LIFE CHANGING MOMENTS
By
Ross Johnson
“It will never be too late to
create the right path of life you want to live.”
* * * * *
PUBLISHED BY:
Ross Johnson on Smashwords
Life Changing Moments
Copyright © 2012 by Ross Johnson
I dedicate this book to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ for giving me the ability to write and giving me the knowledge to help others with daily struggles in life. Without Jesus none of this would be possible.
*****
Foreword
This book tackles real issues that people are dealing with daily. The chapters discuss topics like; Relationships, Suicide, and Addictions, Brokenness, and Life Changing Moments.
*****
Introduction
In writing this book, my goal is help those in need. To help those that have ever felt so lost in a certain situation not knowing what to do. When you feel as if you have no one else to turn to, I want you to turn to this book. No matter what you are going through, let it motivate you and inspire you to make that positive change in your life. Learn how to deal with the death of a family member. Help you heal a broken Marriage or Relationship.
I hope that after this book you realize how much control of your life you have, and that you understand, your choices not only affect you but also those around you. Enjoy reading this book and with the knowledge you gain from it, I ask that you do not keep it to yourself. Pass it on to those around you, or who need help. Give them this book, have them buy one, share with them the knowledge and help them make the change!
CHAPTER 1: Struggles
As I have been writing this book, each chapter has made me think about my own life, not just others, and those of whom I may be helping. I have begun to appreciate the person I am, and whom I am becoming. I think about the gifts that God has given me, and just the other day something occurred to me.
I do not believe I give enough credit where it is due. Yes, of course, I give thanks to pleasurable, comforting, and rewarding experiences, but I forget that I owe many thanks not only to God, but also to something totally different --- life’s struggles.
I am the person I am today not because I had the perfect childhood or because I had the most supportive of friends because that was not always so. I am the person I am today not because I always have trusted the right people and made the right decisions, but because sometimes, in my life, I screwed up.
Maybe the above statements of my life, apply to yours. Maybe you can relate to most of what I have said so far. Even if this is not the case, in this chapter I am going to discuss how we can turn struggles into, not something to loathe, regret, and avoid, but into something that gives value and purpose to our lives.
Lessons to be learned
Most of what I have come to appreciate about myself did not develop because life has always been good to me. It is quite the opposite.
Like everyone else, life has been a complex mix of experiences. Some days have been like a walk in the park, whereas other days felt like an uphill run on a rocky road in the snow, knee deep. Every bit of this has helped to define the person you and I are today.
This will be easier for some and harder for others, but what I want you to do is take a step back and look at one of the biggest and hardest struggles you ever had to face in your life.
Think about what you did to get passed that and what you learned from it. I can guarantee you that no matter what the struggle was, you learned something from it, and it changed, even if just the slightest, who you are and the person you have become today.
If you have ever wondered why we must endure life’s struggles, consider this one thing: Our struggles, and the way we deal with them, are among the many gifts that shape our lives. If we can find a way to replace frustrations, resentment, and anger with the appreciation for life’s struggles, we can heal the emotional scars and began to find self-improvement and success.
Building Character
Strength and resilience is not developed through picking flowers and partying every day. Instead, we become strong and resilient by choosing to get back up repeatedly after getting knocked down.
Each time we suffer a little, we gain more strength. When you begin to gain greater resistance to weakness by going through a struggle, you will soon realize that we set our own limitations. You will begin to see you can handle more than you ever could imagine. Do not be the person who settles for the bare minimum.
Set yourself apart from the pack. Reach for the goals that many say are impossible to achieve. It is there you find just how far you can really push yourself and just how far in life you can go.
Integrity does not become part of us just because we are open to honest, fair, and noble people. Most of the time, we learn the importance of it by being hurt by those who lack it.
Intellect does not come from us sleeping until noon every day and partying with friends all night. A man, who surrounds himself with happy and successful friends, finds it easier to be happy and successful in his own life. This saying goes along with the ‘Letting go’ chapter and discusses filling your life up with positive people and getting rid of the negative people who just bring you down.
Compassion is a heart that overflows with so much love and concern to help all those in need. Most people would say that is a gift. I agree somewhat. I believe that God given me this gift because in my life there were plenty of times when I was discriminated against. I was treated as if I did not matter, and instead of letting it get the best of me, I chose to reach out to others. I wanted to get a hold of people going through the same struggles in their lives, and I wanted to show them how I overcame the struggles and turned them into something good.
Courage is not gained by always being safe. I believe in being smart, but I also believe that we should not walk through this life worrying about every little thing that could go wrong. My courage has come because I had realized at an early age that if something will happen to you, it will happen because God wants it to happen. You can do everything you want to prevent it from happening, but in the end, I believe, what is meant to be will always find a way.
