Outside Of My Comfort Zone
success is born out of discomfort, uncertainty, and risk
When I look back at the times when I have succeeded in life, and believe it or not there have been a few, one thing strikes me as germane ~ I wasn’t sitting in a comfy chair pondering the sharp changes in the price of booze since 1970. Whenever I achieved something important and worthwhile I was uncomfortable, I wasn’t living in the humdrum of my everyday existence, I was operating well outside of my comfort zone.
When we take risks we feel nervous and uncertain, afraid and uncomfortable. If it’s taking risks with our career, leaving a shitty and dysfunctional relationship, going all-in on a game of cards, or trying to run our first half-marathon, our biggest wins are always born out of discomfort, uncertainty, and risks.
Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, and difficulty. ~ Theodore Roosevelt
Usually the more uncomfortable I felt, the greater the risks I took, the harder something was to do, when it was almost impossible, then the bigger the success I achieved, the more self-confident I became, and the greater sense of achievement I felt at the end.
And that’s why true success is so rare, why so few people accomplish anything important, and why so few people ever do anything different ~ most people don’t like effort, pain, and difficulty. Most people don’t even like hard work.
Anytime you try to do something important you will be swimming against the tide. The people around you; family, friends, co-workers, your partner, will all tell you that what you want to do is stupid, impossible, and wrong. The more challenging, unique, and off the wall your project is, the stronger the criticism and negative judgementalism will be. All the people who think they know you will not like you doing something different. You are not only challenging yourself, you are also challenging their cosy little worlds too.
Ignore the critics, the Job’s comforters, the gainsayers, and the judgemental; you get on and do what you want to do to achieve your dreams, have your hearts desires, or just escape the shit life you are living right now.
There will be setbacks, things will go wrong, you will think you have bitten off more than you can chew, you will wonder WTF made to think you could dream the impossible dream, and then make it happen. Ignore all that and just keep on keeping on. It might be hell, but keep on going.
Learn how to be determined, learn how to adapt your plans and schemes to meet changing circumstances, learn how to ignore the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, learn how to be fucking relentless.
Some say that it’s better to stay safe than to take any risks at all. And that it’s all just too difficult, and I want to watch my soaps instead. All I know is that faint heart never won fair lady ~ and you can trust me on that one.
~
jack collier
jackcollier7@talktalk.net
there was a time when Churchill stood alone against the might of Nazi Germany
Life is a Risky Business
and the day came when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom
~
My life has become challenging and rewarding. The challenges are to learn how to control my feelings, my expectations, my wants, needs, desires, dreams, and lusts. To be a very cool guy, living a great life ~ a very cool guy who is truly self-aware, self-deprecating, self-disciplined, self-controlled, and self-confident. A man who takes care of his friends, is accepting, supportive, understanding, patient, and steadfast. Someone who doesn’t show uncontrollable anger, nor act like a negative jerk. I already have some of the rewards; my friendships are returning, I am sober, I am self-aware, and I am filled with positive energies.
Life is a risky business, and in the end there are few winners. I hope that in the critical weeks ahead of me I will make good decisions that benefit myself and those I care for ~ now and in the future.
My new journey along the warrior’s path began with a decision to make some serious changes to myself and my life, regardless of what I had to do to make changes, and regardless of what those changes needed to be.
What I do know is that the most important change I needed to make was the resolve to stay sober. For me, drinking any booze at all just means that everything gets totally fucked-up. If I drink then something very bad may happen, one day the booze might kill me.
None of the things I’ve tried before ever worked for long. But, this week a light was turned on ~ and perhaps the reason is that I suddenly became uncontrollably angry at a friend. And shortly after that I was utterly remorseful. I had a rapid and extreme change of mood within an hour or so. Scary. I knew I had to do something radical.
Things are better for me today. I still get incredibly angry for no good reason at all, but now I know I need to keep that anger locked away until I can find an acceptable way to release it. And the same goes for all the other powerfully negative chaotic emotions that flood my mind.
I got to where I was by continually doing what I had always been doing, including drinking. I knew that I had to do things differently. I started by researching exactly WTF Borderline Personality Disorder is, and how others manage to live with it.
Some say that Faint Heart never won Fair Lady. And that you will never get anywhere in life without taking risks. All I know is that being a really cool guy means taking care of and loving others, as well as taking care of and loving myself.
~
jack collier
jackcollier7@talktalk.net
JackCollier7 
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