Sunday 18 October 2009

The ONE-DAY RESILIENCE CHALLENGE

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There's probably no other quality as important to your overall enjoyment of life and to the progress you make in every area of life than resilience.


The dictionary defines RESILIENCE as:



1. the power or ability to return to your original form,position, etc., after being bent, compressed, or stretched;
2. ability to recover readily from illness, depression,adversity, or the like;


Not surprisingly, the word comes from a Latin verb, "resilire", meaning to "spring back".
All of your life is on a continuum, and you can give different sets of names to it...


STRENGTH - WEAKNESS

GROWTH - STAGNATION

PROGRESS - REGRESSION

PERSONAL POWER - DISEMPOWERMENT


...and you could probably add a few.


In my special report on this a while back, I called resilience "Gong-Fu". Basically, resilience is your ability to "absorb incoming force" and to "emit force outward".


One of the examples I used in the special report wasa military one: in the 1991 Gulf War, Iraqi T-72 tanks (Russian built), were incapable of seriously damaging American M-1 Abrams tanks, whereas the Abrams could totally destroy the T-72 at any range.


So, in this example, the Abrams prevailed as the more resilient vehicle.


How does that affect you in YOUR daily life? Consider the following. Suppose you're going for a job interview for a job you really want...


Will you be able to absorb the stress of the interview and of any tests or other requirements of the hiring process?


And when it comes time to speak, will you have enough personal power to "knock 'em dead", to impress the interviewers enough to get hired?


When your office colleagues start getting sick this flu season, will you sail through unharmed or become another statistic?


Fact is, the answers to these questions will be predetermined... by YOU. You see, every thought you think, every decision you make either makesyou stronger or weaker, more resilient or less.
The sum total of those decisions has a NET EFFECTof building up your resilience or tearing it down.


Naturally, anything you do that accords with how your mind-body organism is designed to function will make you stronger.


Trouble is, most people go through every day tearing down their resilience through ignorance, laziness or plain stupidity.


The doesn't have to be you. You can CHOOSE to be a high performer in life and to take the steps to build yourself up to the top 10 percent of resilient people... if you WANT TO.




THE ONE DAY RESILIENCE CHALLENGE:


Good thing there's a way to know for sure if you're headed in the right direction, if you're building up your resilience or trashing it...


It's called the ONE-DAY RESILIENCE CHALLENGE, and here's how it works:



For each day this week take a separate piece of paper and divide it down the middle into two columns. At the top of the left hand column, write "Stronger" and at the top of the right hand column write "Weaker".



Then, as you go throughout your day, you put a check mark or "X" or whatever you want to signify whether your thoughts, actions and failures to act are putting you in one column or the other.



For example, empowering thoughts and emotions such as joy, optimism, love, kindness, affection, admiration, patience and the like all go under the "Stronger" column. So does food and drink that contributes to your health, along with exercise, meditation, prayer, deep breathing, reading inspirational material, etc.



Of course, under the "Weaker" column you would have all disempowering thoughts, including blame, anger, guilt, criticism, judgment, fear, self-loathing, and a bunch of others. Then there's indulging in a double fudge sundae, eating other junk food, smoking, drinking to excess, not getting enough exercise, not taking time for spiritual life, etc., etc.



Two caveats.... First, remember you aren't responsible for the thoughts that come to you; only for what you do with them. So if you REJECT a disempowering thought, put that in the "Stronger" column. Second, as you can see, this takes into account not only what you DO, but what you fail to do, such as getting proper exercise.



So try this for a day and see what results YOU get!



Just so you know, this method is found far and wide in the ancient world. You'll find it among the "desert fathers" (and mothers) of 4th century Egypt as well as in the highlands of Tibet. Of course, since they didn't necessarily have paper readily available, they would improvise and use white stones for "Stronger" and black ones for "Weaker".



Now get out there and have some fun with this ;-)



~ Dr. Symeon Rodger
Warrior Coaching International - transforming your mind, body and spirit into SOLID STEEL......wrapped in cotton ;-)


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