Why challenge yourself?
I love challenges.
No, not really. But I love how I feel once they’re completed.
A year of buying nothing but groceries. A year without alcohol. A year off social media, when I was sure my business wouldn’t survive.
Each one excited me but also scared me before I started. Each one showed me something about myself I couldn’t have learned any other way.
Challenges are the arena
In 1910 Theodore Roosevelt gave a speech in Paris that people still come back to. He said the credit doesn’t go to the critic on the sidelines, instead it goes to the one actually in the arena, sweating, falling and getting back up. Brené Brown built Daring Greatly around that idea, and it’s one I live by.
Challenges and demanding goals are the arena where you train your power of mind. Not binge-watching series. But real life! Goals! That’s where you train your power.
The bigger and more meaningful the challenge, the greater the chance you’ll discover your true potential, find the state of flow and move beyond your limits. We can only manifest our potential when we have a challenge and take action towards resolving it. That’s when the spark happens. It doesn’t happen sitting at home dreaming about something.
That’s why I recommend challenging your thinking, your beliefs, your behaviours. That’s how you grow and learn more about yourself.
Meeting your ego
When you challenge yourself, the ego pushes back. It wants you safe = small and comfortable. It whispers that ‘this isn’t what you do’, ‘this isn’t who you are’. Your heart races, your body wants to shrink and run away.
You don’t know what kind of ego you have until you raise the bar for yourself.
For most people, challenges mean pain and suffering. For your true spiritual Self, they mean joy. For that Self it is, was and always will be joy. Pain and suffering belong to the ego.
So do it anyway. One small step at a time.
Every step gives you proof that you can do hard things. That proof builds self-trust, and self-trust changes everything: how you spend, how you eat, how you love, how you live.
The women who said yes
Right now I’m walking alongside a woman on a 5-week journey who is comfortable with challenge. She joined knowing there were things in her live to be changed, and instead of waiting for the ‘right’ moment, she chose to face them. Watching her raise the bar for herself week by week reminds me why I do this work.
The freedom is on the other side of your fear.
What’s one belief or habit you’re ready to challenge? Tell me in the comments 👇