*Brr* I’m Co-coco-co-cold…

It’s been a week of cold mornings.

North Pole kind of cold.

The temperature was (on average) around negative 30 degree-C (in the morning).

This isn’t so surprising if you live in Winnipeg.

But that kind of weather is something people love to talk about:

Some feel a sense of pride (for withstanding the arctic cold weather). Others complain about it.

It’s a conversation starter.

Complaining about it makes sense but would you agree that it doesn’t make sense to bitch about something that happens normally?

It’s winter, what do you expect?

More about complaints below…

From *Brr* to *Grr*

Bitching about the weather is a waste of time. It was not created to cater to your specific needs – a reminder that you’re not a special snowflake.

Similar to the fact that I needed to go through the same process everyone has gone through to acquire their insurance brokerage license. No shortcuts.

I’m frustrated. But why?

Let’s dig deep. Finding the root cause of “feeling towards something” became a habit for me.:

1st Why

I write mock-up quizzes to prep for the license exam. Everything was cool until the quiz results showed that ten of the consecutive questions I answered were ALL WRONG. That made me want to bring out The Hulk in me. But why…?

2nd Why

Because it’s irritating to get one question wrong. And I don’t mind being wrong. But 10 consecutive questions? That means I’m not getting it. Ok, let’s call it what it really is – it made me feel stupid. But why…?

4th Why

Because duh I don’t want to feel stupid. I mean who does?

But there’s a deeper reason why I feel frustrated: I just don’t care anymore.

Going for this broker license does not excite me as it used to. It turned into this tedious chore. But don’t get me wrong, selling insurance is still something I wanted to do. I just hate the part where I have to study and write an exam for it. But why…?

5th Why

Because I just don’t feel like it. 

But if I was being brutally honest? I’m frustrated because I set myself to do something and yet my actions are doing something different.

I’m not “walking the walk”.

Lesson at the End of The Tunnel of Frustration?

A hidden lesson. Or perhaps a skill?

Ok, I get it I’m frustrated but what if I can get through it?

What if doing this will teach me the fact that I can accomplish something I hate doing?

That is something I can translate into other areas of my life. How?

Half of the things we wished we had requires a lot of work. A lot of work that is not fun. So much work that we end up quitting because it’s just too hard. Too challenging that it makes us wonder “is it even worth it?”

Then we quit.

Our subconscious (that works like a DVR with 1 million gigabytes of memory) records all of that information. It captures all the times we failed to follow through our goals and then creates a pattern from all that data that might look like this:

IF = things get too hard for RJ

AND = He stops trying

THEN = he fails.

THEN = Stay average in that area of Life.

ELSE,

AND = He keeps trying

THEN = He increases his chance of succeeding.

THEN = Improve in that area of Life.

ENDIF

Pardon my poor coding skills.

In fact, that’s not even a “code”.

I failed my Programming Course when I was in college. I actually paid someone to do my Programming project for me. I digress but that brings me back to my point: I sucked at it because it was hard and I didn’t try hard enough to get better at it.

 

**The Lesson**

If you really wanna go after that something you most desire, the least you can do is try…then TRY HARDER!

***

 

A daily practice I’ve been doing to reinforce that lesson is by taking cold showers at least 1-full minute a day.

It’s uncomfortable. I find it hard. But I want my subconscious to record that daily experience and (hopefully) change my mind’s programming on how it reacts to situations that make me uncomfortable.

As per THE Iceman: Wim Hof…

“A cold shower a day keeps the doctor away”

What about you?

Are you doing something that is good however it makes you feel uncomfortable?

 

Exactly A Year Ago…

I…

• Broke my car plug
• Updated my goals because they’re just too hard to accomplish
• And interestingly, I’m also feeling stupid and smart at the same time

Read more about it here [Week 5]