To Change Your Life, Listen to the wisdom of Amelia Earhart
Have you ever found yourself wanting to make a change in your life but find yourself backing down thinking your goal is out of reach or not in the cards for you? Maybe it’s a new fitness regimen, a more lucrative line of work or entering a romantic relationship. So often we know exactly what we want, need even and it’s precisely within our reach, so why do we stop? Why do we stare into the abyss of what life could be like and let it fade? Quoting Confucius “Life is really simple, we insist on making it complicated.” The foundation of life is simple, especially in the modern era, if it’s hunger, grocery stores and take-out are vast, if it’s thirst, fresh water access is available 24/7 and things like knowledge acquisition and curiosity are fulfilled easily at all times through our smartphones. These priveleges that at one time were scarce are so plentiful and accessible, life is simplified to an extreme. it’s only when we take those simplicities and layer them with insecuirties and anxiety that we make life complicated.
The hardest part of making any change is the start, it’s that decision to act upon what you want, everything from then becomes second nature. You develop momentum every moment after you initiate that decision and with that things get simple again. Getting a fit body sounds daunting when you read about the time and effort involved but somehow, after you start something amazing happens within you, you start to find aspects of fitness you enjoy, whether it’s feeling more clear, shedding fat or building muscle. One workout leads to the next which leads to the next and you start to enjoy the process while it becomes second nature, it’s not a chore, it’s not exhausting, it’s liberating. Most roads progress this way, but you’ll never get to experience them if you’re too afraid to make that decision, and ACT.
Amelia Earhart said it best in this quote about the deicison to act and the faux fears that our minds lead us to believe are real.
“The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process is its own reward.”
I spend a lot of time self reflecting and digging to the core of my motivations, and anxities, I like to understand why I react the way I do and why I make the decisions I do. There’s a seed that’s been growing within my psyche lately about what Amelia says here, and how easy it is to take control when you’re aware that you’re actually not in control, but your anxiety and fear is. As put, “paper tigers” are things most of us deal with more often than real tigers, in life these look like fear of being judged, ridiculed, or singled out socially. Things that often don’t cause us physical harm but can emotionally scar, if we choose to give them that power. Our body doesnt have the ability to distinguish between these threats on it’s own so the response without our conscious intervention is the same, fight, or flight. Most times with us choosing flight over pursuing what we want, and taking control. You always have control and you always have the choice to take it back from your fears and paper tigers by intentionally taking action upon what you want and following through the path past fear, and into the golden rays of fulfillment.
Life is simple, but it isn’t easy, taking action on your impulses is the key, and to do that, you just START. The more you give in to impulse, and take action, the easier it becomes to do the next time, you see the way you’re brain becomes more efficient and develops habits is by creating new neural-networks within it and over time and repetition, stimulating those networks and repeating those actions cause more to grow and filter into the network. These networks become almost like grooves that your habits fall into, an easy way to visualize this is a sled sliding down a snow covered hill, with each pass the groove created by the sled gets deeper and deeper and becomes harder to get away from. Each time you take action on what you want and start that conversation or make that terrifying decision, you push past that voice in your head saying you cant do it, it’s too hard, you’re creating new pathways within your brain that allow you to make it even easier to do next time. The opposite also reigns true, each time you shy away from action and let the fear of paper tigers keep you small, it becomes harder to take action and rid those fears.
Implement this mentality into your life easily today by starting small, and just showing up for yourself. Say hi to a stranger at starbucks in the morning and see where the conversation goes, say yes to those plans to go clubbing with your friends even if you’re not a great dancer, and most importantly, pay attention. Pay attention and be mindful to that voice in your head telling you of your fears and of what you desire, humans have evolved so inteligently throughout the centuries by listening to our instincts, but in modern times like these, that fearful instinct gets overactive and can drown out our choice, so take control of your life by observing which tigers are real, and which are paper.
