Why does life test you, just when you make that decision to change?
In my experience, almost everyone gets tested early.
That is, just as you make that call to turn your life around and take things in a new direction, life throws up some pretty heavy obstacles.
Your elderly mother takes a fall the day you were supposed to go to the boot-camp. You’re about to jump on your first deal, and the banks pull finance out from under you. Or you make your first deal, with 3 on the way, and find out your first place is riddled with termites, and it’s back to square one.
Slam. Straight into a wall.
I’ve seen it all, and I’ve seen it totally knock the wind out of people.
Because it comes just after you’ve built a full head of steam. You’ve got yourself pumped. You can see the new life that’s waiting for you. You’ve got a game plan you can believe in.
You’re on your way. You’re really motoring.
And then slam. Straight into a wall. And when you’re travelling at speed, walls really hurt.
Ask around and you’ll see it’s a pretty common phenomenon.
I’ve heard some people say that ‘life is testing you’. It’s testing your commitment to your new life.
It’s not a bad way to think about it – if it gets you to view the obstacle as a test of your resolve and that inspires you to rise above it.
But I don’t think it really works like that. I don’t think the energies of life are that ‘sentient’ or tricksy.
Rather, I think the rules that marshal energy in one direction or another are pretty constant. They’re not dependent on whether we’ve been good or bad. There’s no moral code that says that this person hasn’t ‘earnt’ their reward, so they need to be tested and challenged.
Those laws are totally independent of us. They don’t change to suit (or challenge) us.
But those laws do ‘respond’ to us. And they respond to us in a consistent way, even if we can’t see the consistency.
And I also think that we always get what we’re asking for.
So if all that’s true, why do we get these massive hurdles straight out of the blocks?
Well, I think when we talk about transforming our lives, we’re really talking about transforming ourselves.
Our lives are the end result of all our actions, attitudes and thoughts.
And so if we want different results, we need to change the way we behave, and the things we believe. We need to change the way we are.
If that sounds big it’s because it is. If you’ve always lived hand-to-mouth, working for people who never valued you enough, and you want to take on a career as a property investor, with enough passive income to lift your nose from the grindstone for a while, then we’re talking about some pretty big changes.
And the skills and techniques I teach in my courses will give you the expertise you need, but we’re still going to need to see some pretty deep shifts in what you believe, and in your relationship to money and work.
It’s why I always make time for these things, even though I see people roll their eyes and huff and puff. But they’re the exact same people who are back 6 months later, wondering why it’s just not ‘flowing’ for them.
Because this journey requires change. It requires getting out of your comfort zone, and letting go of the things and the ways of being that no longer serve you.
And that’s a lot harder than it sounds. We get comfortable in the way we are – even if we know it isn’t serving us. It’s familiar. It’s safe.
And so I think those first hurdles are often just an external manifestation of our own internal resistances to the changes we’re being asked to make.
Just as we think we’re stepping into a new life, our old ways of being try and claw us back into the familiar and safe versions of our selves.
And in that sense, these challenges are an invitation to stay where we are. We have the perfect excuse. Mum got sick. There was nothing I could do. Everyone would understand if you just gave up now.
And so it’s at exactly these moments that we need to redouble our resolve. To push through these obstacles however we can.
It doesn’t matter if it takes you an extra six months. What matters is that you reject that invitation to remain stuck. You affirm your commitment to your journey, and the new life you are dreaming for yourself.
You say, “No thanks. I don’t want to be coddled in this old way of being anymore. I want something else.”
And then you put that statement into action.
There is real power in this. It can powerfully shift the way you see yourself. And it can powerfully shift the way life responds to you.
The first steps are often the hardest. So be prepared for obstacles.
But hold strong to your commitment to a new way of being, and you’ll be right.
Trust me.
What obstacles did you hit in the early days of your journey?