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28 Oct 2015

SCAR CITY MIND SET

• • •

“An Object in stasis is much harder to get going.” – Simon Sinek

The mind is programmable, a tool that when used properly has created every magnificent achievement mankind has ever endeavored. When used improperly,however, it becomes the greatest self-torturing device that anyone has ever known, resulting in a quality of life that is based in perpetual fear, self-loathing, and despair. My concern is the ripple affect that our mindset causes not only in our own lives but how this resonates outwardly in the lives of others. The energy we are exuding will attract like–energies into our lives. Eventually, we’re going to be surrounded by the attracted energy in multiple forms. Whether it be in the form of people, thoughts, outcomes, or occurrences.

Often, we find that how we are interacting with the rest of world operates within the confined spaces of etiquettes established but not fully explained or understood. Through social constructs, many ideologies spill out of people as facts when really what they’ve become is self-policing, advocates for a status quo, repeating common phrases because they feel it helps them relate. In actual reality, these sorts of statements are often used to wedge and divide more so than bring others together for a common purpose.

In regards to our personal aspirations, far too many times throughout our lives, especially during the educational process or while being given “friendly advice”, we are instructed that things are impossible. We begin to mirror these concerns as reality and shy away from accomplishing our dreams. Suddenly, we’re only focusing our thoughts on how many negatives there are, and this energy becomes so heavy that we lose any momentum we’ve worked to achieve. The world around us closes in, we become claustrophobic, and our since of self worth becomes completely distorted. We’re no longer willing to take risks, reach out to others, and our mind is too preoccupied to be a creative force. Call the nurse, buckle into your couch we’re going for a ride to nowhere! Welcome to Scarcity Mindset.

• • •

When life is punching you in the face, it’s difficult to stay positive. Especially if you’re looking towards other people you consider successful and idolizing their incredibly defining moment as what success looks like. This is a depicted version of reality of this person’s life though, with the agenda of grandiosity. The truth is that no one has created anything great without a journey starting from somewhere, and no one lives without trials or tribulation for the entirety of their lives. When we envision other peoples success in our minds eye, we often see them only in their moment of elation. Popping the champagne, checking out their “crib”, or visualizing their selfie taken with ten models blowing diamond bubbles, high-fiving Elon Musk floating on a sky-yacht Tesla somewhere in the clouds of Mars. With all of their success, the struggle they faced to get there-which is usually well documented-is rarely ever disclosed or highlighted.

The key to overcoming any productive paralysis is directly up to our mindset. When we take on other people’s opinions as fact, and their perceptions as our own perceptions, we’re not living by our own truths. These people will not be you at the end of your life examining, and questioning if you lived to your fullest potential. You owe it to yourself to know that you did. If you have a dream you wish to achieve, and you are then faced with overwhelming odds, you must cultivate the tenacity to live boldly in the face of fear. The quality of your future is directly effected by the quality of your mindset today.

“Optimism, pessimism, fuck that; We’re going to make it happen”

-Elon Musk

The essential step to perpetual positivity is to cultivate awareness over what influences you. Identify these areas, and change them immediately. We are constantly inundated with advertisements, ideology, and flash-sexy click bate that waste our time and want to impress on us what’s hip, acceptable, right or wrong. But when we dive a little deeper, we should ask ourselves what’s necessary, resonant, inclusive, and resourceful. Doing this will build your thoughts, actions, and relationships on a foundation of truth, honesty, and strength. This will build your confidence to impenetrable levels, so much so that when life is a screaming lunatic telling you to throw yourself off a building, you can look at it with confident calmness and create an attitude that says there are no impossible problems, only solutions to challenging situations. I have proven time and time again to myself that it’s not only possible but probable to accomplish my goals, no matter how ambitious they are.

I continuously use the word “cultivate” because positivity is a learned and practiced skill. Many of the people I grew up with, some of my family members included, are what I endearingly call “mumble-mutterers”. They sit on their couch mumbling to themselves about how the world has treated them poorly, and now they’re wasting away doing nothing about it, because they tell themselves and anyone else that will listen that they simply “can’t.” No matter what you tell them they are locked into their belief of “I can’t” when really what they are actually saying is “I don’t care if I can, I won’t.” Sitting with these people, I would hear this over and over again, yet I would be feeling an overwhelming urge to go out and do. I began to discover that I had the same tools they have, but with one major difference: their in-adaptability toward obstacles became overwhelming, and this feeling of being overwhelmed became their day–to–day reality. The slightest resistance and their desired story crumbles. They fortified this belief with their “can’t-do–anything–to–improve-my-life” attitude and complain about how impossible their life pursuits are. And with this sort of recycled life philosophy, they’re right. However, with a little effort and a tweak in how they internally speak to themselves, they could change it all.

