Obstacle Course
Runners like to break up their regular runs with something a little more challenging. A good obstacle course can be fun when you aren’t made to complete it on a daily basis or get to choose the date and time. Control lets you have mental preparation. Those in the military might not have the same warm feelings about obstacle courses since theirs are configured to pressure them physically and mentally. A morning commute can seem like an obstacle course if the traffic is diverted or you are trying to find the quickest route. The floor of a toddler’s bedroom can be a deadly course for bare feet.
Obstacles to Success
In our minds, we construct obstacles. Sometimes it’s about losing ten pounds, finding someone new to date, having the patience to care for someone who has hurt you or changing jobs to help a career. These obstacles are not real. You cannot touch them or see them but you think you can feel them. The feelings come from the thoughts that you create them with. But let’s be clear; they are invisible. They are placeholders for something else. Maybe I don’t want to find someone new to date because I just don’t want to go to all that effort. Maybe I hold onto my hurt feelings because they give me solace. Or maybe I am just too unwilling to look for a new job because I know I will find one and have to show up in life more.
Obstacles to Failure
We don’t talk about it much but there are obstacles to failure. It can be in the preparation you take before a trip, setting out cute workout clothes the night before, packing lunches with care the night before school or finding out ahead of time what someone else needs. For my relentless ten pounds, that might be not buying cookies and having them call my name from the kitchen. Or it might be completing a task with music blaring and singing along, or even taking time to write before it is on my schedule to do so. Surprising myself encourages me to think differently. Surprising others gives them a little different view of you.
Obstacles to Love
The one place that there should be fewer obstacles is to love. Of course, you must love yourself first in order to know what that feels like to love another. Once you have mastered self-love, you have so much overflowing love in your heart that it is natural for you to pass it along to others. It is easy to love. Let that sink in. It is easy to love. You just have to think it into existence. If you can get joy from cat videos, you can love another person. If you can love a game, you can love the complicated events that make up a great life. And if you can love your home, you will keep it safe as your refuge. When you love your family and friends, you only want the best for them. That delineation lets you know in a hot second how you really feel about someone. So, check your love obstacles and break down those walls by climbing over them more for yourself.
Can you create more obstacles to failure to increase your successes? Do you have obstacles to loving yourself? What are you facing in your own personal obstacle course?
