Challenge Yourself

Have you ever wondered why you are stuck in your life? Why can't you ever get out of the rut that you are in? Why is it that other people seem to succeed but you can't?

Well it just might be in your ability to challenge yourself. When we are young we challenge ourselves every day. Think back to when we were a toddler, was there not a time when we could not walk? Of course there was, but did we just get up and succeed instantly? Of course not, then there were the issues of learning to talk, going to school or learning to play a sport such as football. The truth is when we were young, we were masters of challenge. So what has happened?

As we grow up we fall into the trap of our own comfort. We get a job, we might find a partner and raise a family, while living in the same home for many years. However as we become older we get so used to how things are and the safety of what we know, we very rarely try anything new, let alone go out of our way to truly challenge ourselves.

Our brains are hard wired to avoid pain and look for pleasure. So we focus on the pleasure that living in our own safety bubble brings us and to challenge ourselves would be too difficult. Or in other words, too painful.

Now the issue of boredom arises. Our life becomes the same boring routine every day. Then along comes social media and the problems with it. We spend hours per day scrolling on Facebook, looking at pictures on Instagram or any number of other social media sites. We may then come to the conclusion that other people are more successful that us. Even though deep down we know, other people tend to only post the good parts of their lives and we know most of the Instagram models are paint brushed to appear more attractive. This can lead you down many different Rabbit holes and even in some cases to Depression.

But how do we combat this, well number one and especially if you feel Social media has been affecting you negatively, you limit your social media consumption. You stop yourself from the constant scrolling, especially near Bed time. I suggest trying to limit Social media to 3 times per day at 1st unless you are required to use it for your career etc. This is going to be your 1st challenge. But what should you do if you mess up and find yourself needlessly scrolling? Well number 1, you don't beat yourself up or call yourself stupid. What you do is you put your phone/computer or whatever it maybe down, and you admit you made a mistake, but do not say you failed. This is very important. YOU HAVE NOT FAILED, you made a small mistake and will do better in the future.

Congratulations you just succeeded with your 1st challenge, now give yourself a well deserved pat on the back. By giving up spending most of our free time on social media, we can connect with ourselves and other people again. There are many other benefits to regulating our Social media consumption which are beyond the scope of this article, for more info visit this link here.

Now we have set the ball rolling, we should consider other areas of our lives where challenges could help us. If you find you are unfit, challenge yourself to get outside for a walk for 30 minutes everyday. If you find yourself feeling lonely, try phoning your friend, the one you haven't spoken to for days or months. If in extreme cases you don't have anyone to talk to, try talking to the cashier at your local supermarket. You just might be surprised how good you will feel. You might even make their day.

With everything in life you must start small to get the ball rolling. Don't make you 1st challenge to change the world. You will most probably fail and that could be a disaster at this stage. Its much better to start small and build from there, once you are confident then you start making the challenges bigger and more difficult. There's a reason why most computer games start easy on level 1 and become steadily more difficult as you progress. The game developers know, if they were to make it the same difficulty on level 1 as on level 20, most people would put the game down, never to play it again.

A word on Failure. I don't believe in failure, I believe it is a learning curve instead. To fail you must give in and quit. Therefore it's much better to rethink and reposition ourselves then try again. Always try again quickly and as soon as you have had the time to think about why it didn't work. Also (and this is very important) learn from the setback and do things differently the next time.

Now you've began challenging yourself its time to step it up a level. You must increase the difficulty otherwise it will no longer be a challenge. Think of learning to ride a bike, it's challenging to begin with but after we've mastered it, we can do it automatically. That is why Mountain Bikers are always pushing the barriers. To continually challenge themselves, they know that riding the same track at the same speed over and over again will lose its appeal and more importantly its challenge. They don't want their sport to become boring and neither do you.

Build yourself up to be a master of challenges. you'll be amazed at what your life will become. By challenging yourself in every area of your life, this time next year your life could become unrecognisable to your current reality. I challenge you to start today, I challenge you to start now...

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