“Be the change you wish to see in the world.” – Gandhi

Practicing and having a positive mindset is part and parcel to the same thing. Once you begin to cultivate awareness to your thoughts, your perception begins to gravitate and reproduce your desired traits like a program. To start programming this into your life, simply start by identifying and redefining how you define situations or phrases. When you notice a negative thought arise, replace it instantly. Call yourself out on it. Instead of saying, “If this happens, I’m not ready”, take a proactive approach and ask yourself, “If this happens, what’s another angle I can approach it from?” Change “I’ve never done this before” to “It’s an opportunity to learn something new.” Then have fun creating ways to overcome anything. You’ll grow in your courage and your creative abilities will skyrocket.

Entrainment is a word defined as the synchronization of organisms to an external rhythm.

Learning how to flow with life, to improv on a whim, and being ready to say “yes” when opportunities arise is the key to creating a happy, successful existence. In order to do this, we need to find a way to be less attached to things that distract us or hinder our ability to act. When we’re too focused on our past mistakes or things outside of the path we’ve chosen, it builds up in our stress levels, creating psychological grooves and patterns that we make into incredibly addictive, unhealthy habits. These habits ironically encourage more and more stress, and we become a pressure cooker ready to explode. All we see is negativity and the target for our scorn. There’s no space here for creativity; this negativity consumes us, destroys our zest for life, and effects our relationships with others. We become blinded by fear, and obsessively victimized.

Sometimes it’s just about letting things go. When the thought, habit, or thing no longer serves us to pursue our dreams, it’s toxic, and we should take steps to remove it from our lives. This can be difficult, because we get wrapped up in sentimental cycles or feel we need something that drains us more than sparks us. Sometimes, it’s also about knowing how to buckle down for the long hall on a project and having healthy outlets to relieve our stress.

Good examples of stress relieving outlets are going for walks, exercise, study something related to your project, create something, write something, teach, join discussion forums, Meditation, Yoga, read a book, or find someone who may need some help and offer your assistance.

One of my favorite ways to de-stress is to have a coffee-convo or a walk with a like-minded peer. I’ll setup a meeting with the mutual intention of discussing the concerns that cause me hesitation. During the conversation, I express a variety of issues. Just the expression of concern out loud is beyond beneficial, but we should never stop there; instead acknowledge the issues, and dive into their nuances. We begin to know them intimately and discover ways to proceed either around them or figure out how to dive straight at and through them. This isn’t just you listening to your friend’s point of view on things, it’s a moment to have a 2nd, or 3rd, or 4th opinion on a matter and take an active approach at finding ways to overcome the obstacles. Also, discussing things with a friend is another way to keep yourself accountable towards your endeavor. More than likely, they’ll check in on how you’re progressing. Being social doesn’t mean you have to waste time bantering mindlessly for hours. Be productive and brainstorm your way out of the chaos.

“Don’t get set into one form, adapt it and build your own, Let it grow, be like water. Empty your mind. Be formless, shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle. When you put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Water can flow or it can crash. Be water my friend.”

-Bruce Lee

There are exponential benefits to having a positive mindset. You’ll see more and more doors open for sure, and your life will lead you to places you never imagined, but you will also notice that you have more energy, creativity, appreciation for life; your general disposition feels lighter, you will attract positive people into your life.

Researchers are continuously finding incredible results from studies into positive thinking! Some of the results are directly related to how the body is effected by stress. By lowering our stress, scientists find that we have increased life spans, greater energy, less depression and physical impairments, illnesses, and over all, we deal with stressful situations in a calm, mindful manor.

If you seem stuck in your life or overwhelmed, it’s ok. We’ve all been there. But just to give up on yourself will never improve your situation. Don’t wait for some magical once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to find you. (Even if it does it’ll find you mopping and you probably won’t recognize it for what it is.) Go boldly in the directions of your dreams, find the flow, and know that you’re on a epic journey of self-mastery!

