(ThyBlackMan.com) Rip Van Winkle is a story by Washington Irving that was written in 1819. Rip Van Winkle goes to sleep under an oak tree after a night of bowling and much drinking with a band of dwarves in the mountains. He awakens twenty years later – an old man – and discovers the world he once knew had drastically changed. He had slept through a revolution.
Like Rip Van Winkle, many people today are sleeping through their own revolution. Great changes are taking place with mind-boggling speed. If you are running, you are standing still. Through attitudes about life, one becomes ‘drunk’ and, without even noticing it, falls into a lifetime slumber. Wake up and live!
Here are five signs that you are sleeping through your own revolution.
You Are Scoffing at New Opportunities
You have joined countless others by scoffing at the prospects of a New Year and a new beginning. It takes the earth one full year to orbit the sun – and then it begins again. Along the way, it radiates warmth in one region and inspires growth in another; one thing grows while another prepares for a cycle of growth. The point is it’s the same orbit filled with new possibilities. The same can be said of you at the cusp of a New Year – if you approach it with an attitude of renewal and reflection. Even if wholesale changes aren’t on the horizon, small adjustments lead to huge gains.
- Wake-Up Quote:
Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every New Year find you a better person
- -Benjamin Franklin
You Are Procrastinating
You keep putting off your destiny, delaying it, as if your time on this planet is eternal. More aptly, through procrastination, you delay your lift-off. There’s always the next second, the next minute, the next hour, the next day, the next week, the next year – when you will finally get up and walk into your destiny?
You have yet to learn the distinction between ‘doing’ it and putting yourself into position to get it done. That means writing the outline for the book or drafting the business plan for your idea.
- Wake-Up Quote:
Procrastination is like a credit card: it’s a lot of fun – until you get the bill.
- -Christopher Parker
You Are Held in Check by your Closest Friends
The people closest to you are, or can become, your single most significant source of failure or success. Why? Because our most intimate friends are the ‘chatter’ in our ears that sink into our spirit and our consciousness. Friends will either make you or break you; they can launch your dreams or keep you grounded indefinitely. You must choose wisely. Who’s stroking your dreams? Who’s killing your dreams? Pray that God will show you the difference.
- Wake-Up Quote:
Nonsense and beauty have close connections.
- E. M. Forster
You Are Afraid of Deep Water
This is where your closest friends pop up in a negative way. They convince you that now is not the best time; that you should wait until market conditions are more favorable; that you should just play it cool and sit on the shore until your ship comes in. That’s ‘shallow water’ thinking; it means that you are either afraid of swimming or of wading into deep water – either way you’re dreams are done!
- Wake-Up Quote:
Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.
- T. S. Eliot
You Fear Success
It’s not failure you fear – it’s success. What if you fail? What if you fall on your face? The greater question, though, is what if you succeed? What if your idea takes off? Would you be any more afraid of success than you were of failure? Both success and failure have one thing in common: they are both impostors!
- Wake-Up Quote:
Many great ideas have been lost because the people who had them could not stand being laughed at.
- -Unknown
Wake up and live!
Staff Writer; W. Eric Croomes
This talented brother is a holistic lifestyle exercise expert and founder and executive coach of Infinite Strategies LLC, a multi-level coaching firm that develops and executes strategies for fitness training, youth achievement and lifestyle management. Eric is an author, fitness professional, holistic life coach and motivational speaker.
In October 2015, Eric released Life’s A Gym: Seven Fitness Principles to Get the Best of Both, which shows readers how to use exercise to attract a feeling of wellness, success and freedom (Infinite Strategies Coaching LLC, 2015) – http://www.infinitestrategiescoaching.com.