Page 103 - 100 Ways to Motivate Yourself

taking what difficulties we have had in life and blowing them up into huge

injustices. Helen Keller didn’t complain about being from a dysfunctional
family, or being a woman, or not being given enough money from the
government to compensate for her handicaps. She had challenges most of us
can’t even imagine, but she refused to become fascinated by them and make her
handicaps her life. She didn’t want to focus on the shadows when there was so
much sun.

British author G.K. Chesterton used to say that pessimists don’t stay anti-life
very long when you put a revolver to their head. All of a sudden, they can think
of a million reasons to live. Those million reasons are always there, down inside
of us, waiting to be called up. Our pessimism is usually a false front put on to get
sympathy.

In his stirring book Son Rise, Barry Neil Kaufman tells an astonishing true

story of how he and his wife nurtured their autistic son to a happy, extroverted
life. Kaufman and his wife made a conscious choice to see their son’s disability
as a great blessing to them. It was just a choice, like choosing to face the sun
instead of facing your shadows. But as Kaufman says, “The way we choose to
see the world creates the world we see.”

71. Travel deep inside

Most of us wait to find out who we are from impressions and opinions we
get from other people. We base our own so-called self-image on other people’s
views of us. “Oh, do you really think I’m good at that?” we ask, when someone
compliments us. If we’re persuaded that they are being honest and have made a
good case, we might try to alter our self-image upward.

It’s great getting feedback from others, especially positive feedback. We all
need it to live and feel good. But when it’s all we’ve got, we’re in danger of

being far less than we could be, because our self-image always depends on
others. And all they see is what we’re risking right now. What they never see is
what’s inside of us, waiting to emerge. Because they can’t see that, they will
always underrate us.

Your journey can be internal. You can travel deeper and deeper inside to
find out your own potential. Your potential is your true identity—it only waits
for self-motivation to come alive. “For this is the journey that men and women