If you’ve been following the Diana Nyad story (which you probably have if you’ve been reading the blog) you’ll know that now all the skeptics are out in full force. I’m short on time this morning but wanted to bring this up because often times people are afraid of success and I think that the ambush by skeptics is one of the reasons they are afraid. You put yourself out there, training (whether it’s for a sport or for anything in life), preparing and then competing and when you do achieve something great, people start to come after you – they may or may not allow you to have a moment of glory but then they start to dissect every little bit of what’s happened.

I think that Lance Armstrong has saddled us with having to put up with this behavior for a long time to come and I was an avid denier and supporter of his until the “Proof” came out and then I was crushed. So, who do we believe and when do we stop going after the “truth”. Well, I still prefer to believe that people are basically honest, good and forthright in their assertions based on their past behavior.

I realize that the areas that these “experts” are concerned about with Diana have valid points but I believe in her integrity and honesty until it’s been proven otherwise.

You have to know in your  heart whether you achieved what you said you did in an honest manner or not. Did you cut off a mile here or a mile there? Did you get someone to help you with a project you then said you did all by yourself (I remember when I was in high school I got a bad grade on a Latin project – I made a replica of the Coliseum – because the teacher said my father helped me and he did NOT)? Is what you said really what happened. That’s all you need to do in life. Tell the truth. Remember that it’s always easier to tell the truth repeatedly than to remember all the details of a lie you told.

You still have to step out there and try to achieve something great (your “Nyad”) and know in your heart that you did it and that other folks will come out of the woodwork like roaches to try to knock you down. So part of your training should be preparing yourself for this part of success and how you might handle the naysayers.

You know what? I know Diana swam a whole hell of a lot more than any other 64 year old so she’s still my hero even if they are upset because of how she put on the gear etc. That’s NOT all that this event was about. What bothers me most is that the skeptics may be deterring all the wonderful good that Diana did to inspire people of all ages to get off their butts and do something whether it’s physical or not – just do what you feel you need to do! There are always lessons for us to learn and there may be more here to come but hold on to what you know is right inside of you and you’ll be fine.

Have a great day!

Terrie

The post Success vs Skepticism first appeared on Getting Unstuck, LLC.

Figure out what’s inside of you – what’s there that you want to accomplish, what’s there that you’ve been dreaming about for years, what are you passionate about? That’s your “Nyad“.

You can adopt that phrase to represent something deep inside you that you really want to accomplish. It’s most likely something that you’re not ready to announce or even tell your significant other yet. Perhaps it’s still in the gestation period and you need to nurture it some more.

Today is the day to start ‘watering’ and nourishing your “Nyad”.  Consider using “The Passion Test” to help you with this.  It’s a great story and the test is actually pretty quick and easy – plus it’s YOURS and you can also refine it as you go along.

If you’re not happy or are feeling like something is missing in your life, this is the place to start. There is a “Nyad” buried deep in each of us. Most of us are afraid to admit it – even to ourselves. But you don’t need to be afraid to find it and cherish it and smile to yourself. Keep it to yourself because it’s still fresh and vulnerable and all those well-meaning folks around you will try to “protect” you by convincing you that your idea/dream is “really stupid” or “you can’t do that – when are you going to have the time to do that?” or “What? You’ve got to be kidding, right?”. This is a pretty normal reaction from folks around you and it’s the easiest way to set yourself up for failure or derailment. So keep it to yourself until you have firm plans in place.

If you don’t have the Passion Test and want to get started right now, start writing down exactly what your ideal life will be like. What will you be doing or being or what will you have? These are not goals, they are processes.  Take that first step today. What is it you REALLY want? Look deep inside. What’s been there nagging you all through your working to “make a living”, “raise a family”, “be a good spouse”, etc. We put off what we want for so long and for so many other reasons that it’s time we just said – “hey, this is really what I want to do with my life and I’m going to start pursuing it now”!

Do NOT allow yourself to be stopped by the fear or wonder of how on earth you’ll be able to pull this off. The Universe will provide the way and clear the obstacles for you.

Will you start making that list today? I am. Share below if you like – ideas on this topic, not necessarily your dreams (yet).  If you want to be bold, you certainly can share your goal!

