Date: 4/30/2015

Title: CONQUER YOUR KEY MOMENTS – Part 1

By Bryan Arzani

Life is wonderful, isn’t it! We have so many things to be thankful for, in our lives. We are able to make choices about our lives, not suffer under government tyranny. We are able to travel to beautiful places….whether it’s across an ocean, across state lines, or across the yard to the neighbor’s. We are able to participate in sports or watch them from the sidelines. We can read books and magazines by turning pages or by pushing the advance key of our e-reader. Some would even say life is great, because we have over 250 channels to choose from, as we lounge on the couch.

But, there are times life is filled with adversity. And, I don’t mean when the electricity goes out for three hours, and we miss our favorite television shows. I am talking about difficult times, where we are struggling. These can be huge, traumatic events or everyday hassles. We all know people who turn everyday hassles into traumatic events, but you see where I’m going with this.

Even though we have made many great discoveries about our world (it’s not flat, water can be turned into electricity, the universe may hold opportunities for us), and have created magnificent inventions (automobile, computer, air conditioning), we have not been able to rid our lives of adversity. There is no magic wand that whisks away every negative aspect of our lives. So, our choice then is to learn strategies for dealing effectively with these adversities.

To begin, we need to be “aware”. We need to know what is going on around us. We need to know ourselves and how we behave toward and feel about these happenings around us. It means we are in the present and focused.

Being aware is being fully conscious. If we are walking and texting, we really are not fully conscious of our surroundings. Being aware is recognizing that we have choices. No, my daughter didn’t make me miss the bus just because she took longer than normal to choose a shirt to wear. I did something (connected to a choice I made) that caused me to miss the bus. Being aware is making choices based on the present, not a “history” we have with someone or not because he will “owe me” in the future. Being aware is seeing reality clearly, not looking through some dirty window we have smudged with fears and anger about expectations.

Yes, being aware is sometimes painful. We have to acknowledge that something is happening which we don’t like. We have to acknowledge that it may even have something to do with choices we made. But, we can’t make things better without first being aware of them.

As we are aware, we begin to understand that we have “key moments” in our lives. Key moments are triggering events or situations to which we must respond. Key moments present challenges. We interpret these challenges through our paradigms (our filters made up of core beliefs). Once interpreted, we put a meaning on these events. The meaning leads to our feeling a certain way. Feelings lead to physical sensations. We then make a choice as to how to respond to the event. The way we choose to respond (behave) leads us down one of two roads: the pathway to survival or the pathway to success.

The pathway to survival is chosen when we resist reality, put the blame on someone else for the event, or react from fear (which is one of the four paradigms mentioned in last month’s article). The pathway to success is chosen when we embrace reality, take responsibility for our choices, and react with integrity (another one of the four paradigms mentioned in last month’s article).

To learn more about how to practice this understanding, contact Results Group, LLC at www.ResultsGroupLLC.com or 515-330-2866.