Pushing Our Limits – Part 2



We can all do hard things.  In my view, to enjoy genuine satisfaction and happiness, we must do hard things. More than once. Actually, continually and regularly.

Admittedly, this concept is not original with me. It is found throughout the annals of mankind. As an example, let me paraphrase something Paul of Tarsus wrote to a group of Christians in Rome two millennia ago: Let us rejoice in hope of the glory of God; and not only that, let us rejoice in adversity and challenges also; knowing that adversity and challenges develop patience and perseverance. And, patience and perseverance develop character and strength; and character and strength produce hope and confidence that, in turn, yield the joy that God intends for us.

Modern Example:  Running a Marathon

A friend shared this experience:  “When I first thought about running a marathon, the goal seemed  formidable and frightening.  How in the world could I run, or even walk, 26.2 miles?  The first month, I started run-walking one or two miles. By the end of the second month, I was able to run a 10K (6 miles). It wasn’t easy, but it gave me a great feeling of accomplishment when I first did it. 

“By the third month, 6 miles was not a big deal.  I could do it fairly easily. So, I started stretching my distances—meaning, I started stretching myself.  Each time I set my mind to go beyond my current “limit,” my body seemed to whine and balk at it.  But every time I made my body do what I wanted to do, I received a feeling of great joy and confidence when I did it. I also noticed that after I had pushed my body to a new limit, it seemed to accept it.  After running that distance a few more times, it became fairly easy, whether it was 6 miles, 12 miles or 20.  

“Every time I achieved a new goal, I could tell my body became stronger.  Even better, I became stronger and more confident as a person. 

“Five months after I first set my goal of running a marathon, I did it.  Not only did I finish, but it wasn’t nearly as grueling as I had first imagined. Amazingly, in many ways running the marathon was easier than my first 10K (6-miler).

“That’s when I learned for myself a lesson that I’d heard many times before but had never applied: Our fears hold us back and keep us from realizing high goals and reaching our potential. Fear makes a lot of things appear to be much harder and more painful than they really are.   

More Thoughts from Abraham Maslow

“One can choose to go back toward safety or forward toward growth.  Growth must be chosen again and again; fear must be overcome again and again.”

 “What one can be, one must be…. Even if all needs are satisfied, we soon develop a new discontent and restlessness, unless the individual is doing what he is fitted for.”

 “People with intelligence must use their intelligence, people with eyes must use their eyes, people with the capacity to love have the impulse to love and the need to love in order to feel healthy. Capacities clamor to be used, and cease in their clamor only when they are used sufficiently.”

 “A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write poetry, to ultimately be at peace with himself.”

Pushing Our Limits — Key to Happiness



Abraham Maslow, one of the brighter minds of the 20^th century wrote, “If you deliberately plan on being less than you are capable of being, then I warn you that you’ll be unhappy for the rest of your life.”  While agreeing with his statement, I raise a question: Does anyone deliberately plan on being less than he or she is capable?  I don’t think so; at least we do not think of doing so in those exact terms.  No one gets up in the morning and thinks, “Today, I am going to get out there and live way below my potential.” Rather, we let our fears and our addiction to comfort govern our  choices, and we are all prone to opting for the course of least pain and effort.

 You Can Do Hard Things

           One night my wife, Susan, was helping our son Christian with his English homework.  He was in about sixth grade at the time.  To understand the dynamics of this experience, you need to know that Christian was born with profound, bilateral hearing loss.  The way Christian has dealt with his deafness has been a remarkable example of The Ownership Spirit in itself.  He is a true inspiration to me and many, many others.  One of his courageous choices was to be mainstreamed in the public school system.  This he undertook with enthusiasm and a positive attitude.  Although this route was more challenging in many ways, Christian excelled. He did well socially as well as academically, earning mostly A’s and B’s.  But, his toughest class, by far, was English.

            If you have mastered a second language, I extend my sincere respect.  That is no small feat.  If you have mastered English as your second language, my respect for you climbs even higher.  The English language is fraught with so many quirky rules it’s a formidable challenge to master it.  If you couple that with the fact that Christian can’t even hear it, then you get some idea of what a challenge English has been for him. 

            So, now picture that one night Susan is helping Christian with his English.  He had learned one of the quirky rules and applied it, and it worked.  Then he encountered one of the exceptions to the rule and it threw him for a moment.  He put his pen down firmly on his notepad and said in the unmistakable tones consistent with his deafness, “This is sooo haaarrdd.”  There was a pause and then Susan, gently but firmly responded, “Yes, Christian, it is very hard. “But you can do hard things.”

