Fired Up for What?

We have all had one of those nights where you just don’t sleep well for whatever reason. Last night I had one of those nights, and it wasn’t because I had something on my mind. It was because the wind was whipping, and we live on a hilltop with virtually no windbreak., From our bedroom it sounds like someone is trying to break into the house, or at least tear it down. Needless to say, even though I know it is just the wind slamming into the house, it is very difficult to relax and fall back to sleep, and stay asleep. When my alarm went off this morning at 5 am, I noticed that my wife was not in bed. She was woken by the wind as well, but she decided to move to the spare bedroom in the basement where you can’t hear the wind. As I write this, she is probably deep in slumber.

The last blog that I wrote got a lot of attention, and several people contacted me to tell me that they really liked it. I’m not only glad that people got something out of it, I’m still shocked people actually take the time to read what I write. I was having a conversation with a guy that thought that I was writing it with him in mind, although he doesn’t have a beard. The truth is that most of what I write is a lesson or motivation that I need to hear, or advice that I have recently been following. The gentleman that I was speaking with implied that he needed to make some changes. Awesome, great, will he make some changes? I don’t know, what changes is he referring to? I’m not sure he has clearly defined what changes he intends to embark upon. That is the thing about change, it takes conscious thought and execution. If the thoughts are fleeting, so is the execution. If the thoughts are clear, motivated by powerful emotions, and calculating, the execution will not only take place, but will be seen through until the objective is achieved.

I am normally a deep sleeper and it takes quite a bit to wake me up in the middle of the night. My wife is the total opposite. She has supersonic hearing and is easily woken by sounds in the night. Therefore, it was not a surprise to me when I woke up this morning that she made the move to the spare bedroom. Making that change was easier for her because her perceived upset was greater than mine. I was not disturbed enough to force me out of bed. I was more ok with staying where I was, even though I knew there was another option that was potentially better.

If you are looking at making any kind of life change, it sure would be smart to understand your emotions that are motivating you. Logic can be a motivator, and is very much so with analytical personalities, but nothing is more motivating than our emotions. Fear, love, greed, jealousy, and anger have trumped logic for as long as history has been recorded. I am not saying not to use logic, on the contrary, I am saying understand the emotions that are driving your desire to make a change.

Why is it that many a smoker can’t find the inspiration to quit until they are diagnosed with a life-threatening illness? A smoker logically knows it is not good for them, yet the emotional pain of quitting exceeds the logic of potential down the road benefits. Therefore, they remain unchanged in their ways. We make changes when we get emotionally fired up positively or negatively.

This is where disruption comes in. When our lives are disturbed by an outside force or idea, we are forced to start making decisions on how to adapt to that disruption. We first have to assess if it is a big enough disruption to even consider making a change. The bigger the disruption the more likely the change. I have noticed that people who don’t forget the disruptions, and take them as a personal attack, tend to make lasting and permanent changes because they become emotionally fired up. Building a moat around your susceptibility to disruption is a good way to remain stagnant and unchanged. Remember stagnant water does not hold life for long. Consider the river, always flowing, changing, and bringing life with it wherever it goes. Disruption does not stop the river; it merely alters its path/flow.