Who are you willing to suffer for?
What pain are you willing to endure for your heart’s desires?
Why do you keep going- when you feel you have just been the recipient of a sucker punch?
When do you decide to stay in the game or pull out?
Knowing your answers to these four questions are important to living the “Vital Lifelong Way”!
Life does not unfold in a clean and tidy “black or white” manner. Rarely do things go exactly as planned. When they do- celebrate the extraordinary rarity of the experience! We plan and make out our lists and then something or someone blindsides us with their unforeseen actions. The truth of the matter is that more often than not- life is in flux and constantly changing. We live in a fast paced and rapidly changing world.
We all want happiness, love, peace and prosperity to various degrees. These desires are pretty universal. Where the ”rubber hits the road” is in the answers to the four questions listed above.
We’ve all heard the phrase- “no pain- no gain”. Without being all in and fully committed to something or someone- it is virtually impossible to achieve our goals – whether it is in relationship with others or in relationship with an activity or a passion. It is also impossible to avoid the pain.
So what and who are you willing to suffer for?
Mark Manson- writer for the Huffington Post dialogues about this very issue:
“Everybody wants what feels good. Everyone wants to live a care-free, happy and easy life, to fall in love and have amazing sex and relationships, to look perfect and make money and be popular and well-respected and admired to the point that people part like the Red Sea when you walk into the room.
Everyone wants that. So what’s the point?
What’s more interesting to me is what pain do you want? What are you willing to struggle for? Because that seems to be a greater determinant of how our lives end up.
Everybody wants to have an amazing job and financial independence — but not everyone is willing to suffer through what it takes. People want to be rich without the risk, with the delayed gratification necessary to accumulate wealth.
Everybody wants to have great sex and an awesome relationship — but not everyone is willing to go through the tough communication, the awkward silences, the hurt feelings and the emotional psychodrama to get there.
Happiness requires struggle. You can only avoid pain for so long before it comes roaring back to life. At the core of all human behavior, the good feelings we all want are more or less the same. Therefore what we get out of life is not determined by the good feelings we desire but by what bad feelings we’re willing to sustain.
The good things in life we accomplish are defined by where we enjoy the suffering, where we enjoy the struggle.
People want an amazing physique. But you don’t end up with one unless you legitimately love the pain and physical stress that comes with living inside a gym for hour upon hour, unless you love calculating and calibrating the food you eat, planning your life out in tiny plate-sized portions.
People want to start their own business or become financially independent. But you don’t end up a successful entrepreneur unless you find a way to love the risk, the uncertainty, the repeated failures, and working insane hours on something you have no idea whether will be successful or not.
People want a boyfriend or girlfriend. But you don’t end up attracting amazing people without loving the emotional turbulence that comes with weathering rejections and staring blankly at a phone that never rings. It’s part of the game of love. You can’t win if you don’t play.”
The Vital Life System is designed to help you discover profound clarity about your own personal “Who- What- When- Why and Where”. The system is also designed to help you define your goals and then systematically identify the obstacles to your success in addition to smoothing out the rough edges and pitfalls of your path to success.
That being said- there will be pain. There will be suffering. People you love and care about will disappoint you, hurt you and at times act out in ways that you could never have imagined. You will have to stretch out of your comfort zone and sacrifice time, energy and money. There will be loss. There will be unexpected events that temporarily derail you and send you into deep fatigue, confusion and overwhelm.
What do you do when you get knocked down or off balance? What do you do when you hit that wall of PAIN?
Breathe- be gentle with yourself and when the time is right- pull out your Vital Life Road Map and continue on the journey to your “ideal life”. You may need to make some adjustments, you may need to let go of some of the clutter and or commitments that are filling up your calendar and consuming your time. Balance and alignment is key.
Is it possible to smooth out the edges? Is it possible to re-chart your course? YES!
You are worthy of living the life you truly desire! Once you have this clarity- your purposeful pain becomes part of the quest and can actually be viewed with benevolence and dare I say- JOY.
Here is today’s Vital Reset ReMINDer:
“What we get out of life is not determined by the good feelings we desire but by what bad feelings we’re willing to sustain.” Mark Manson