Resourcefulness and Creativity is not something you get because everyone has been put in front of you or everything has been given to you. Instead most of us learn it from the lack of these things or people in our lives. Thanks to the struggles in life, we learn to create and work around what is not laid at our feet. In others words, adapt and overcome.
I have used this characteristic when interviewing for several job positions. For this example, I will use my information technology interview. Just like most jobs in this world, they want you to have experience and some sort of degree or training certification.
However, I tend to disagree with the second part. I got praise in my interview for making a good point-- Would you prefer someone who took classes and learned by a book for four years or would you prefer someone who taught him or herself and have used his or her experience for more than 10 years? I always believe that a self-taught person can get things done just as easy as someone who was taught by a university.
Even though I did not get the job, it didn’t mean I failed. You see, everyone that was on the panel agreed with what I had to say, and hiring me was what they wanted to do. However, certain guidelines have to be followed by companies, and if part of the guidelines says to hire a certified over non-certified person, they will take the certified, and I do not blame them for that.
Self Esteem is not gained from everyone always praising you for what a good job you have done. The real issue is taking a step back and realizing all the accomplishments you have done in your life thus far and continuing to believe in yourself. I do not believe we are born with self-esteem, but rather is something we have to find. You can motivate and praise someone all day long, but until he or she truly believes in him or herself; self-esteem will never be there.
Embrace these characteristics that have become a part of you and recognize the struggles of life that have brought you to this point. No matter who you are, always remember there is something perfect about you. You have something of superior value to family, friends, and strangers that you encounter.
So I give you this challenge: Appreciate everything you have and be thankful for your life and the things in it, but do not forget about your struggles. Life’s struggles need not be something that you loathe, regret or avoid, instead embrace them, and realize without them, you would not be who you are today.
CHAPTER 2: Addiction
A friend who was trying to help out another friend dealing with addiction approached me the other day. He told me he had tried everything he could think of to help this person fight the addiction he or she was dealing with, and nothing seemed to work. So he asked me to write about it for not them to read. So here is his question.
How does one person help another family member or a friend who is dealing with an addiction? How does one encourage the other person to believe that everything will be all right? The addiction is killing them. It is killing me, please help!
Have you ever come across this before? I know I have a few times. To answer these questions, I believe we first have to get a better understanding of the addiction and where it began (if possible).
In this section, we will breakdown addiction. We will examine five major steps in helping someone with his or her addiction, or if you are the one with the addiction, these five steps should be applied to your life. Motivate, evaluate, manage, resolve, and create are the major steps. Are you ready? Because here we go!
Addiction can be continuous involvement with a substance or activity despite the negative consequences with it. It can be something physical or even psychological. No matter the addiction, even if psychological, you as a friend or family member can help the individual.
Follow these five steps, and you will learn just how you can do this. Remember, this will take some time, so no need to give the person everything all at once. Let’s begin breaking down the five steps.
Motivation for you
If you are attempting to change everything in your life, chances are you will feel as if you are drowning. Change can be overwhelming, especially if you do not know where to focus your actions. You will see that with the right amount of motivation, you will not have to change hardly anything.
All you have to do is identify and work on the key issues that you have come to recognize, and the rest will come to you as you move along in life.
Remember change is never easy for anyone, so make sure you have a good support system--family, friends, and if you do not have family or friends willing to help, you can always turn to the Internet, which can give good insight. Read books like this one you are reading now. You can even turn to me. At the end of this book will be my e-mail, and if there is no one in your life that can help you or is willing to help you, send me an e-mail. I will be more than willing to help you and be there for you every step of the way.
Never give up, keep on trying, never say I cannot because that word tells your brain to fail. Saying I cannot means you have already shut down all possibilities of completing your goal. You have more control over this addiction than you realize. Do not let it win. It will not win, it cannot win. Keep saying those things as you fight to beat this addiction, and it will happen.
Motivation to give
I remember going through the Marine Corps boot camp. I wanted to give up and call it quits. However, I also remember more times than not, the drill instructor yelling in my face, “Get a move on it, double time recruit!” I look back and think about those times and realize, even though he was yelling, it was a type of motivation, to keep me going, to never give up, and never quit.
If you are the person fighting the addiction, you need to find ways to keep yourself motivated. The best way I can tell you is to surround yourself with motivating and uplifting people.
If you are the person trying to help your friend or family member, you must also give the right kind of motivation.
Now, I am not implying that you need to be yelling in their face, but how about talking to them daily, asking them how their progress is going, encouraging them, letting them know you see change.
How about going to meetings with them so they do not feel alone? Maybe there is something about your life you can change also.