“Do it! Just do it! Yesterday you said tomorrow, so just do it! Make your dreams come true! Just do it! Some people dream of success while your going to wake up and work hard at it! Nothing is impossible! You should get to the point where anyone else would quit and you’re not going to stop there. No, What are you waiting for? Do it! Just do it! Yes you can! Just do it! If you’re tired of starting over, stop giving up.”

– Shia LaBeouf

• • •

Steps to Overcoming Scarcity Mindset

Realize that just because the situation is scarce you are not. You are endlessly bountiful, and abundant. You have an infinite creative potential, and all you have to do is clear your mind, and your life of the distractions that steer you away from accomplishment.
Develop awareness by checking in with yourself honestly.
Identify the influences of negativity, and Confront them, or get rid of them.
Surround yourself with positive people; seek out healthy lifestyle choices.
Focus, and learn to really listen to yourself, other people, and the world around you. Through listening we develop a more communal system of response rather impulsive reaction.
Develop productive habits. Seek out ways to be creative.
Execute your plans and desires. Be a producer of things, not just a consumer. The only difference between you, and someone that is at this very moment living out their passionate intent is the decision, and conviction to take action, and do it. As Shia Labeouf said so perfectly, “DO IT! JUST DO IT!”
Find humor and fascination in the world around you. Be amazed that birds chirp, plants live off sun light, or that you can laugh…and then, laugh!
Continuously redefine how you define your situations and phrases with optimistic self–talk.
When all else fails, learn, accept, and let it go.

28 Oct 2015

“Our voice is the thing that is being called out of us in the midst of our work. It is the underlying why of our passion, even if we’ve never considered it.” – Todd Henry

• • •

I’m considering my occasional tendencies for hesitation, procrastination, and those times when I felt that I should have used my voice but didn’t. What were the repercussions of these actions?

Thinking specifically about the repercussions of hesitating, I find that when it’s an emotional hesitation, such as second guessing myself out of some perceived fear of the unknown, people can usually read this through my body language or facial expressions if they’re paying attention. This removes their confidence in me and creates an entirely unproductive way to interact. If I give the emotional doubt further space in my thoughts, I will begin to believe it. When I believe these doubts, I create timid behavioral patterns, and I cannot perform to the best of my abilities.

To over come these moments of self doubt, I focus my awareness on developing an unwavering belief in my abilities. Why should I believe? Simply put, I have built a solid foundation through working, studying, and showing up consistently for years. My case studies are shown through my resume, reels, and my lasting professional relationships. I have experienced and overcome enough difference in the application of my craft to know that I can handle anything. The result of the product is derived from doing the work to the best of my abilities within the time frame given, and beyond that, I have no control.

To be true to myself, I must believe in myself.

Also, when we hesitate, it gives room for others that are trying to overshadow your energy the space to dominate the conversation or situation. A project is a team, and when you are on a team, everything about you is valuable to progress. Part of your professionality is built on your ability to communicate effectively and to respond with alertness. I have noticed that, at times when I chose to not speak up or would respond hesitantly, it was looked at as ignorance or a weakness to exploit. Some people thrive off of other peoples suffering, and sometimes the only way to avoid being a victim is to decide not to be one. We must respond. Stay calm, stay focused, and then speak! It’s ok to be wrong, and if you don’t know something, say it. The purpose shouldn’t be for perfection, it should be for results. Let the purpose inspire you into action. Most importantly BE INSPIRED. You are there for a reason, so invoke and embody it.

I also find that I want to place the blame for my occasional procrastination to initiate certain opportunities on my self-proclaimed shyness. But when reflecting over my life, this is something that I’m truly beginning to understand as only a personalized construct that I have “SELF–PROCLAIMED”. At some point I decided to accept this shyness as truth, and I allowed that “shy program” to execute within almost everyone of my interactions. Therefore, I’ve given an excuse to myself for self-sabotage because …I’m shy…really?? Yeah I know, really stupid!

