He who cannot change...

He who cannot change the very fabric of his thoughts will never be able to change reality, and will never, therefore, make any progress. Anwar Sadat

This is the lesson I learned from Chapter four of the 8th Habit by Stephen Covey. I actually had to stop and read this statement four times. I was so blown away by its meaning that I needed to slow down and really take it in.

So often people are caught up in negative self talk and thoughts. They feel victimized by life around them and feel powerless to change their situation. The first lesson I learned from this chapter was that we can change our response to a stimulus. We can choose our thoughts and are responsble for our actions and outcomes. If we can choose to feel better, is it really that simple? If I change my thoughts to be more positive will this really change my reality? I believe so.

So why then does it sometimes feel so challenging to do that. I think its because we have been conditioned to think that good things aren't supposed to happen to us. We believe that if good things happen that we are lucky and if bad things happen then we are unlucky. Have you ever heard someone say, "good things never happen to me" or "I never win anything". Well they are probably right. I wonder if they changed their thinking to "I have abundance in my life" or "I am grateful for everything I have", if that would make a difference in how they view things. I believe it would, don't you?

I guess the only really way to know if this works or not is to try it. Are you up for the challenge? Write this quote down in a place of prominence. Say it everyday to yourself and commit to changing your thoughts so that they are only positive. Let's see what happens.

He who cannot change the very fabric of his thoughts will never be able to change reality, and will never therefore, make any progress.

The 8th Habit Challenge - Stephen R. Covey

I just recently started reading the 8th Habit -From Effectiveness to Greatness by Stephen R. Covey. Since the release of Harry Potter's lastest book it has been challenging finding anyone who is reading anything else. I also read the 7 habits but so far I am really enjoying this book better.

Stephen asked readers to take a challenge while reading his book. He wants readers to read a chapter and then take a month before reading the next one. He also encourages people to teach what they've learned and digest the material slowly by incorporating the lessons into their everyday life. Well this manner of book reading and interaction really intrigued me so I decided to give it a shot.

Chapter four deals with discovering your voice. I haven't gotten through the whole chapter yet but I wanted to share with you an excerpt that I found interesting. Read this passage a few times and really think about it.

Between stimulus and response there is a space.

In that space lies our freedom and power to choose our response.

In those choices lie our growth and our happiness.

It made me think of situations where people are given a stimulus and then react to it. Most of the time negatively. Like waiting in line or dealing with traffic. Maybe even dealing with difficult people. There are stimuli around us all the time and we choose how we are going to react to them.

I guess what really made me say ah, ha, was that the fact that we choose our response. We don't have to react in a negative way, we can choose a positive response. We can choose to make ourselves feel better any time we want. Now some of us have been conditioned to react very fast and in a negative fashion. It may take more time and effort to re-program these responses. However, knowing that we can choose is very empowering don't you think? Rather then have things just happen to us, we can control how it affects us.

Even in situations where we don't feel like we have much control we can still choose the outcome of our responses. Wow!

Next time you find yourself in a situation where their is a less then ideal stimulus remember you choose your response so why not choose one that makes you feel better rather than worse. Seems like a no-brainer to me.

I look forward to sharing other teachings with you as I go along. Feel free to comment if you have read the book or are taking the same challenge.