Terrie

The post What’s Your “Nyad”? first appeared on Getting Unstuck, LLC.

You’re sitting there kind of zoned out and all of a sudden someone says “what are you thinking?” and it pulls you out of your reverie. You probably answer “uh, nothing. What’s up”?

Does that sound familiar? You may actually believe the “nothing” part of that story but it’s not true. There is almost no moment during any day that you are NOT thinking something.

The challenge I have for you is to pay attention to what you are thinking ALL the time.  Decide to be diligent for at least ONE day this week (preferably more) to monitoring your thoughts – be your own “Big Brother”. You’ll be very surprised.

It’s pretty simple – you can use a small notebook you can carry in your pocket or your purse or you could even use a portable recording device (there are many apps for your smartphone that would serve that purpose).

Yes, I know you have to work and you have to take care of your family and more. But these busy times are the times when you’ll usually find the most revealing thoughts – things like:

• “I can’t believe it, I don’t have any time to myself”
• “I’m so overwhelmed”
• “Gees, what more do they expect me to do”?
• “Get out of my way damnit, I’m in a hurry”
• “I’m so stressed out. I can’t take it any more”
• “I hate this job (or fill in any blank)”
• “It sucks to be me”
• “Why me”?
• “I can’t win”
• “I can’t catch a break”
• “How did I get myself in this mess”?
• “I’m so angry/mad/p.o’ed”
• “I’m afraid that ……”
• “I’m so tired”
• “I’m sick and tired of …….”
• “You’re killing me with all this”
• “I’m so ashamed that….”
• “I”m so embarrassed”
• “I wonder what he’s looking at”
• “I wish I weren’t so ….. (fat, dumb, stupid, lazy, etc)”
• “I wonder what would happen if…”
• “I’ll never get all this done”
• “That’s ugly”
• “I wish I had that”
• “God I’m starved”

These are just a few common thoughts I came up in a few seconds. There are millions more that you have going through your mind repeatedly.  The key word is “repeatedly” – we think the same things (perhaps with minor variations” over and over again. And if you remember how Abraham defines a belief, it’s “a thought we keep thinking over and over again”. So, guess what? You’re creating or reinforcing beliefs with all these “simple” thoughts.

Write down (make an effort) or record all your thoughts. It is important that you pay attention to all of them, not just the good ones, not just the bad ones – all of them. The idea is so that you can see how your thoughts balance out – what percentage of the time do you spend thinking positive thoughts and how much time do you spend thinking less than positive thoughts. And then, what thoughts are you repeating throughout the day – whether positive or not. Those are the ones you’re cementing in your subconscious as beliefs. You really want to make a conscious choice about what beliefs you cultivate, don’t you?

When you write these thoughts down, pay attention to what’s going on at that time – are you stressed, relaxed, working out, in the car, what? Make sure to pay attention to any follow-on thoughts and actions. For instance, if, after you think, “God I’m starved”, you head to the snack machine or the refrigerator and pick something you wouldn’t necessarily describe as “healthy”, write down what thoughts (if any) are going through your mind as you hit that button or pull open the frig door. Is it “I really shouldn’t be doing this” or is it “some chips or ice cream is just what I need right now”.  Perhaps you’re not even thinking – you’re just rushing to the machine so that you can take the food to numb the feelings. Unfortunately, you may be using the food to numb the feelings (stress, overwhelm etc) but you’re probably still thinking while you’re doing it. And you’ve made a conscious choice to pick the food regardless of the negative thoughts because feeling the pain from the emotion is worse than feeling the guilt or shame from having eaten that ice cream.  Some people use cigarettes, alcohol, food, drugs, abuse, exercise or many other actions to keep from feeling certain emotions.  Do you want to keep using your “drug of choice”? Or do you want to change your behavior? If you want to change your behavior you have to change your thoughts.

Here’s a short example. Yesterday was the day runners could try to get into a popular 100 mile race (Umstead- one I know I could do well at). I had planned the day around the “registration attempt” time (11 am my time) and I’d used affirmations and beliefs that I was definitely going to get in. I had written in my gratitude journal every day that I was grateful that I got into Umstead 2014 (being specific so that the Universe knew that this was the one I meant, not sometime in the future).

