Conquering Circumstances By Mastering Myself
6 Ideas of How Self-Mastery Has Helped Me Solve My Problems
The burden of Newborns
When I was a newly born baby my life was filled with problems that I wasn’t able to solve. I couldn’t do anything for myself. I had to depend on others to help me with all of my challenges. For example, If I was hungry I had to wait for someone else to come and feed me. And sometimes I had to cry to get their attention because I couldn’t communicate with words yet. When I had to use the bathroom, I couldn’t control my bowels yet and so I just made a mess all over myself and I had to wait for somebody to come clean up my mess. When I wanted to go somewhere, I couldn’t just get up and walk yet, so I had to depend on someone else picking me up and taking me where I wanted to go. I had very little control over my circumstances and how my day was designed. I had no say in what I wanted to wear, where I went, or what I did. I was at the mercy of others and I had to rely on them to solve all of my problems.
Yes, life was hard as a baby. And I’m sure you had similar experiences as I did when you were a newborn baby yourself. But here is the thing. As I continued to grow, my ability to solve my own problems grew as well. I didn’t have to rely on others as much as I did early on in life. I got to the point where I could dress myself, feed myself, take care of my personal hygiene, and I was able to walk and go to the places that I wanted to go to. As I grew into adulthood I had more control over my circumstances. I was able to design my days and how I spent my time. I realized that the more I developed myself, the more of my own problems I was able to solve.
We all want freedom and we all want to be self-sufficient at some point in our lives, but with that freedom and self-sufficiency comes responsibility and self-governance. You must be able to sustain yourself, increase your abilities, and manage your choices in order to find solutions to your problems so that you can control your circumstances. If you can’t find it within yourself to do these things, then you will always be at the mercy of others and they will control your life. If you want to change your circumstances; if you want to control your life; if you want to become who you are meant to be, the best way to do this is to level up and master yourself.
What is Self-Mastery?
You cannot do anything unless you know that you have the ability to do it within you. You cannot master yourself until you believe that it is possible. Self-mastery does not mean that you are perfect. It does not mean that you will not make any mistakes or that you control every aspect of your life. It is not about dominating over others and it isn’t about having all the right answers. To master something means to have extreme control, skill and knowledge in a subject and ability. It is reaching the pinnacle of the summit by unlocking the greater potential of a thing. Self-mastery is about being able to maximize your potential by utilizing your abilities in the most effective way possible. It is about unlocking your leadership potential. It is about getting the maximum output out of the minimum use of energy. Self-mastery is the culmination of all of your abilities and your character. It is you becoming the best version of yourself.
Reaching the stage of mastery isn’t just reaching one platform. Mastery is like gaining access to a new realm of many different levels and possibilities. When you climb up the mountain and make it to the summit, now you have access to the skies. And when you fly and reach the top of the skies past the clouds, now you have access to the stars. What I mean is there is no limit to how much you can master yourself. When you reach one level, another level opens up. As long as you’re alive you can continue to become better in many different ways.
Problems make us Stronger
The more you develop and maintain your mental, physical, and spiritual abilities as well as your character; the closer you become to reaching new levels of mastery and the more problems you are able to solve. Solving problems is directly related to your current level of ability. In his book “The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership” John Maxwell speaks about the “Law of the Lid.” In it John says “Leadership determines the level of effectiveness.” Your business can only grow to the level of your leadership. Your level of leadership is determined by your ability, attitude and character. I believe that you can only solve problems according to your current level of these three attributes. Your level of mastery is determined by the level of your ability, your attitude and your character. So if you have a problem that you can’t solve, you must increase your leadership level by increasing your abilities (by learning and developing skills), your attitude (or belief in yourself) and your overall character.
Problems force you to become greater than your current self. When you have a problem that you can’t solve, you have three things that you can do. One, you can find someone with the ability who can solve your problem. Two, you can increase your own ability to solve the problem. Three, you can run away from the problem.
Life gives us obstacles so that we can discover the strength within ourselves. Problems aren’t there in order for you to fail. They are given to help you become stronger. They force you to step out of your comfort zone and increase your level of ability. The truth is that you already have the ability to solve all of your problems, but the issue is that you haven’t discovered it for yourself yet.
Solve Your Problems First
Many people try to give advice to others in order to help them solve their problems. I believe that it’s good to want to help others with their problems, but the issue is this; how do you expect to help them solve their problems when you have the same problems that you haven’t solved for yourself yet? One of my favorite books that I ever read says this.
“Why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but fail to notice the beam in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ while there is still a beam in your own eye? You hypocrite! First take the beam out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” — The Holy Bible, Matthew 7:3–5
Before you can really help someone else, you must be able to help yourself first. One of your main priorities in life should be to gain self-mastery so you can solve your own problems. Once you get there now you will be able to help others solve their problems. You can’t get someone else out of a hole that you are in yourself. First get yourself out of that hole, then reach your hand back down to help pull them up.
Changing Circumstances Through Self-mastery
I want to share with you six ideas of how mastering yourself can help you change your circumstances by solving your problems. These ideas are principles that can work for anyone if they apply it correctly to their lives. I personally used these principles in my life and they helped me to gain new levels of self-mastery and because of that I was able to find solutions to problems that I was struggling with for a while.
Idea 1: Know Yourself
I believe that knowing yourself is one of the most important aspects of education because you cannot be truly educated without the knowledge of self. This means that until you know who you are, why you are here, what you can do, where you are from and where you are going, you will never be able to reach the culmination of your true potential. Learning and developing yourself is supposed to help you become who you are meant to be. The more you know of yourself, the easier it will be to solve your problems.
