The Skeptic

Have you ever watched a movie or saw a very motivating message and felt inspired?  I think we all have at some point in our lives.  We felt that burning energy inside and we felt unstoppable.  

As a child we take the burning energy and use our imagination to fulfill the goal or dream.  We can simply “make believe” that we are throwing the last minute touchdown or playing an encore to screaming fans.  

Something very interesting happens to us from our childhood that carries over into adulthood.  We develop skepticism.  For some it may be when they finally realize that they will not accomplish their dream of playing professional sports.  We may realize that we have to work for a living and that may not be the fun, exciting life we thought was ahead of us.  

It sounds like being skeptical is bad.  There are aspects that are bad but I think we all know people that float around from job to job or always seem to be involved in the “next big thing”.  They would likely benefit from a little more skepticism.  

The problem comes when we are unable to build sustainable growth because of the skeptic.  We feel that there is no point trying because we know the unfortunate outcome.  

I recently worked with a business owner that had to close down his business.  The emotional aspects of closing your dream business can be harsh, yet he remained optimistic and actually felt incredibly relieved.  Outsiders may judge this to be a failure but those that know, realize how much of a great success this was.  The lessons that he learned and the fact that he had several thriving years doing something that most people would never dare to do, made this a true success story.  

When it comes to dealing with the skeptic side of our conscious, there are two ways to deal with that.  

You have to look harder.  Stop looking at the surface value of something to judge success or failure.  Success and failure are usually together and it is impossible to have one without the other.  A deeper look will almost always reveal a new opportunity, a lesson learned, or another catastrophe avoided.

Build a system that will slowly take you to your goal.  Understanding the systems involved will help to understand if it is worth it to move in that direction.  You may decide that coaching is just as fulfilling to you as playing the sport.  You may find that playing music for a small group is as fulfilling as performing for thousands because it takes the pressure off and leaves just the performance.  

Whatever your goals are, start to build systems to slowly move you in the direction that you want to go.  There will be ups and downs but if you focus on the system you will realize that the general direction you take is up, even though at times it felt that you climbing an impossible cliff.