11 a.m. came and I tried and to make a long story short, I didn’t get in. I could have spent the rest of the day being really bummed out and saying that all this stuff really doesn’t work and I’m just a hypocrite, blah blah blah. But you know what? That would have done absolutely nothing but bring my mood and vibration way down. I chose not to experience that so I realized that “everything always works out for me” (Lord knows I’ve experienced that so many times in my long life) and began to think about the alternative runs I could do or apply for. And my day improved. It took some conscious work but I chose to feel good, not to plummet to the depths of despair which I could easily have done had I not paid attention to my thoughts.

Are you up for this challenge? Can you commit to at least one day and hopefully more? Let us know by putting your comments in the box below.

Have a great day!

Terrie

The post What Are You Thinking? first appeared on Getting Unstuck, LLC.

 What do you think Diana Nyad would say if you asked her if she had failed in her other attempts to reach Florida from Cuba? She’s very smart so I don’t know what her real answer would be but my answer would be that it depends on what you mean. Do you mean, “did I not succeed in actually swimming all the miles from Cuba to the Florida shore” she would probably say “no I did not swim the distance those other four times BUT I did not fail”.

As usual with words there are several definitions in the dictionary. Here’s one for failure: “omission of occurrence or performance” – so by that standard and to answer the strict question  of did she swim to the other shore, the answer would be no and that was a failure.

But here’s another definition of failure: “a subnormal quantity or quality” – All of her attempts were anything BUT subnormal. She has attempted more than most of us could even conceive of – that is not subnormal. Diana Nyad is very much supernormal!

Do we really care about the dictionary definitions? Not really. Because it’s your outlook that means everything in life. Your outlook reflects your attitude, your vibrational state. And it’s your vibrations that determine your outcome in life.

How do you look at things? How do you view what happens when you attempt something? Is your feeling and attitude dependent on the outcome – is your day measured by how well you stuck to your diet, by the number on the scale, etc? We use numbers so often to determine whether we succeeded  at something. And worse yet we do it subconsciously because it’s been so ingrained in us. I noticed that last week when I was doing my long run. I was feeling good about the run, I felt happy and was really enjoying everything. Then I glanced at my GPS (to see the distance but my eyes caught the time) and when I saw the time (a number) I was bummed out big time. If I had not been paying attention to how I reacted to things I would have let that one number ruin my entire day and run. How stupid could I be? How often do we do that? Instead of focusing on the good and the fun and the progress, I was about to focus on a stupid number as an artificial measure of my success or failure. I have to say that that’s pathetic (and this will be a big part of learning to hand our emotions surrounding weight in my upcoming coaching program). Fortunately because I had been attuned to this “number” issue over the past few weeks, I decided to do some EFT and get the concept that I failed  out of my head and go back to enjoying the great day!

Diana’s strategy, techniques and equipment changed with each attempt. I imagine some of her training may also have changed during the hiatus between jumps into the Cuban waters. But more importantly she noticed what she experienced that adversely affected her while she was on the swim and analyzed it to see what could be changed and then set about changing it. She took a medication for a sore shoulder that caused her to have an asthma attack. She investigated that and found the medications that she could take without having problems. She had already researched how to deal with the danger of sharks but I imagine that has even improved over the attempts, how to get hydrated and fed was most likely refined all this time (especially after swimming longer and being seasick and having all the salt water ingested), how to handle bites and stings were dissected and analyzed. And as you know, great research with many groups of people went into fighting the box jellyfish and they were finally conquered (thanks in part to Mother Nature).

Diana also went deep within to find ways to continue to swim in the face of hallucinations and sleep deprivation and immense fatigue. She created mantras (“Find a Way”) and the one I like the most – she used one hand to pull Florida toward her when stroking up and the other hand pushed Cuba behind her with the other direction stroke. How clever that was.

She also beefed up her social media team and they did an outstanding job during the swim. That not only generated more people following her but also kept those devoted followers (like me who was pretty much glued to the computer all weekend) constantly informed – much different than the other attempts.