How about making the change with them? Even though it’s not your addiction, you may learn a thing or two, maybe even learn something about the person you are helping. Maybe you will discover why it is so hard for them to stop what they are doing or what the number one thing keeping them from changing and rising above the addiction is.
Whatever the case is, never let the person make the change alone. Do whatever it takes to be with them every step of the way. Encouragement only goes as far as the action goes. What I mean by this is, I can encourage someone all I want, but if there are no actions behind it, and nothing to show, the encouragement is dead. Do not just give motivation but be the motivation!
Evaluate yourself
Addictions, along with many other issues, are considered chronic, meaning you have had them for a long time. Attempting to get rid of these without the proper structure is just going to frustrate you and make you feel as if you are fighting an endless battle, climbing up a greasy pole so to speak.
The nature of any addiction is not going to go away automatically, which is why it is called an addiction. So what is the answer? We need to evaluate and learn how to manage these issues in a way that makes them powerless against you.
It may seem impossible if you believe these addictions are more than you can handle. I can promise you this, not only is it possible to learn how to manage the addictions but you also can find that you have more power to do things that you never thought possible.
Evaluate your life and the steps that first brought you to the addiction. Make mental notes and write them down, so you know to never go back, or to never put yourself in those types of situations again. Once progress has begun, make a journal, and keep statistics on your journey in fighting the addiction. Look back and see the progress you have made. This will motivate you to keep things going.
Remember where you started and where you are now. Think about how your life has changed for the better. Maybe you have a better job, you can do things better, or have more energy. Never forget you are only as strong as your weakest link.
Give evaluations with positive endings
I strongly believe in never sugar coating anything. I have noticed in my life that when someone has ever done that to me it has failed me every time. Expressing loving concerns to a person needs to be done. Giving evaluations, good or bad, in the end will always turn into something positive.
If the person is still struggling with the addiction, let them know where it is you saw him or her begin to fall again, or visa verse, let him or her know where you began to see the change. Let them know what you saw them do differently and that the change began to follow that action. Even if they are struggling, remember, never sugar coat it.
Always tell them that you can see they are still struggling, or you can see they are improving, but tell them the truth. If you see them struggling, let them know that you know they can beat it. See how that was turning a possible negative into something positive because of the encouragement you threw out at the end.
I remember when I was overweight and would ask my family and friends if they thought I was getting fat. Every person would just lie to me and say, “You’re fine. It does not matter what people think of you.” See the problem there?
If someone would have come to me and said, “You know, Ross, you have gained some weight, but I still think you are fine the way you are,” that is a big difference right?
Even though they would be telling me I have gained weight, they still said it with a positive ending like, “I still think you are fine the way you are.” This would tell me that my evaluations of myself are correct and that I possibly could lose some weight.
So the goal with evaluations is to let the person or yourself know the progress you are making, or the progress you could be making. Always being true to yourself and others is the best form of evaluations. Keep giving positive feedback, no matter the case, and in return this will act as motivation, which we have covered as the first step. It all ties together in the end.
Manage yourself
Learning how to manage your addiction will be one quick way to getting rid of it. Presenting yourself with the necessary tools on effectively managing the addiction is a great way to get started. Tools to managing addiction could be things like: gum for smokers or even the patch, going to AA meetings if you struggle with drinking, or perhaps even allowing your friends and family to keep you accountable.
Be their manager
The person you are helping needs necessary tools to help him or her fight the addiction. In a way, you need to be their manager. Tell them the things they need to get done in their lives, the things they need to manage effectively to fight his or her addiction.
Keep them accountable and hold them to their word. Learn to listen and give positive feedback as an actual manager would in a workplace setting.
Once we learn how to effectively manage our addictions, we can begin to see the problems slowly resolve.
Resolve
The addiction is never bigger nor stronger than you. You may ask how I know. If you look at your life before the addiction ever began, your answer is right there. Unless you have some type of mental disease that prevents you from making the right choices, you can always go back to where you began. It is never too late.
We need to find a balance in our lives. Working on problems or issues and focusing more energy are ways to create things in our lives that resolve those certain problems or issues. We can implement the same strategy in creating those things, into creating things to conquer the addiction.
Outsmarting the addiction is a key factor. Here is an example. If you have a good support group and can rely on a family member or friend to help you, let him or her know that every time you want to smoke, he or she should distract you, perhaps by taking you somewhere or sitting down to watch a movie. Maybe every time you need to buy smokes, you set that money aside so you can see just how much you spend. Use that money on yourself, and therefore give yourself a reward for not smoking.
Create
Living the life you want ultimately will create less desires and need for the addiction. I have come across people who have conquered their addiction by simply chasing after the life they have always wanted. It changes the focus of your mind from being selfish to what you want.