            That statement has become a mantra—a scripture—around our home. I can’t tell you how many times that thought has given me inspiration to keep battling as I have encountered obstacles in my path since that time.

The Matter of Thought



Thoughts are real. They are not ethereal figments; they are organized energy. They are concentrated bundles (quanta, if you will) of energy capable of harnessing every other form of energy.

Thoughts are not only powerful, they are, in fact, power.  Literally.

An infinitely comprehensive law of conservation prevails in the universe: Matter cannot be created out of nothing; neither can it be “destroyed.” The same holds true of energy. Energy cannot be annihilated. One reality (matter or energy) can be converted to the other, but neither can be destroyed.  The sum of mass-energy in the universe never changes.

We are only beginning to scratch the surface of our ability to measure thoughts and activity in the mind. Someday we will discover more accurate ways of measuring the mind and will prove that it is the highest manifestation of energy-matter on the spectrum. Through the power of thought, mankind has already harnessed many prodigious forms of energy to an impressive degree. It remains only a matter of time and development until we harness them all. This is nothing more nor less than a case of the lesser becoming subject to the greater.

Thoughts are just as tangible and just as real as the chair you are sitting on as you read this blog.  Yet, thoughts have amazing properties, excelling most energy-matter.

Thoughts are literal forms of energy. And this energy can be focused and directed, and has supremacy over all other forms of energy and matter. Furthermore, your ability to control and wield this power can grow and increase. Your ability to do so is a measurement of and proportionate to your current level of faith and internal strength—or, in other words, your level of mind management.

Neuroplasticity



The power of thought is the power of creation.  Thoughts are not just airy vapors; they are packets of formative energy.  They exert direct effect upon your body, your behavior and even the external world around you.

Your internal environment has power over your external environment the moment you choose to exercise control.  You can alter circumstances and events at will by first creating a vision of what you want to have happen and then giving yourself permission to enact it.

Moment by moment, thought by thought, you author your own script.  You do it actively or passively.  Either way, you are ultimately the cause determining which effects occur. People are only victims of circumstance if they believe that they are and take a passive approach, letting their lives become subject to outside forces. Each one of us stands as a creative force of immense potency and potential.  Believing that truth is half the battle.

Noted cognitive psychologist, Dr. Albert Ellis, stated, “We humans have real self-awareness. We can, though we do not have to, observe and judge our own goals, desires, and purposes. We can examine, review, and change them. We can also see and reflect upon our changed ideas, emotions, and doings. And we can change them. And change them again—and again!”

An even more definitive medical study was published by Dr. Jeffrey M. Schwartz and Sharon Begley in The Mind and The Brain: Neuroplasticity and the Power of Mental Force.

Contrary to the notion that the brain has fully matured by the age of eight or twelve, with the truly crucial wiring complete as early as three, it turns out that the brain is an ongoing construction site. The hardware of the brain is far from fixed at birth. Instead, it is dynamic and malleable.

Neuroplasticity refers to the ability of neurons to forge new connections, to blaze new paths through the cortex, even to assume new roles. In shorthand, neuroplasticity means rewiring of the brain.

Conscious thoughts and volitions can, and do, play a powerful casual role in the world, including influencing the activity of the brain. Willed mental activity can clearly and systematically alter brain function. The exertion of willful effort generates physical force that has the power to change how the brain works and even its physical structure. The result is directed neuroplasticity.

Mental Creation



Every human accomplishment goes through two creations. There comes first a mental creation, the spawning and development of an idea. That idea becomes a blue print and a directive which the body follows to produce the second creation, the physical or behavioral creation.

People rise or fall, limp or leap, cower or conquer, dependent on the degree of their mind management.  The moment you start thinking differently, the world changes.  A new mental process precipitates a new physical and behavioral outcome.  The effects are often amazingly rapid.  People can make dramatic, stunning changes in short order by simply altering their thoughts.

The truly exciting part of their transformations lies in the astounding discoveries they make regarding their abilities and capacities.  They realize that the potential has been there all along, and so have the opportunities, but their own thoughts have been holding them back.  When they see that it has been only their thoughts which have been holding them back, panoramas of potential open up to them.  Suddenly they see—and seize—the opportunities which have been staring them in the face all along.

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