All of these are successes – in no way can they be considered failures. Perhaps the only “failure” would have been to not try again this time. Everything else was training and she took all the results and made something special and positive of them!

Take a look at things you’ve considered failures in your life. Change your outlook and your vibrations regarding them and see what successes came out of them. Remember that everything always works out for you!

Terrie

The post Is It Really Failure? first appeared on Getting Unstuck, LLC.

As you know all weekend I was writing about Diana Nyad and the many aspects and lessons from her 53 hour swim (and more importantly all that went behind it). And you know what? I’ll continue to write about her (and it) because the number of lessons in this story is amazing – and the lessons about the Law of Attraction in this story are worthy of revisiting for sure.

How do you express gratitude?

Do you keep track of all the “gifts” you receive and have received in your life?

How do you define a “gift” – after all it’s an individual definition.

• Although folks usually think that a gift is something meant directly for them, I look at a gift as being something that was bestowed upon me  – and sometimes even around me but it touches me even if it wasn’t meant directly for me. That’s often the way it works. We do not live in a vacuum and almost everything that happens in our surrounding environment will have some effect on us.
• Often people think that a “gift” as being something positive, like flowers or gift card, etc.
• Also, a gift is commonly considered to be a material object (not always but usually that’s the first thing that people think about)

Let’s take each of these individually.

•  We can learn so much from what goes on around us. Look at the people and circumstances around you. Did someone say something near you that gave you a great idea or that made you smile even though they weren’t directing it to you? That’s a gift! Did a neighbor do something to their house that raised the property value of your house perhaps? That’s a gift to you even though your neighbor did not do it for you. Get the point?
• It happens that our most important and valuable gifts are what we might consider “negative” at the time. But remember the “everything always works out for me” mantra. Look back at your life and see the “bad” things that happened in your life and see the good things that actually came from it. My primary example has to do with medical school and my diagnosis of epilepsy. I did not get into medical school the first two times I applied. I was so depressed because that’s all I  ever wanted since I was 4 years old. Picture this tiny little red headed, freckle faced girl standing with her hands on her hips and proudly announcing to the world at large “I am going to be a doctor”. And I never wavered from that. But then, oh my goodness, what was I going to do – I’ve been “rejected”. I did what any person who didn’t have any alternative goals would do – continue to apply year after year..LOL.  During this dry spell of rejection after rejection, I developed these strange events. To make a long story short – this was diagnosed after a year as epilepsy. About a month after the diagnosis and start of treatment I got into medical school. The gifts here are multiple. I didn’t get into medical school because my epilepsy would have interfered with my studies (and probably would not have been diagnosed much earlier even around a bunch of doctors). By the time I started school, my condition was under control and there was no further problems. It was a gift because it made me understand my patients with chronic disease much better and I could help them more. My understanding of medicine, diagnosing and what people experience with the medical encounter was enhanced (although I didn’t know it at the time) which helped me with others. It was a gift for me to get the diagnosis of epilepsy because my neurologist had said “you either have epilepsy or a brain tumor”. As you can imagine, epilepsy was a much more favorable option for me. There are many other gifts in this experience too but I won’t go into them all. The point is that most people would NOT consider being diagnosed with a chronic, life-long illness as a “gift”. But it was.
• The last point is also exemplified by my epilepsy – it wasn’t an object, it was a diagnosis but it was a “gift”. A smile or laugh or a stimulated thought is also a gift. It does NOT have to be put in a box to be a gift.

Your work is to make a list of all the gifts you’ve received in your life. That will take some time if you do it right and take this seriously. Write down the “bad” things too and see what gifts came from them. Do this in a journal and take your time. Give gratitude for each and every gift and see if you can see what great things came from that gift. Do that this weekend, ok?

When you express your gratitude, you will empower yourself even more because gratitude is the most powerful force in the universe! Diana knew that and when she had been in the water for almost 50 hours she gathered all her boats around her and thanked her entire crew. She was exhausted and hurting and yet she knew how important gratitude is. How classy is that? Can you just express gratitude after looking at your list? Of course you can – you haven’t been swimming for 50 hours, you’ve just been making a list (and checking it twice…LOL).

