If you started your personal improvement journey because you are a great person who had a great childhood, great parents, went to the best schools, and everyone and everything around you just taught you to get better every day because that is the natural and wise thing to do, I am happy for you. I’m sure you are a pillar of your family and society, and I am rooting for you.
For the so-called black sheep and underdogs, the experience is a bit different. We usually come about self-improvement to take our attention away from the insupportable pain we feel when we hit THE GIANT WALL of our life.
Let me explain.
Black sheep and underdogs usually come from broken homes, lots of stress, and minimal to no love. We are so used to living on fight-or-flight hormones that we can’t relax, and the no-love part fills us, to the top, with anger. Who had time to think about self-improvement when you were in survival mode 24/7, waking up every day with the same question: How, the F***, do I get out of here faster?
And then, the day came. You got out, and for the first time in your life, you felt free. And like that stupid dog who finally broke the chain and escaped, you ran as far as possible. Remember the giant wall I told you about earlier?
Here it comes.
Yes, you got out. But once out there in the world, you do not realize that you are broken in so many ways and filled with anger, no social skills, fear, trust issues, attachment problems, and no financial education. So you start hanging out with all the wrong people because you want and need to socialize, and you can’t speak the language of the “healthy” ones.
You find yourself in toxic environments with toxic people and toxic behaviors. Violence, substance abuse, problems with the police, divorce, maybe prison, and the list goes on and on.
The wake-up call comes.
You look in the mirror and don’t recognize the person staring back at you. You clinge your teeth and decide enough is enough. You don’t want to live like that anymore. You close your eyes and jump into the unknown abyss because everything you know is broken and worse than death itself. By some luck, the universe decides to save you and throws self-improvement at you to have something to fill up the sad days and sleepless nights.
If you are still reading this and you find yourself between those lines, I want to give you something to avoid frustration on your way to success.
Please think about your life like a colossal train going 100 miles per hour in one direction. But you just woke up and realized that the direction is not suitable for you anymore. So the first thing you must consider is the time and the distance the train needs to stop safely. Then, when you finally stop the train, you need time to let the brakes cool off.
Now that you have stopped the train and the brakes are nice and cool, you can refuel and slowly accelerate in a different direction. The hard work you need to put in is behind stopping and accelerating from a standstill in another direction. After you get it moving and at cruising speed, it gets easier.
Stopping the train represents you fighting to eliminate all your known behaviors, maybe some substances, which is never easy, and all the toxic people in your life to the point where you prefer being alone over being in bad company.
Letting the brakes cool off represents falling in love with yourself and realizing you are a good person who just got dealt a bad hand. So take this moment to be proud of yourself for the first time and to create a personal relationship with the Creator of the universe. Of course, you will need Him as your fuel.
You ran your whole life on hate and anger. Fortunately, you are not going in the same direction, so you must fill your tanks with love and gratitude. God is the only way. You can not do it without Him. You just can’t. Start talking to Him for 15 minutes in the morning and fifteen minutes at night with love and gratitude, and He will answer with so much love you can not even start to imagine. You will never feel alone from this moment on for the rest of your life. He will give you the strength to start and the support to continue when the going gets tough.
Step by step and one milestone after another, you wake up one day a different person in a different life, against all odds. And it feels great.
Thank God!
Yours truly, Cristian.