Overcoming Hurdles

I never ran track, but I still know enough to know that hurdles, when approached correctly, should not slow you down.

I have a confession to make. I am lazy. I don’t like to run. Never have. When I played soccer – I played center lurker. Get me the ball, I can get it in. But don’t ask me to play midfield – that requires too much running.

I never went out for track. I had friends that did and supported them, but it wasn’t for me. The race I like the most is the hurdles. Seeing people run and jump over hurdles while not slowing down is a beautiful thing. I like the human steeplechase the most.

Hurdles are a part of life. Not the racing hurdles, obviously, but the idea that there is something in your way you have to go over or around to keep going on your way. Hurdle is defined as an obstacle or difficulty. Unless you are insanely lucky, you are going to encounter hurdles in your life.  It’s best to prepare for them.

The way to prepare is to know and accept that they are there.  Imagine a hurdler runner just pretending that there are no hurdles on the track. Well, don’t imagine it – this is what it looks like.

It isn’t pretty. Sure – he makes headway for a bit and keeps going, but eventually the hurdles knock him down.

If you want to be successful at clearing hurdles, you need to plan your approach. And you can only plan your approach if you plan in advance for what you are going to do WHEN you encounter a hurdle.

In real life, the same principle applies. I realize that positive thinking is all the rage, but any time you fail to plan for hurdles, you are planning for failure.  My rule is to think of all the various ways things can go wrong and then plan for what I will do if the worst happens.  This way I am prepared and am able to clear the hurdles I encounter instead of going – hey – what’s this and why is it happening? Maybe I can ignore it – uhhh, nope.

To learn more about how to plan for success– take my online course: Planning for Personal Success: A Humanist Approach.

Don’t let fear hold you back

Fear has its place in our emotional toolkit, but it can immobilize us too. Learn how to have a healthier relationship with fear.

I have a theory about life.  To me, life is an exercise in learning to overcome fear.  It seems that every major lesson I learn has to do with overcoming fear.

Fear that I am inadequate. Fear that I will be hurt. Fear of change and fear of success. Fear of failure. Fear of other people. Fear of love. Fear that nobody likes me so I may as well eat some worms. You get the idea.

Some of this fear is rational. Some isn’t. Having been a victim of a stalking, I think some fear is quite rational. I read the book The Gift of Fear by Gavin DeBecker and it really changed my life. I came to understand what fear does well for me and how it can get out of whack and what to do about that.

It turns out that, as hard as it seem, you can actually choose to override your fear instincts. It takes a combination of thinking and physical activity to do – but it can be done. Through therapy I learned how to interrupt a panic attack in process. Having experienced daily panic attacks for a couple of years, that was nothing short of amazing.

To me, the technique I was taught is very much akin to the practice of freethought and skepticism. When I feel fear and panic rising, I have to consciously acknowledge it. And, Only then can I do the breathing exercises that help calm me down. Once I am calmed, I can then question myself about why I was feeling the fear and panic. I can’t always identify it, but it always seems that once I do I lose the fear almost immediately. Granted, figuring out what makes me afraid requires me to be totally honest with myself and that can take some time, which is why talking to a therapist is so helpful.

Once I figure out what is making me afraid – I can then decide what to do about it. I have several options. I can confront it. I can avoid it. I can ignore it.  What I decide to do depends on whether I think the thing I am afraid of poses an existential threat or not. In other words, if I think whatever it is might kill me – I avoid it. If I think it won’t – I often decide to do the very thing I am afraid of just to get over my fear.

I’ve come across very few real threats to my life and limb when considering fear. Most often, it’s just social fear. Confronting those social fears has made me rather fearless.

If you find you suffer from fear that is immobilizing you, do something about it. Figure out if the fear is rational or irrational. If it is rational – avoid whatever it is. If it is irrational, confront it.  If you can’t tell or if you are really suffering and really immobilized by your fear – seek professional help! You will be glad you did.

Great Advice for Interpersonal Relationships

Understanding how our own views are biased and distorted can help us improve our relationships to others.

As I’ve gotten more involved in the anti-bullying community, I’ve had the opportunity to meet some amazing people and groups. One group is EyePat out of England. They focus on online or cyberbullying issues.

They sent me a link to their pdf understanding the bully -  http://www.eyepat.org/login/uploaded/Understanding%20the%20Bully%20by%20EyePAT.pdf

I was really impressed with it. It is seriously one of the most excellent things I have read in ages. And I’m reading Eleanor Roosevelt right now so that is saying something.

What I want to talk about here isn’t bullying though. I want to talk about how this information about bullies can actually help you with all your relationships. You see, they aren’t just talking about how bullies think. They are talking about how we all think.

Here is the problem. We all have more information coming in through our senses than we can use. This information is filtered and anything not useful is basically deleted. We then might distort the remaining facts to fit our understanding of the world and our emotional state and beliefs and other things and what is left is our understanding of reality.  Which when you realize how far removed what we think we experience is from what we actually experience, you begin to understand why and how conflicts arise between people.

The distortion and generalization effects are why I keep telling people that when someone behaves poorly – it’s not about you. It’s about them and their experiences and their perceptions and their distortions.  While you can’t do anything about how the other person distorts and reacts, you can do something about how you respond to what you think you are experiencing. Your responsibility is to overcome your own distortions so that you can better choose your actions.

Anyway – as Humanists, part of our mission is to better understand our basic limitations so that we can more effectively work around them and not be limited by them. This is one of those things that it is helpful to understand. It turns out, just realizing that you distort reality to fit your reality filters helps provide just enough distance to think more clearly.  I also really liked their graphics.