Enjoy this exercise please – I promise you it will be fun! Let us know in the comments how things turned out.

Terrie

The post Gratitude and Gifts first appeared on Getting Unstuck, LLC.

This could be “PN” or “PD” (post Nyad or post Diana) – it doesn’t really matter. I just want to continue reminding you that your dreams are yours. As one reader commented though, they don’t all have to be physical. Diana Nyad’s achievement was not so much about endurance swimming as it was about the human spirit and she knows that and has tried to get that message across to all of us with her “three messages” and “Find a Way”.

So look at your day and do something different to get you going in a different direction. “That’s easy” you say – well, it’s not so easy. We are creatures of habit and that’s a safety measure built into our survival mechanism. We have to make a conscious effort to change things up. So pick one small thing to change and then do it. From my own experience I recommend you have alternative “changes” – all of which are small. Why? Because one might not pan out and if you have other options to pick from then you are more likely to actually do something instead of staying in the same rut and then spending the rest of the day or night chastising yourself for not doing it. We create more energy and “action” by criticizing ourselves for failure instead of looking at the situation and “Finding a Way”.

I’ll give you an example from yesterday for me. I decided to change up what I did when I came home. I planned on coming home and going for a run before my coaching call instead of just going to the grocery store to get dinner, coming home, eating it while reading, doing the call etc.

But as I was driving home, the same old pattern took hold and although I debated with myself with all sorts of “excuses” (it’s too hot, I’ll do it later etc), I ended up going to the grocery store first. So I “failed”, right? Not at all. First, I had thought about the habit/pattern and decided to make a change – that was definitely a different action/reaction than before. I was not operating as an automaton.

Then I “debated” which action I was going to take and why. Sure, most of the “whys” were excuses, not reasons …but – the key here is that I was thinking about it. Then I chose to NOT beat up on myself for not doing that ONE thing I had planned. I immediately looked for a different “change” to make (it would have been better had I come up with that option/alternative in the morning so I had some to fall back on but I didn’t and I learned from it).

So what did I do? I went and got dinner. But instead of eating it reading and watching TV, I ate it while sitting at my computer (instead of the recliner) going through and cleaning out my email. Was this the best course of action. Probably not – people will say I wasn’t “present” for my meal because I was multi-tasking and others will say it was still a waste of time. I disagree. All I know is that I felt good because I had done something different and had consciously thought about it. It was such a tiny little thing that would not be noticed by others. But my subconscious being sure noticed it and in this case it felt good – most likely there was no bad reaction from within because it was such a tiny change. You can’t make major changes right away. You have to work your way up to things.

Today’s action – take a look at your daily life  and routine and see what one tiny thing you can change that has to do with your dream. If you aren’t sure, yet, what your dream is, then just change something. See how it feels. Then keep going. Decide in the a.m. what you’re going to change. Then write in your gratitude journal (also can be called your success journal) about what happened. See how you feel and go from there.

Let us know what happened.

ONWARD – Find A Way!

Terrie

The post PN (Post Nyad) Day 2 – What Did You Do Differently Yesterday? first appeared on Getting Unstuck, LLC.

 Don’t let this happen to you – we get all excited about someone’s achievement and talk about how they have “inspired” us to take action etc etc etc.

But the next day, what happens? You think about it (or not) and probably go right back to your old way of living.

Today is the day to make a change. To make a decision. Today (if you didn’t do it yesterday) you write a commitment to yourself about what you vow to do to follow a dream. Even if you don’t think you have a dream, take today to dig deep and write down all the things you’d like to do and have wanted to do since you were a little kid.  DO SOMETHING and DECIDE SOMETHING! Don’t wait for another great human interest story to get you all fired up – for a few hours or days. Do this now. Then use my Define and Conquer 2013 program to help you “Find a Way” (Diana Nyad 2 September 2013).

You cannot just sit on your butt and expect that your dream will be brought to you because you wished so hard. You have to do the work. But if you decide to follow it and you aim high and continually refocus and regroup, you WILL achieve your dream.