When I was a child, I don’t recall being shy. I’ve seen shy kids, hiding behind their parents legs, peaking out smiling (or, unable to make contact, averting their eyes) only to retreat again into the universe of “if it’s not seen, it doesn’t exist”. It’s adorable, but it wasn’t exactly what I remember experiencing. At some point, I learned how to be shy and convinced myself to act out this program as a defense mechanism. Which means if I learned this mannerism I can unlearn this.

• • •

“I have watched elders see a young person squirm with impatience, then choose to talk slower and longer. They do this because they know that learning to settle down and develop patience is going to help the young develop thoughtfulness, depth, and wisdom.” – Pamela Slim

I’m not referring to being patient as procrastination. I strive to make wise decisions and not blindly or rashly jump into situations just to force the results. To be honest though, sometimes even being patient can feel like I’m perhaps hesitating. I’m usually staying active for the most part, I have a “show up everyday” lifestyle and philosophy towards accomplishing my tasks, and I focus on creating enough space to look at a given situation and ask “What’s the natural course of things?”. Then why am I intimidated or ever overwhelmed to the point of paralysis (perpetual procrastination until the opportunity passes)?

When I really break everything down to a common denominator or articulated into terms, my procrastination is simply due to anxiety. I’m no where near the “medicate me” level but for sure, I have a level of anxiety -as most people do- that at times prohibits my drive and zaps my energy to reach out… and frankly, I’m sick of it.

I know that the more I encounter, or place myself into situations where I feel anxiety creeping over me, it loosens its effect as long as I keep moving forward. The next time I encounter that situation, I no longer feel so overwhelmed. The more I maintain my sanity during these experiences, and push through the uncomfortable moments, the layers and weight of anxiety inevitably disappears. A lot of anxiety is how our psyche interprets nervous excitement or fear, and the trick to overcoming it is to be aware of the two distinctions. Call yourself out on it, and decide to just feel excited.

“This moving away from comfort and security, this stepping out into what is unknown, uncharted and shaky – that’s called liberation.” – Pema Chodron

• • •

Designing, writing, teaching, and typically every one of my professional endeavors places me in high pressured situations that demands my self-awareness: Focus, response, belief in my actions, relationships, communication and willingness to engage. I’m constantly inundated by sensory information, and I have to respond accordingly to play in the game of life that I’ve chosen.

Action Plan: I’ve decided that I will no longer conceptualize any part of my self-identify as shy or give way to misinterpreted anxieties that perversely inform me of who I am and what I can not do. By doing this, I am becoming more and more aware of my instinctual responses. When my hesitant actions are zoomed in on, I can often dwindle the cause down to fight or flight response programs in my cognition. Therefore, I’m going to clean my mental and emotional facilities of these particular flight-mantras. When the thought arises that I can’t or that I’m not good enough, I immediately tell myself with unquestionable belief “No, I’m going to rock this”.

Letting go of my defined negative personifications also means I have to let go of what imagine others are perceiving. I will no longer disrespect my time, nor will I disrespect the freedom of expression from others by assuming their reactions. My imagination obviously isn’t reality so I’m going to begin bringing that fact into my awareness during these moments. In this case reality equals feedback. It’s their feedback that provides me with the true measure of value towards how my expression is received. I will always strive to illicit a positive, productive response, but beyond this…

Fundamental FACT!

Other people should not control my emotions.

• • •

Why have the audacity to approach life this way? Because Y.O.L.O! That’s right Y.O.L.O! We only have this one conscious version of life to embrace and to explore or express everything that we deem worthy of our time. Hesitation, timidness, and procrastination are qualities that are not worth something as precious as your time. You are alive. This is your moment. Reality is NOW!

“The only thing keeping you from what you want is the story you keep telling yourself about why you can’t have it.” – Tony Robbins

Whatever you identify as the expressive characteristics of your Self is what the rest of the Universe will sense, interpret, and then use to expressively respond to you. Speak into existence with deliberate action and watch the Universe unfold with acknowledgment and pathways to opportunity. Like a story told in one language and then recited back as another, slightly different in it’s style of delivery, you and the entire Universe are the same story. So ask yourself continuously, “What do I want this story to be?”

Speak into existence with deliberate action, and the rest of the will Universe respond.

Vocāre:

Latin (transitive) to call, name; to invoke.

