Motivation - Stuff Happens, Deal With It

MOTIVATION –  Stuff Happens – Deal With It.

By Nikki Viljoen of N Viljoen Consulting CC

Today’s quote comes from Aldous Huxley who says “Experience is not what happens to a man, it what a man does with what happens to him.”

Profound words I am sure you will agree and certainly ones that made me dig deep . . . really deep.

You see, of late, I have been really struggling with ‘my life’s purpose’.  For a while now, everything has been a mission – getting new clients, getting paid, getting people to my workshops, even getting the work done (its that time of the year when I battle with sinus and coughs and sore chest and this year I added ear ach to the mix as well).

To make current matters worse (although in many ways it is also very exciting too), I have also been working on four different long term projects, that will certainly pay handsome dividends  . . . .  down the line, but at this point bring nothing in and cost a fortune in terms of time and energy.

Technology challenges with my website being hacked into, servers going down and a general disruption of my life has left me feeling more than a little cut off and a tad isolated.

“So what’s this all about?” I started to wonder “Why am I here and is it worth all of this effort?”  Isn’t it strange how at the first hint of things not going the way that we want them to, that this is generally the first thing that we think?  Well I do!

This for me is where today’s quote and what it means, is so important.  Sure there are a number of options open to me.  Some are as simple as closing up shop and getting myself a job (not really an option I must say, as it would kill my spirit and make me even more grumpy than I usually am), some as scary and as deep as  . . .  ok, I’m not going there and a whole host more in-between.   Being a logical person though, I did have to look at ALL of my options, unemotionally and fairly and then made a decision.

I had to make a decision on the ‘what and how’ I felt and the ‘where’ of my life, based on what I felt as opposed to being guided through the whole process by my mentor, it was time to stand on my own two feet.  It was damn scary I can tell you!

Let’s just say that I had to think about things that I didn’t want to think about and go to places inside myself that I haven’t been to for a long time and that I would prefer not to have to visit again.  We all have a ‘dark side, so I know that you know what I am talking about.

So I hear you asking – ‘what will you do?’

Well I am feeling a lot better and I am sure that has a lot to do with as I find being sick very exhausting.  A whole bunch of ‘new’ opportunities have presented themselves and the ‘old’ opportunities  seem to have taken on a new life of their own.  I have completed as much as I can on some of the long term projects and now await the outcome, which I know is out of my hands and in the hands of the “Gods” (whomever you perceive them to be).

I look around me and have a deep sense of something about to happen, like the electricity in the air just before one of our infamous Highveld storms.

I know that whatever is going to happen, will happen whether I worry about it or not and it will happen when it should and not a moment before.

I know that I have a purpose and that I am going in the right direction, but that there are times when I am too impatient for my own good and I try and push to make things happen faster, when in fact I should be resting, so as to be ready, willing and able, when they do happen.

I know that often I am the biggest ‘doubting Thomas’ in my own life, when I doubt my ability and my capability and then I am always gobsmacked when people tell me of the impact that I have had in their lives, and then I do a 180 degree turn around and become humbled by who I am and what I have achieved and how much more there is for me to achieve.

And then I see words like “experience is not what happens to a man, it is what man does with what happens to him”, and I know that I am fine and I know that ‘ all is well’ with my world.

Nikki is an Internal Auditor and Business Administration Specialist who can be contacted on 083 702 8849 or nikki@viljoenconsulting.co.za or http://www.viljoenconsulting.co.za