There will be naysayers out there that will say Diana Nyad had it easy this year because the weather was good and there were no sharks and no jellyfish. Easy? Try enduring all she’s endured for the last 3 years with a near death experience last year, the disappointment and discouragement and the picking herself back up and looking at all possibilities and all avenues to find a way to combat those threats. I believe that Mother Nature said “ok, I know you’ve prepared and persevered so we will not throw much more in your way.” But ladies and gentlemen – she still had to do the swim. She still had to swim in the ocean for 110 miles, 53 hours never touching anything solid, not being able to rest her body and not sleep at all. And she’s 64. So don’t anyone say she had it easy.

You really can find a way. I will be on you about this all week until I feel you have either decided to do something or have really gone back into your habit hole (not rabbit but habit).

Let us know what you have decided to do!

Terrie

The post Diana Nyad – Post Achievement – Ok, Folks What Are You Doing Today? first appeared on Getting Unstuck, LLC.

 Diana Nyad is very close to achieving her dream and I am not only in awe of her and her accomplishment but have also learned a lot about life from following her for the past 4 years. Here’s just a few of those things (feel free to add whatever lessons you’ve learned – post in the comments section):

•  All strength comes from within – it starts within and although it may spread outward, it is always anchored within and you have to keep coming back there.
•  It’s not about age, gender or any other distinguishing or separating feature – it’s about dream, drive, determination, dedication, destination, development, and gathering the forces around you. The human spirit is so resilient once we wipe away all our limiting beliefs.
•  You’re never too old. If there is anything that Diana Nyad has taught us is that you are never too old to accomplish feats that many feel are impossible even for younger folks. There are many other older people that have achieved such accomplishments but Diana has made it a crusade to reach out to the older generation to give them hope and to tell them NOT to give up no matter what. You really are only as old as you think.
•  Don’t give up – The actual quote, I believe, was “When you are going through hell, keep on going. Never, never, never give up” when Winston Churchill said it. I ask people this all the time – what if Columbus had given up and given in to the fears that he would fall off the face of the earth if it really was flat? Another quote: “Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.” – Dale Carnegie
  These people have said it so much better than I could ever. I just know that you will remember when you gave up and have the “what if” syndrome forever. Don’t succumb to that syndrome. If it’s important to you, it doesn’t matter if it’s important to anyone else – it’s yours and yours to do. The Universe doesn’t just give out ideas for the heck of it. You got this idea and dream for a reason! Now achieve it! And remember Thomas Edison’s quote too: “Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”
•  Follow your dream – Don’t bury your dreams. keep them alive and find a way to make them work. “Commitment leads to action. Action brings your dream closer.” Marcia Wieder.  How many of us have dreams and then say “nah, I could never do that”? And then you file the dream away. Diana had that dream for 35 years. It may have been buried since she didn’t swim during that time but it was in there buried in the soil of her soul, being nurtured like the rose. And finally it has bloomed. Make sure your dream is nurtured and never forgotten.
•  Think of others – give of yourself and you’ll get so much more back. Gratitude, as I’ve said many times before, is the most powerful force in the universe. When you reach out to others, especially in times of your own struggle, the Universe will reach back and provide you with more strength to rejuvenate your energy banks.
•  Have a plan – know what you’re up against and make appropriate plans as well as having contingency plans. Don’t consider failure as failure. As Thomas Edison said about all his attempts to create the light bulb – “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” Thomas A. Edison
•  Be prepared – Goes along with contingency item – but need to be prepared – do your research so you know what you might be up against. “I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games, 26 times I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot … and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. That is why I succeed.” Michael Jordan. If you’ve tried and “failed” go over every step of that attempt and find out what you should have planned for. Then make changes in your plans and preparation in accordance with that.
•  When you think you don’t have anymore, you probably do – just dig deep. Remember all those quotes from above and the ones that say that if you just keep going when you’re about to quit, success will be right over the top of that hill. Diana is having to dig really deep to cover these last “few” miles – they are not “few” at all as anyone with any experience in endurance sports can tell you. But she is trying to go deeper within than anyone ever has in order to complete her dream. This is so important to her and she will find her strength. You can and should also pull strength from others on your team or from the universe.
•  Have a team and a coach – you can’t operate in a vaccum. you have to have a team and preferably a coach. Surround yourself with people of the same attitude and spirit. There are multiple teams working with you when you are trying to achieve something great – intimate team (probably you and your coach), close team (your support), research teams or work teams that serve one function per team (such as creating the prosthetic mask for Diana, the other jellyfish research that was done news, the team that created her special suit so that it met requirements), the world supporting you – it’s important to get the word out. There can be many different groups of teams – any successful organization has many teams. Always surround yourself with people who have the same values as you do.
•  Don’t let people tell you differently – don’t let people tell you you can’t do something or that you shouldn’t do something. Remember Ralph Waldo Emerson’s quote: “Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising which tempt you to believe that your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires courage.”
•  Don’t be defeated before you start. If it’s a dream, it’s your dream and it was given to you to accomplish. Don’t think of all the obstacles or the reasons you can’t do something. As someone wrote about Diana – she’s the “anti-excuse”. There is no excuse other than giving in to your fear and you do not want to do that. Confront your fears and realize that your dreams are priority over your fear and over anything else that threatens to get in the way.
•  Things will get tough but you just get tougher – know this ahead of time. Here’s another great quote for you: “When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you, till it seems as though you could not hang on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.” Harriet Beecher Stowe
• Have a solution based attitude – not a problem based attitude. If you keep looking at something as a problem, you won’t be able to find a solution because you have to be looking for a solution. That is vital. Switch your mindset once you identify an obstacle.
• Don’t let anything stand in your way – If you find something that seems to be an obstacle, find a way around or over or even under it.
• Get support from others at large – there is great energy out there in the universe – let’s harness it – this goes along with the team concept but draw energy from the Universe. Ask for support and help. There are many people out there who want to help and want to do whatever they can for you. But you have to ask them.

