Every day you are affected or influenced by external forces that you cannot control. The forces that affect you many times will change your physical world, and the forces that influence you cause you to make choices or decisions about your spiritual, intellectual, or your physical life. In any case, you make choices every day, and the sum of your choices determine the spirit of your life and times. How often do you allow external forces to change your direction or your focus? Is your attention diverted or do you change course when the risk becomes too high?
How you respond to the external forces which can affect you or influence you, will determine your success later. The choices that you make will determine the spirit of your success in the next few months and the next few years. There are no inconsequential events and there are no irrelevant people that come into your life. Everything and everyone that comes into your life is there for a reason and for your to risk an encounter or an engagement. When you accept the risk of the encounter or the engagement, you are moving forward, and when you don’t you are moving backwards.
Your Success Factor – Do You Allow Safety to Come First?
Vincent Van Gogh is one of the most celebrated artists and although he only lived forty three years, he left an indelible mark on art and art history. He struggled with mental and physical illness but Van Gogh never allowed his personal challenges to affect his love for painting. He changed where he lived, the people with whom he associated, and his occupation in order to continue his love for art. He was focused and his direction led him to take numerous risks in order to fulfill his desire to paint.
He moved from Holland to Belgium, and then to France. He changed his home so he could forge alliances with some of Europe’s great artists. Van Gough over came any notion of playing it safe. His passion was to paint and he did whatever he had to, to develop a painting technique which has changed the history of art and the progression of art technique. Artists and art historians are very much indebted to his contributions. Fortunately for them, he was willing to take risks and those risks were instrumental in his artistic technique and expression.
Whatever you aspire to be, do, or have, will be affected by your ability to disregard your comfortable status quo and to take risks. Do not allow being safe to come first. When you try to play it safe, you are losing opportunities to grow, to progress, and to move forward. Here are some simple steps that you can take today that will help you to keep progressing and to move forward.
- Emulate someone else who has been successful in your field. To emulate does not mean to be a clone, but it does mean that you can decide on one attribute that made that other person successful.
- Learn new skills that will take you out of your comfort zone and that will be a positive factor in your success.
- Express or exhibit your new found skill in some form. This may include selling, teaching, or coaching your skill or a product of your skill. Once you learn a new skill and begin to teach it to others, you become much more proficient at it.
Choose one of these three today and begin getting out of your comfort zone and share your success and your challenges here.