28 Oct 2015

“I am learning to understand rather than immediately judge or to be judged. I cannot blindly follow the crowd and accept their approach. I will not allow myself to indulge in the usual manipulating game of role creation. Fortunately for me, my self-knowledge has transcended that and I have come to understand that life is best to be lived and not to be conceptualized. I am happy because I am growing daily and I am honestly not knowing where the limit lies. To be certain, every day there can be a revelation or a new discovery. I treasure the memory of the past misfortunes. It has added more to my bank of fortitude.”

– Bruce Lee

• • •

It’s 2am, and I’m wondering the halls of the USG Ishimura, a “planetcracker” starship that’s infested with all sorts of horrible creatures that I have come to know as Necromorphs. I am cautiously working my way to the ships fuselage. …Maybe cautiously isn’t the right word. It would be better to describe it as “somehow I am surviving step by step”. My crew and I crash landed on a recovery mission when we received a distress signal. When we arrived, we were ambushed by these creatures that had once been the crew members of the Ishimura.

I’ve begun to uncover clues as to what caused these mutations. It appears to have something to do with a thing called “the marker.” It seems like no matter where I go these bastard things craw out of the walls and impale me. Over and over, I think I’ve found a way or accomplished my next objective only to suddenly see my screen go red, and a creature with a missing jaw hacks mechanically at me with their mutilated limbs, flailing their distorted torso with an empty alien look in their eyes and a scream that will never leave me. I’m not giving up though. No way. Luckily, I have this plasma cutter to dismember these mutated piles of… Oh wait, this isn’t a blog about Dead Space.

…Nope…

It’s about failure.

Atychiphobia: the abnormal, unwarranted, and persistent fear of failure, a type of specific phobia. As with many phobias, atychiphobia often leads to a constricted lifestyle and is particularly devastating for its effects on a person’s willingness to attempt certain activities.

• • •

In video games, we fail constantly. It can be frustrating, but we know there’s something more if we just keep trying. Last night while I was playing Dead Space, I realized how many times I had died in the game. I restrain myself from over-indulging in video games too often, so I have taken breaks from it, but the thought to walk away from it until I beat it has never crossed my mind. (clarification: in the last phrase are you saying that what has never crossed your mind is walking away before you beat it? that you keep playing until you beat it, then you can walk away, correct? I would use “before” instead of “until” in the sentence as it’s written.)

While wondering the halls of the Ishimura, I began to think about the way I view failure and the various ways we interact with the world when we experience failure. I’m definitely no angel when it comes to failing. I’ve had plenty of moments when I lost my cool or even shut people that are close to me out during these moments of highly sensitive struggles to attain my ambitions.

The truth is that we fail all the time in our endeavors. It’s always interesting to me how in many stories the hero is often seen struggling or failing throughout the entire narrative, only to grind out the stress, gain the higher ground, and accomplish their worthy cause at the end. The typical “happily-ever-after”.

It’s also interesting to note the degree at which we take things so incredibly seriously. I mean, no one ever emotionally seethes over something as trivial as a video game right?

In most cases, we’re not particularly emotionally attached to the outcome of many of our failures, and we easily let these occurrences pass without levying emotional stress. That’s because we have identified these situations or endeavors as low payoff experiences. High payoffs tend to be things that change our lives: jobs, relationships, competition, health, etc… things that hold invaluable, consequential nuance to our envisioned idea of a perfect life or self identity.

This differential ability is really interesting to me, because it shows a willingness to believe or not believe that a result of a performed experience is considered a success or failure. It shows that we can choose to give varying degrees of value, and it shows that we have it in us to try over and over again or walk away unfazed. Why can some people do this more easily than others?

When we break down everything we know about failure and success in regards to how we perform in our actions (or whether we perform these actions at all), the results are subject to what we have decided to believe about our abilities.

Google tells me that failure is defined as:

Lack of success.
The omission of expected or required action.

Let’s go a little further with these definitions and discover something:

1. Lack of success

Success itself is a very subjective term with a lot of perceptive, or “value-based” variables. Essentially, it means “satisfactory results”. So, by proxy of this definition, the result of failure is subjective as well. If an individual or team choose to give success a distinction through categorical degree of benchmarks, values, and developed belief systems, then success and failure would follow under those imposed guidelines.

“Success is going from failure to failure without a loss of enthusiasm.” – Winston Churchill.

