If you want to fly, then try

By Sgt Rob Orr

Ask yourself these three questions. Can you walk? Can you fly? Why can you walk and not fly? Did you start to answer the third question with ... “Because I can’t” or Because I don’t”?

When learning to walk as a baby, everybody encouraged you, no one said you could not do it or that walking was impossible and, after 12 months of training, you did it.

What would happen if the same attitude was given to flying? This may seem like a stretch of the imagination and already your years of negative feedback and being told what you cannot do and why you cannot do it will make you discount the idea.

The point however, remains clear: how we think influences what we can and cannot do and what we can and cannot achieve. With this in mind, think about the one thing you would love to have (make it plausible and legal) and now think about why you do not have it.

Did you immediately start to list excuses? Ever remember thinking about a problem or the name of a show, book or friend and after not being able to come up with the answer immediately, you came up with the answer later? Why?

Because you are starting to do what you were taught at school repeatedly for numerous years … You start to problem solve. So rather than use the “I can’t” statement and conclude the subject from possibility, think “How can I?”

Let us apply this concept further. Say, for example, at this moment you do not like your job, what do you do:

A) Tell everyone that you don’t like your job? or
B) Ask yourself “how can I like my job?” If you chose ‘B’ you might then explore whether you do not currently enjoy your job because of your position, posting, trade or service, and then determine how to rectify the situation. Eg. I do not enjoy being a PTI (yeah right).

So what do I enjoy? Well I do like driving big trucks? How can I drive big trucks in the Defence Forces? And so you start to problem solve.

This is not to say that the path will be smooth and easy, several obstacles (like having to wait for a posting cycle, complete other training courses etc) will undoubtedly present themselves, some of these may even take years to overcome.

Again you are faced with the choice of either
A) concluding that the effort is too much ... and still be complaining about how much you detest your job years from now, or B) you can take action and in several years from now be in a better position; after all it is bet-ter to ‘aim for the stars and drag your feet in the trees, than not aim at all and drag your feet in the mud.’

So, next time you are faced with a dilemma or dream (after applying the MAP), avoid dismissing the issue, and solve/achieve it. Be the author of your destiny, not the victim of your circumstance’.

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