Endure or Secure
Posted on September 04, 2024 by Jonathan Ger, One of Thousands of Leadership Coaches on Noomii.
Are you just enduring (getting by) or working with a plan for security?
When things get tough, as they often do,
Will you choose the path that’s best for you?
Will your days be spent just trying to endure,
Or will you build a foundation that will make you more secure?
All of us develop coping mechanisms and/or ways of taking on life’s struggles. Depending on how happy we are in general, the methods that we use are as varied as the personalities of the people who are implementing them. If you are on the side of the human spectrum that sees most of life’s interesting twists and turns in a positive light, you are blessed. You have found a system that works for you in dealing with those times that are a bit harder. Often times you have developed techniques that work for you, i.e. deep cleansing breaths, talking to a friend or confidant, journaling, etc. There are times however, when nothing seems to work and all you can do is to endure. There is power in enduring! There can be calm and hope when you are just enduring. This is only true when you are enduring something temporarily! Enduring as a way of life is simply not sustainable!
Enduring, by definition is “tolerating something”, “carrying on despite hardship”, or “putting up with…”. Enduring difficult circumstances temporarily in order to get to the other side can be admirable. Enduring as a regular diet means that you are accepting what life throws at you without realizing that you have some control over the many aspects of what you are living through. So, the question becomes, how do we create a sustainable lifestyle that can create a feeling of being secure rather than to just endure?
First and foremost, it is important to look at your overall wellbeing as an important part of your lifestyle and not something that you just deal with when something arises. Think about it like a diet. We hear all the time about yo-yo diets. Someone loses weight and gains it back, loses weight and gains it back, loses weight and… you get the picture. As you yo-yo up and down, you not only physically change (often times gaining more weight than you had originally) but you also go through emotional struggles as you reconcile feelings of defeat, failure, self doubt or even worse. You endure those feelings until the next swing of the pendulum has you feeling good again. The pendulum will swing again and without making change, you are destined to hold yourself back from being all that you can be. It is not sustainable! On the other hand, if you commit to a lifestyle change, you take control over all the aspects that are part of your journey. A lifestyle change is not a diet. It involves learning about nutrition, starting or improving an exercise program, participating in creating a daily, weekly and monthly plan with targets and steps for achieving those goals. You also create a network of people who can help you along the way (A nutritionist? A friend to call when feeling weak? A trainer?, etc.). When you make a lifestyle change, you create a secure, powerful foundation and your chance of success, as defined by you, is far greater than it could ever be when you are simply enduring!
If you’re feeling down more often than you’d like, having trouble making change that you really want to make, feeling stuck with an inability to “unstick” yourself, you may have fallen into a rut of enduring. You may have consciously or sub-consciously made the decision that it’s going to be okay if you simply ride it out. You choose to endure the stress that is present with the knowledge that it’ll go away – until it comes back again! I would challenge you to take the bull by the horns, make the decision to be the best version of yourself, and live a more fulfilled and secure life! You are not alone, you are not a failure and you are not weak! Making the changes that you need to “have it all” is strong, empowering and …SUSTAINABLE!
I will help you recognize that you can re-write your life’s story, you can look at different perspectives, and you can live the life that you truly want. Take the first step of recognizing that you could use a helping hand and then reach out to get that help! Together we can access all the answers that lie within, develop a plan to help use those answers as part of your new lifestyle, and then put in the work, together with an experienced and supportive coach to guide you on this journey. Make the call, create the RIPPLE & change your life!