2. The omission of expected or required action.

Failure as the omission of expected or required action. Failure is something logical to calculate, but beyond that, it’s just your imagination. The fear of failure is something that cripples us to the point of exhaustion and depression. It’s very easy to give up at that point: You’ve proven yourself right. You can’t do it, because you won’t do it. And you have learned nothing, because you’ve evaded the experience altogether. You didn’t even try, and that’s where your failure is 100% factual.

In both of these cases, I believe that as long as you are learning, you are able to grow. As long as you are growing, you’re never in the process of failing.

• • •

Elon Musk is one of the greatest innovators of our time. He’s someone at the forefront of radical human revolution through fierce determination, technological advancement, and an ability to be relentless in his endeavor to bring about effective engineering and design that will most effect the future of humanity.

His story and the things he invest his time into are incredibly inspiring, primarily focusing on sustainable energy, clean transportation, and interplanetary space travel. Elon is the founder of SpaceX (CEO) and Co-Founder of Zip2 (sold $307 Mil), Pay Pal (sold 1.5 Billion), and Tesla Motors (CEO). He is also the chairman of SolarCity and is spearheading a conceptual high-speed transportation system called the “Hyperloop”.

Zip2 helped bring media companies online in the 90s, and Pay Pal revolutionized online payments. In 2014, SolarCity installed a third of the nations solar panels, being the largest solar panel installer in the country for the second year in a row. SpaceX is leading the way to Mars and for space exportation. Tesla is literally driving the electric car and sustainable transportation industry into what will be the inevitable social norm, and the Hyperloop will one day take passengers and cargo from L.A. to San Francisco in about 30 mins, opening a host of possible personal meetings, business, and newly discovered intrigues.

Reading over his story, you will notice many successes of ginormous proportions, for which the results continuously resound around the world (and will for ages to come). But also in nearly every interview, he doesn’t skip over the enormous amounts of struggles and disappointments he’s had to overcome. He points out that both Tesla and SpaceX have both been on the brink of collapse, only to bounce back in extraordinary fashion.

What are the mental frameworks of someone like Elon? This very question caused David Ly Khim to research Musk’s ambitious life philosophies and then create a list of what he feels are the most valuable lessons.

To summarize the article “6 Lessons from Elon Musk That Changed My Life,” the lessons are:

1. Endlessly Seek Criticism.

“While compliments create contentment, criticism creates improvement” – Khim

2. Challenge reality (by understanding the fundamentals).

“Upset the status quo. Ask tough questions. Explore the fundamental truths behind the challenges in your life. Explore how things really work by making “why” your favorite question to ask.” – Khim

“Boil things down to the most fundamental truths. Then reason up from there.” – Musk

3. Focus on signal over noise.

“Deciding what not to do is as important as deciding what to do.” – Steve Jobs

“Will this activity result in a better product? If not, stop those efforts.” – Musk

4. Make failure an option (by defining a contingency plan)

SpaceX Contingency Plan:

Falcon 1: Launch the Falcon 1 rocket successfully with in a minimal budget, or they disperse the company. The over arching goal is to make space travel and workflow affordable. The first three launches failed, but on the fourth, they launched not only the rocket, but also the company, into a $1.6 Billion commission for 12 resupply flights to the International Space Station.

“…Failure is an option here. If things are not failing you’re not innovating enough… ” – Musk

BOOM!

5. Remove Worries (by living the worst-case scenario)

Define your worst-case result based on your contingency plan. See if you can simulate what living with that failure would feel like, and explore it with thoughts, writing, and perhaps living it a little.

“Back then I was mostly living off of hotdogs and oranges. I figured if I could live off a dollar a day then, at least from a food stand point, it’s pretty easy to earn $30 a month.” – Musk

6. Solve Problems Beyond Yourself.

“If something is important enough, even if the odds are against you, you should still do it.” – Musk

I strongly suggest checking out Khim’s article which he includes action steps and exercises from the Elon lessons he’s collected.

For more on Elon Musk keep up with him on twitter @elonmusk or check out his wiki page.

• • •

Returning to Atychiphobia, there are many causes that link us to the fear of failure- overly critical and unsupportive family or traumatic events, for instance:

If your parents constantly treated you like a terrorist, never took your word as truth the first time, or consistently believed another authoritarian figure over you when you were being honest and forthcoming, these sorts of things usually cause a tendency to always second guess yourself. You’d be surprised how many people experienced this.