By knowing yourself, you know what you’re capable of doing. Your belief in yourself increases and you are more confident, and more courageous in your actions. You will make better choices because you have a vision of where you want to go and you will be able to say no to anything that won’t help you get there. To know yourself is to know your core or to know what is at the heart of your innermost being. Your heart is the foundation of yourself.
When David fought Goliath, he defeated him because he knew something about himself that nobody else knew. He believed that he could win the battle and conquer this obstacle before him. He was victorious before the fight even started. His foundation was strong because of the belief that he had about himself and his Creator.
It is hard to build anything on a weak foundation. Because whatever you build on a weak foundation is at greater risk of being destroyed. Self-discovery will help you build a solid strong foundation. When you have a strong foundation it is way easier to build a solid structure on top of it. This is why if you want to build anything you always start with the foundation. Your foundation is built by knowing the truth of who you are. And by knowing who you are it will help you to master yourself and in time to conquer your circumstances.
Idea 2: Develop Your Abilities
Like I stated before, the more you increase your abilities the easier it will be for you to solve your problems. Ability is the inherent power, skills or resources to accomplish something. You increase your abilities by using them. As a child, learning to walk was hard at first. But the more you continued to do it, the easier it became. Now you don’t even have to consciously think about what you’re doing in order to walk. Your mastery of the ability to walk has grown to such a height that you are operating on a subconscious level. The more you develop your abilities the more obstacles you can overcome. The greater your abilities, the easier it is for you to change your circumstances.
Idea 3: Expanding Your Vision
Mastering your vision has a big impact on your circumstances. It is different from physical sight. Sight is a physical ability but vision is a spiritual ability that comes from the heart (your internal world) and it influences your external world. Vision is a conceptual view of the future. It is said that where there is no vision the people perish. In order to change your circumstances you must have a clear vision for your future. Your vision is your dreams. When you expand your vision you increase the level of growth for your abilities. Your abilities can only grow to the level of your dreams. The farther you can see, the more you can plan for and the greater your capacity for growth. Solving problems takes vision because creativity helps you generate new ideas and vision is the vehicle for creativity. Because you have to be able to believe in something that is not there yet in order to create it.
Idea 4: Increase Your Influence
Self-mastery has helped me to increase my influence. I learned that if you want to change your circumstances, you must become influential. The more influence you have the more control you will gain. Self-control is a major part of self-mastery. You must be able to maintain your influence by controlling your passions and your abilities. When you gain influence you have more power to control your circumstances. You can increase your influence by generating wealth, acquiring knowledge, having ownership, maintaining control, increasing your power, earning respect, building trust and specializing in an area of expertise.
Influence is not popularity. You can be influential and not popular; And you can be popular and not influential. Being popular means that a majority of people like you. But even if they like you, it doesn’t mean that they respect you enough to listen to you. On the other hand, being influential means that you are able to convince people to listen to you. Even if they don’t like you, they will still respect you enough to be persuaded by you. Influence lasts longer and is far greater than popularity. The more influence you have, the easier it will be to solve problems. Because if a problem is too big for you to handle on your own, you can enlist the help of others to solve it with you.
Idea 5: Expand Your Comfort Zone
Expanding your comfort zone is one of the key components of self-mastery. You must force yourself out of your comfort zone in order to increase it. This is probably the most difficult part of self-mastery for most people, simply because you don’t like being uncomfortable. Honestly speaking I don’t like it either, but I discovered that if you want exponential growth, you must do things that make you uncomfortable. If you want to strengthen an ability that you aren’t comfortable using, you have to become uncomfortable by actually using it. For example, if you don’t like public speaking and it makes you uncomfortable speaking to large crowds but you know that you have to become better at it in order to increase your business, then you must force yourself to practice public speaking by doing it as much as possible.
When you expand your comfort zone, things that used to be uncomfortable for you become comfortable. Things that used to be hard become easy. Each time you expand it, your ability levels increase as well. You have to become comfortable at being uncomfortable if you truly desire to master yourself because the road to self-mastery will make you do things that other people don’t want to do. And this is the challenge, to willingly put yourself in uncomfortable situations. However the rewards are greater than you can ever imagine. Because if you can do this, you will be able to solve many problems and gain victory in many circumstances.
Idea 6: Refine Your Gift
Refining your gift is probably one of the most important steps to self-mastery that you can do. Because when you are refining your gift you are mastering your area of expertise and increasing your area of influence. You cannot obtain self-mastery if you don’t develop the talents that were given to you at birth. Your gifts are there to help you fulfill your purpose and release your hidden potential. Your gifts allow you to generate wealth by tapping into your treasures that are within you. They make a place for you in the world.
You have the ability to be wealthy; everyone does. All you have to do is to discover your gifts and refine them and gain mastery over them. Your gifts were given to you so that you can solve specific problems. The greater the you have mastery over your gifts, the easier it will become to solve your problems as well as the problems of others.
Conclusion
Problems will never go away for good. As soon as you fix one, another one finds its way to you. As long as life remains, there will always be a problem to solve. Problems are there to help us gain experience and increase our overall level. Everything that you need in order to overcome your circumstances was given to you at birth. That is why you must work at becoming the best version of yourself. Because mastery doesn’t come without resistance. It takes resilience to overcome the storms and become stronger in the midst of them. You have it within you to conquer your circumstances by mastering yourself.
Best Regards,
Hans Fleurimont
theartoflevelingup.com | LinkedIn