There are many more lessons from Diana’s Extreme Dream. What lessons have you taken from this experience? Post in the comments section below.

Terrie

The post Follow Your Dreams – Lessons Learned From Diana Nyad first appeared on Getting Unstuck, LLC.

You often hear these two words, inspiration and motivation, used interchangeably. But they are significantly different. Abraham discusses this and I had never really differentiated them before hearing it from him.

Motivation comes from the external, outside of you; inspiration comes from within – it’s internal.

Which do you think is more powerful?

Take this picture for example. When you hit bottom, people can cheer and jump up and down yelling at you to get up and keep going (think “Drill Sergeant” or perhaps “volunteer” ). Think about this situation. Would that make you get up and bounce right back into the fray? It might help but what will really get you back up and raring to go is what’s inside of you – what’s driving you to keep going.

Think of Diana Nyad who right now is almost 24 hours into her swim of about 103 miles. This is probably not even 1/3 of the way – swimming continuously, no stops (has to tread water to eat and drink), no sleep, no rest, nothing! You and I got to go to sleep last night. Or even if we were good friends and wanted to continue to track her, we would not be exerting every muscle of our body over and over again with no end in sight.  Do you think that the motivation that Diana is receiving from her support team and friends is enough to keep her going through such fatigue, hallucinations, pain, exhaustion, etc? Heck no! That would never be sufficient to get her to “bounce back up” or keep going. Of course it helps and is actually vital in someone’s success.

However, this kind of drive comes from within – deep within. It has to come from within or otherwise there is absolutely not definitive reason to put yourself through all this. Even love can’t provide that much inspiration. But when you combine love with a dream, there is NO stopping you at all. That is what is driving Diana. This is a dream she has held within and cultivated for 35+ years.  Think of wine and how valuable it is when it’s aged. People cherish it and know how much it means. There’s no difference with this. Diana’s dream has been planted, marinated, loved, nurtured and even brought out to see if it was “ready” for fulfillment (her other attempts). But it wasn’t ready to be put out there as complete. Now it is. And it will be her internal inspiration more than anything else that will get her across the Ocean. She has pulled out all the stops to conquer those darn Box Jellyfish and now is her time.

Take today to look within and find out what your true desire and inspiration is.

Go Diana, Go!

Terrie

The post Inspiration vs Motivation – Diana Nyad first appeared on Getting Unstuck, LLC.