Peace
of mind transpires and thrives when you let go of the things that limit your
growth and happiness.
You
work for this peace every time you give up…
1. Old regrets and excuses.
You can’t always choose
what happens to you, but you can always choose how you feel about it and what
you do about it. You don’t have to be defined by the things you did or
didn’t do in the past. Don’t let yourself be controlled by regret.
Maybe there’s something you could have done differently, or maybe not.
Either way, it’s merely something that has already happened.
Be
done with these old regrets; they’re just an excuse for people who have failed,
and failing only happens if you learn nothing and give up. Ninety-nine
percent of all failures come from people who have a habit of making these empty
excuses.
Think
about it, you rarely fail for the things you do. You fail for the things
you don’t do, the business you leave unfinished, the things you make excuses
about for the rest of your life.
2. The burning desire to have all the answers
Accept the feeling of
not knowing exactly where you are going, and train yourself to love and
appreciate this sensation of freedom. Because it is only when you are
suspended in the air, with no destination in sight, that you force your wings
to open fully so you can fly. And as you soar around you still may not
know where you’re traveling to. But that’s not what’s important.
What’s
important is the opening of your wings. You may not know where you’re
going, but you know that so long as your wings are spread, the winds will carry
you forward.
3. The false hope of a pain-free life
Pain is a part of life,
and life’s pains have many shapes and sizes.
There’s the cold feet
pain of moving on ‒
graduating, taking the next step, walking away from the familiar and into the
unknown. There’s the sharp growing pains of trial and error, of failing
as you learn the best way forward. There’s the immense, dizzying pain of
life slapping you in the face when everything you thought you knew wasn’t true,
or everything you had planned for falls through.
There are the more
ambiguous aches and pains of successes, when you actually get what you had
hoped for, but then realize that it’s not quite what you had envisioned.
And then, from time to time, there are the warm, tingling pains you feel when
you realize that you are standing in a moment of sweet perfection, a priceless
instant of achievement or happiness which you know cannot possibly last ‒ and yet will remain
with you forever.
Even though so many
folks forget, pain is actually a good thing. It means you’re breathing,
and trying, and interacting with the endless possibilities in this world.
Pain is for the living only; it’s worth fully accepting and dealing with while
you still have a chance. 
4. Ties to insensitive people
People are extremely
difficult to change.
Throughout
your lifetime people will make you mad, disrespect you and treat you bad.
Don’t consume yourself with trying to change them or win their approval.
And don’t make any space in your heart to hate them. Simply walk away and
let karma deal with the things they do, because any bit of time you spend on
them will be wasted, and any bit of hate in your heart will only hurt you.
5. Obsessing yourself with negative news
For every prominent
newscaster who howls about how bleak and unjust life is, there are thousands of
other people behind the scenes working tirelessly to make a positive difference
in the world. For every disheartening crisis that is breathlessly
reported, there are thousands of real, meaningful success stories that don’t
get the attention they deserve, but that have an enormous positive ripple
effect on humanity.
Try
not to obsess over the negative news; learn from it and use your knowledge to
work your way eagerly toward a brighter tomorrow. Life does get better
and better when you choose to make
it so.
6. The belief that fulfillment resides in the end result
Fulfillment is not a
matter of achieving a specific goal. It is a matter of mindfully enjoying
the process required to achieve that goal. Fulfillment flows from
focusing your life around specific and authentically held intentions – ideas
and activities that genuinely speak to your purpose. When these
intentions are clear, consistent and meaningful, you have sufficient means to
bring fulfillment and joy to your life, whether you ever fully achieve your
intended goal or not.
In
other words, the right journey is the destination.
7. Measuring your success by material wealth
We’re bombarded with
images of stuff, with the implication that this stuff somehow elevates personal
value and success. So I encourage you to think about how much of your
self-worth is connected to owning, giving, and getting STUFF. Because
truthfully, success, happiness, and peace of mind have little to do with STUFF.
So
what does help create these things?
To
laugh often and love genuinely. To respect others and judge less.
To win the affection and sincere smiles of children. To earn the regard
of honest peers and endure the betrayal of fake friends.
To
appreciate the beauty surrounding you wherever, whenever you are. To find
the good in people and situations. To give what you can and leave the
world a little better than you found it. To have explored ideas and
passions and sung at the top of your lungs with jubilation. To know that
at least one life has breathed easier because you have lived.
8. The need to keep everything the same
Things change.
People and circumstances come and go. Life doesn’t stop for anybody.
Life
moves very fast. It rushes from calm to chaos in a matter of
seconds. It happens like this to people every day. It’s happening
to someone right now.
Sometimes
the shortest split second in time changes the direction of our lives; a
seemingly innocuous decision rattles our whole world like a meteorite striking
Earth. Entire lives have been swiveled and flipped upside down, for
better or worse, on the strength of an unpredictable event.
Most
of the time these changes come when you’re not asking for them and not
expecting them, but they happen. So are we helpless? Are we
puppets? No. These changes are going to come; you can’t help
that. But it’s what you do afterwards that counts. That’s when you
grow; that’s when you find out who you truly are.
So
when you find yourself standing on a threshold, the crossing of which will
seemingly change everything, don’t fight it.
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