Hi Douglas Hansen here,
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| Fear of falling actually creates many falls! |
Have you ever consider how powerful Fear is? It is a powerful “negative’ motivator. I’ll even go as far as to say it is the cause of
majority of our problems. Fear we might
make the wrong choice. Fear someone will get more than us. Fear of
success. Fear of failure; fear we will
flunk a test; fear of people . . .
An
interesting thing about fear is we often do not notice, “It is why we are doing
something, or not doing something.”
What are the
mechanics of “negative” motivation?
Simply put, it is a minus.
·
It takes away from the situation.
·
It cuts your progress short.
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It limits how far you can go.
·
It subtracts from the picture.
·
It stops progress.
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It restricts your efforts.
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It confines
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It imprisons.
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It locks up and prevents progress.
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It impounds.
·
It brings the situation to a halt.
·
It . . .
It, well, it does many things, none of which move us “one
step” closer, not even a millimeter, or
nanometer,
closer to our goals and objectives, or the goals and objectives of our society.
You can see negative attempts to motivate people, even
animals, all around us.
·
A cuff to the side of the head.
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A reprimand at work.
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A yank on the least of a dog.
·
Someone yelling at their children in an attempt
to get them to do their homework.
·
Grounding someone for coming home late.
·
A speeding ticket.
·
Judgments, in most cases, we just do not have
enough information to make judgments. We
tend to point out what appears to be faults and problems because we choose to
feel? Past history, false news, . . .
·
And the list goes on.
Well then,
the question I have been trying to answer is, “Why on earth do we use negative motivation at all?
Negative motivation hampers our body processes. For example: Speaking in public can bring on
so much fear that it can cripple movement, freeze a person’s mind, make them
forget, cause termers, sweating, dry mouth, fainting, and much more. It is powerful and can run rampant,
destroying our best intentions.
Unfortunately, if it
is a negative, it moves us, or our situation in a negative, or reverse
direction, thus a negative motivator will never lead to success.
On the other hand;
a positive motivator moves you forward, in the direction you wish to go.
Seems pretty simple, and if that is so, why do we allow
negatives to dominate our lives? I’m
guessing it is because they are easy. How difficult is it to find fault? Find problems with the football team and how
they are playing the game? Smack
someone? Walk away mad? Or lean on things which move us in a negative
direction, like: “because that is the way we always do it?” Find fault with your spouse or children? Find problems with an employer or fellow
employees? Yes, some easy is probably
good, but a full diet of easy is not healthy.
Here’s a question you may want to consider: Does fault finding lead in a positive or
negative direction? Does it benefit the fault finder? If it is a positive it will move us toward a
positive or desired goal or outcome. If
it is negative, it will lead away from, or cripple our forward progress. Yes, it is much easier to pick apart
something. Something else you may want
to consider: It seems to me, problem
finders are a dime a dozen. Solution
finders are much more rare; kind-of like diamonds. Here it is again, that silly goal or
objective: Which choices or actions will lead to a life of abundance, healthy
relationships, and love?
I have heard it said there are four great enemies of man:
fear, clarity of mind, power, and old age.
It seems to make sense.
Fear is our first great enemy. When you
are able to manage fear and understand a majority of the ways it works to
destroy, hinder, kill, injure, etc.
Then the second is clarity of mind. You are
able to see things as they really are.
This can be pretty scary and overwhelming, thus there is another step to
learn how-to manage. As we grow we
develop pictures of the way “we” think life is, or is supposed to be. When those ideas are challenged, we defend
them. Why wouldn’t we? It’s our belief that it “should be” the same
as our picture.
Unfortunately, a
majority of the things we learn as we grow are opinions, beliefs, hearsay,
quotes out of context, altered information to sell a product or idea, and
more. We have recorded this information on
our internal computer’s hard drive. Now
when we need to refer back to that information, and examine it, we may find a majority of the information is:
untrue, distorted, colored, enlarged, miniaturized, inflamed, twisted,
convoluted, torn apart into incomplete concepts, full of unwarranted emotion, etc.
Columbus did not
“discover” America --- he never set foot on Plymouth Rock, in North
America! Apparently, the Pilgrims never
stepped on Plymouth Rock either.
I heard it said
that at first a true miner of knowledge, would be shocked to find out the amount
of false information floating around and how little real knowledge and truth
there is. But ultimately, s/he would
be gladdened because what is better, to have the pure gold of knowledge, or to
have that gold buried in tons of ore.
Power is the third great enemy of mankind (woman kind too). It is quite the intoxicant. Look at all those who have become drunken
fools immersed in their power. Hitler
is a prime example; Cesar may be another one, well it appears the list is
fairly long. So few, yet really great
people have learned how to handle power. Try naming a few? We tend to admire and look up to
them. Although it seems much easier to remember the negative leaders. Why is that?
The last, old age is
the final enemy. To have lived a
vibrant life, full of activity, rich experiences, and more; then have it slowly
taken away --- day by day has got to be pretty disheartening. It looks like there is not a way to control
this one; we must just fend it off for as long as we can.
The point here is: a positive approach will improve the
experience and assist in getting good results.
We can improve this situation, and those around us can assist in
solution finding, encouragement, team work, love, friendship, etc. are positive
goals which will create that world of abundance with good
relationships – love. Or our own heaven on earth.
Food for thought, maybe if we understand these things better,
we will be in a better position to build a better tomorrow, and learn how to
coexist.
