Use your Wisdom.

When we are feeling stuck, it is usually because we have forgotten our true nature. Often, we become so consumed with worry and fear that we focus more on the challenges that we face than our ability to conquer them. The fact is that we have undoubtedly overcome far greater challenges in the past. The same skills, gifts, and talents that we utilized to move beyond them in years past are still present. In fact, they are seasoned with the wisdom of life experience, making us more adept than we were before. So, we have momentarily lost sight of our strength, fortitude, and insight. We must again awaken to the truth. The muscle memory is still present; it simply needs to be reactivated.

Take a moment to consider the three greatest challenges that you have surpassed. How did you do it? What were the skills that you exercised? What lessons did you learn in the process? How can you apply those skills and the wisdom that you acquired to emerge victorious from the obstacles that you are now facing?

Success or sabotage? Success is more easily achieved when we fully utilize all of the wisdom that we have gained in our life experience.

Is this going to be an incredible day? The answer is always in our possession when we remember that we alone have the power to mold the day in the image of our desires.

Lean into Obstacles.

How do you process your life? Do you define your life as a reaction to outside influences or as a product of your creation? Wisdom is the result of one being able to take the most challenging of experiences and utilize them for greater growth, insight, or vision. Once you grasp the connection between action and consequence, you can discern the distinction between hardship and potential. You are a product of how you have processed your life experiences. 

Take a moment today to recall your most trying life experience. Don't engage the fear or pain of this memory; simply examine it as if you were reading a line item on an outline.  How did you benefit from this experience? Even if you simply walk away with greater clarity about what you DO NOT WANT, there is a gift in the experience. Are you able to acknowledge it? How does this experience relate to things that you are experiencing in your life right now?

Success or sabotage? Success is more easily acquired by those who learn to maneuver life's obstacles--not by avoiding them, but by learning to accept the challenge and the opportunity. Lean in! How will what you have learned in your life to date help you live more effectively today?

Is this going to be an incredible day? What are you going to do with the gift of this day? How will you use the wisdom that you acquired yesterday to create something even better today?

Surrender to Possibility.

When you find yourself continually in a cycle of negative experiences, it is very easy to surrender to the idea that the world is simply not on your side.  The more that you subscribe to this belief, the more evidence that you will find to support it.

Instead of seeing yourself as a victim, consider the possibility that repetition is often an indication that there is something that we are not getting. Rather than allowing yourself to resign to simply being the victim of an unjust world,  change the lens through which you are looking at the challenge and look for the undiscovered value. When you're in the experience, it begins by asking, "what's in this for me? How can this challenge actually serve me?" The answer may not come immediately, but if you are able to keep your focus on how the experience is serving you, you will begin to see glimpses of the gift (beyond the initial pain).

Your experience of life will respond to your beliefs and expectations. If you believe that "all men are cheaters," for example, you will soon discover that all of the men that show up in your life will fit the profile of your expectation. As you think, so shall 'ye be. The same holds true for your life. This is why this philosophy exists in some capacity in every culture and religion.

Life challenges also provide you with an opportunity to examine your actions and responses. If you continue doing the same things and expecting different results or do nothing and expect negative results before they even appeared, you have actually received that which you "ordered."

Success or sabotage?  We all have to decide whether we want to be right or effective. Allow yourself to be wrong about your negative expectations. What if (instead) you decided that everything that happens for you, happens to you? So much of our disappointment in life is based on how we think things "should be" or how things "need to be."

Is this going to be an incredible day? If you surrender to the possibility that the universe actually has an order and a wisdom, then you can entertain the possibility that the bigger picture is going to be much brighter than this brief chapter. And, when you accept the possibility, the reality that follows will respond in kind (and your days will be incredible).