Many of us are at our best in an emergency or crisis situation. When the demands of life seem to be overwhelming we rise to the occasion because, for lack of better terms, we “have to.” Maybe it is because we feel we don’t have another choice. Maybe because we feel so many people depend on us. Maybe it’s a title we think we need to rise up to like Dad, Mom, Owner, Manager, Brother or Sister that makes up part of our identity.
We rise to the occasion and succeed where many others seem to struggle. I find fascinating the stories of immigrants who become millionaires and bring to the US and care for the rest of their families. I enjoy hearing of parents with handicapped children becoming top producers in sales and business to rise to the financial challenge of caring for a gifted child or a billionaire that has survived one and two bankruptcies, etc.
My point is that we all have in us an extra gear. An extra muscle or power we can tap into at any time that lies dormant in most of us because we really don’t have to access it. It is the same power that turns normal mothers into super heroes of strength and stamina to save small children. That makes entrepreneurs and authors not need sleep or athletes press the limits of what is possible for their body.
On some level they have decided they “have to.” My question to you is what do you “have to” do? What do you have to do to keep your children safe? What do you have to do to keep a roof over your head?
Do you have “have to” standards for being healthy, happy or even successful? Do you want to be successful as much as you want to breathe? Or are you waiting for some tragedy or scare or circumstance to call up your greatness?
Here is my challenge to you if you are reading my words…Why don’t you use this power of “have to” to enable you to reach your potential?
Great observation and challenge to all of us. The question is how do we train ourselves to consistently perform at or very near our “have to” peak? Can we even do that or is the human body, physically and psychologically, limited to how often we can tap that extra reserve of “have to” power? I know that I’m exhausted when I go through a period of “have to” for more than a few days so how do we sustain that level of effort and performance over longer periods of time?
Ofcourse, You know that I don’t think it’s for lack of a better term..we say ‘we have to’ and the better term that serves our energy, productivity, mind and spirit is the perspective that we GET to keep our kids safe, we GET to keep the roof over our head and we GET to rise to the gift of opportunity in every circumstance, for tragedies and struggles are gifts presented to us in a package we hadn’t expected.