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We grow a little every time we do not take advantage of somebody's weakness.
-- Bern Williams
 

 

Daily Motivator Special Feature

Escape the comfort of your doubts

by Ralph Marston

How is it that your doubts can so effectively hold you back, and prevent you from fulfilling your best possibilities? It is because they provide a comfortable place for you to hide from those possibilities. Even though you desire to achieve, you know that the achievement will have a price, in effort, commitment and sacrifice. You also know that when you venture out to seek success, there is also the very real possibility of failure. So you conjure up some doubts that quickly turn into excuses, providing you with a way to stay comfortably where you are.

There are only a few ways out. One of them is pain. Eventually, what was once a comfortable retreat becomes a prison. If you continue to deny and avoid the opportunities to move forward, you will eventually find the situation so intolerable that you’ll do whatever is necessary to get yourself out of it. Unfortunately, by the time that happens you will have lost many of your best options.

Another way out is fear. Your doubts are already based, at least in part, on fear—fear of success, fear of failure, fear of looking foolish, fear of appearing overly ambitious, and fear of the unknown. By embracing even more fearful fears, you can move beyond the original doubts. This is done by considering and focusing on all the bad things that could happen if you stay where you are. Once the fear of doing nothing is greater than the fear of taking action, you’ll be able to get yourself to take action. The problem is, when you’re constantly focused on what you don’t want, you’ll naturally tend to create those very things in your life. So although fear will get you moving, it will probably not take you where you wish to go.

The best way out of your comfort zone is with positive desire. Though it certainly requires some initiative on your part, the reward is well worth the effort. Within you is a vision of life at its very best. Within you is the desire to matter, the desire to truly make a difference, a desire to feel the sweet satisfaction of fulfilling your unique purpose. Reach in and touch that desire. Reach in and explore your dreams. Imagine, not only with your mind but also with your feelings, the experience of bringing those dreams to life. Remind yourself that it is completely reasonable and natural and good to envision the absolute best life for yourself, whatever your situation right now may be. Make your dreams so big that they completely overwhelm your doubts. Make your dreams so compelling and so continually present in your awareness that you cannot help but step up and step forward, day after day.

Escape the comfort of your doubts with life itself. Allow yourself to richly envision the best that life can be, and then really, truly live that life with everything you have. You may not always be comfortable, but then comfort is overrated. You may not always be comfortable, but you will make life great.

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