Let’s say you gave a presentation in high school, and you froze or the delivery wasn’t the desired result. The experience could have been so diminishing that you began to fear the possibility of failing in many other aspects of the way in which you express yourself.

Fear:

noun: An unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat.

verb: be afraid of (someone or something) as likely to be dangerous, painful, or threatening.

Fear is natural, and I’m not convinced even the most courageous people to have ever lived do not encounter it. Rather, the way we respond or react to fear becomes our result. It’s entirely controllable, but it takes work. By becoming aware of the source of these fears, we can begin focusing on the development of character strengths to alleviate those pathologies. It’s commonly said from successful people when asked what they feel the difference is between them and others is their willingness and ability to do the work.

• • •

“People’s beliefs about their abilities have a profound effect on those abilities. Ability is not fixed property; there is a huge variability in how you perform. People who have a sense of self-efficacy bounce back from failures; they approach things in terms of how to handle them rather than worrying about what can go wrong.” – Albert Bandura

Self-Efficacy: The belief in one’s capabilities to organize and execute the courses of action required to manage prospective situations.

“I can do…” statements.

Self-Concept: One’s perception of their self, including ability related perceptions and feelings about those ability related perceptions.

“I’m good at…” statements.

Self-Esteem: An overall evaluation of the self as a person of worth.

“On the whole, I am…” statements.

The psychologist Albert Bandura’s outlines various effects and concepts of Self-Efficacy. He references the determining result of our performance is determined by the following sources:

• Personal Experience

• Vicarious Experiences

• Verbal Persuasion

• Physiological Feedback

He states that individuals “function as contributors to their own motivation, behavior, and development within a network of reciprocally interacting influences”.

People with higher self-efficacy view problems as something to be mastered, have a deeper interest and commitment to these interest, and recover quickly from setbacks or disappointments.

People with low self-efficacy avoid challenging tasks believing that these are beyond their scope of accomplishment, focus on failings and negative out comes, and lose their confidence in their abilities.

Learning to cultivate higher levels of self-efficacy allows us to live in a more efficient, productive, and healthy way. It allows us the space to reach our optimal abilities, rather than absorbed in a shadow of stagnant potential. When you cultivate or give in to lower levels of self-efficacy you begin to allow life circumstances to be dictated for you.

“In this view, people are self organizing,

proactive, self-regulating, and self-reflecting.

They are contributors to their life circumstances

not just products of them.” – Albert Bandura

“They are contributors to their life circumstances, not just products of them”…more and more when we draw awareness and redefine the source of our doubts, we begin to focus on Self-Actualization. Not only are we the contributors to our lives, we are the creators. We affect everything we encounter, infusing all of life with a ripple of our energy.

I suppose this would be a great way to wrap it up, but there’s something that I feel is vital to a healthy way of living that I’ve left out. It’s our ability to cultivate a co-habitable creative and productive force beyond just our own lives. It’s looking at others as community instead of competition. As we experience shifts and difficulties in building, fortifying, and executing our abilities, so are others around us. While it’s easy to lessen our focus on other peoples lives while we are faced with daunting tasks, it’s also one of the best times to reach out to others with words of encouragement and find ways to lift others up.

The people we are especially close to shouldn’t be the only ones giving us encouragement, and as individuals, we shouldn’t be the only ones focused on our passionate intentions. Others may not want this sort of compassion or sense of community from you, and that’s fine; there’s an entire resource of people either extended into your greater local community or on the internet. Make “crowdsourcing” information a thing in your life. Others will welcome your encouragement and return the energy. Be genuine about it; don’t just look for an angle that only benefits you. When you sincerely cultivate your awareness for the “greater good,” others see it, and this opens up incredible doors for you to help them see it in themselves.

“I came to the conclusion that we should aspire to increase the scope and scale of human consciousness in order to better understand what questions to ask. Really, the only thing that makes sense is to strive for greater collective enlightenment…” – Elon Musk

Everyone fails all the time, but perhaps failure is our greatest key to success. Your mind is arguably the most fertile soil there is. Ideas, personal definitions, experiences, and information are all seeds that will grow, and the result will be your life.

Everyday, ask yourself what seeds are being planted in within you.