Mental Baggage Slows you Down

Are you carrying around a bunch of excess mental baggage which you don’t really need to carry? You need to travel as lightly as you possibly can in order to make better distance. Mental baggage will slow you down and prevent you from reaching your goals just the same as a heavy physical load. I like to use the analogy of the jockey who guides a race horse to victory as well as the soldier or hiker who has to carry a heavy backpack. They can’t make good time if they carry excess baggage and neither can you. Now the thing that I am referring to here is the mental baggage that we are prone to carry. I’m talking about hurt feelings, anger, jealousy, worry etc. Carrying these things in your heart will do absolutely nothing to change your situation even if you were put in the situation by unfair treatment. For example, the businessman who has to file bankruptcy because his competition was able to get an illegal or unfair advantage over him won’t be able to deal with the situation by worrying about it. He will have to divorce his mind of the situation in order to concentrate on doing what he needs to do to break free. Worry, will not help you. Worry won’t change the bad situation which is exactly the thing that you need to do. The time that you spend worrying is time which would be better spent on applying a solution to your problem. The test of a real winner is the way that he or she responds to adversity. How do you respond? Do you allow the situation to overwhelm you and take away your effectiveness, or do you regroup and rebound? Complications and negative emotions only cloud the mind and impair good judgment. You need to keep your mind free in order to be ready to deal with the problems and issues that you face. Too many mental issues prevent you from focusing on the tasks at hand at the precise time that they need your undivided attention. You can sometimes afford to step back when things are going well but the time immediately following a catastrophe is the time that you need to be at your best. I have quoted Evander Holyfield before but I once heard him make a statement which was so very profound to me. He was talking with a sportscaster immediately following a fight that he had won. During the fight his opponent had hurt him badly and was pummeling him against the ropes. The sportscaster asked him if he was afraid of losing at that point to which Evander replied, “I look at the times when I am hurt as an opportunity to excel.” As I pondered this statement I understood exactly what he meant. This is the time when everyone else thinks that you should fold which makes it the best possible opportunity for a comeback. Evander was able to overcome the hurt, both mental and physical and focus on doing whatever he needed to do in order to win. In order for you to come back from a loss you must first divorce yourself from the negatives that are associated with the situation. Evander knew how to ignore the physical pain, fear, and fatigue that he must have felt to come back and win the fight. You can do the same but you must learn how to move on from the negative circumstance. Take time to figure out exactly what you need to do in order to win. Break down your requirement into small easy tasks and do them one at a time. Focus on each task until you complete it and WIN!!! Riceland Enterprises