{"id":211,"date":"2014-08-11T00:51:53","date_gmt":"2014-08-11T00:51:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/becausethisisyourlife\/?p=211"},"modified":"2014-08-11T00:51:53","modified_gmt":"2014-08-11T00:51:53","slug":"how-much-of-your-life-is-being-chipped-away","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/becausethisisyourlife\/2014\/08\/how-much-of-your-life-is-being-chipped-away.html","title":{"rendered":"How Much Of Your Life Is Being Chipped Away?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It starts out innocent.<\/p>\n<p>No one notices.<\/p>\n<p>Few if any even listen&#8230;except those who really know you.<\/p>\n<p>And then what happens?<\/p>\n<p>Attitudes change.<\/p>\n<p>People start paying attention.<\/p>\n<p>And then next thing you know the true&#8230;and mostly false assumptions show up&#8230; and only the people who know you&#8230;really know the truth.<\/p>\n<p>This is what happens when you take the time and just &#8220;chip away&#8221; at your life.<\/p>\n<p>In other words&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>You take those &#8220;baby steps&#8221;&#8230;the little &#8220;day in and day out&#8221; steps that are part of the big picture which are involved in you reaching your goals.<\/p>\n<p>Sometime this is referred to as &#8220;what goes on behind the scenes.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Yet&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Most people only go by what they see on the outside&#8230;have no idea of what it takes&#8230;and then mislabel the person who reaches their goals and attributes it to something other than what it really is.<\/p>\n<p>What this means for you is&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Your ability to live the type of life you&#8217;d love to live involves your ability to keep &#8220;chipping away&#8221; each day.<\/p>\n<p>This leads to the question&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>How much of your life is being chipped away?<\/p>\n<p><strong>1. Your statue of life-<\/strong> There are many people out there who say that happiness is your birthright. That&#8217;s not true because it&#8217;s whatever you love to do is what&#8217;s involved in bringing out the happiness in you.<\/p>\n<p>In other words&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>You have something you&#8217;d love to do&#8230;something that inspires you&#8230;something that gets you up out of bed every day &#8220;raring to go.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Whatever that is for you, you&#8217;ll find yourself saying &#8220;I love doing this&#8221;, &#8220;I&#8217;m inspired to be doing this&#8221;, &#8220;This is what I&#8217;ve always dreamed of doing&#8221;&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>This can be in any of the 7 areas of life&#8230;your spirituality, mindset development, career, finances, family, social network, and physical health.<\/p>\n<p>These form what I&#8217;m calling your statue of life.<\/p>\n<p>And it&#8217;s here where you&#8217;ll be &#8220;chipping away&#8221; day in and day out.<\/p>\n<p>Then of course if you find yourself saying &#8220;I have to&#8221;, &#8220;I&#8217;ve got to&#8221;, &#8220;I&#8217;m supposed to&#8221; you&#8217;ll find yourself &#8220;dragging yourself&#8221; throughout the day looking to be motivated to do something you don&#8217;t love.<\/p>\n<p>Therefore and obviously&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>The more you&#8217;re doing what you love&#8230;the higher the probability of you &#8220;chipping away&#8221; at it.<\/p>\n<p>Then comes the other part that&#8217;s involved&#8230;and often misunderstood&#8230;when it comes to &#8220;sculpting&#8221; your statue of life.<\/p>\n<p>And what I&#8217;m referring to is seeking support and praise.<\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s no doubt about it that having support and praise is important.<\/p>\n<p>However&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s also having the challenges and criticism is what&#8217;s vital in order for you to sculpt that &#8220;perfect&#8221; statue of life.<\/p>\n<p>Because no matter what you do you&#8217;ll get people support and challenging you&#8230;praising and criticizing you&#8230;along with people liking and disliking you&#8230;equally.<\/p>\n<p>Therefore&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>When you&#8217;re doing what you love you&#8217;ll embrace both sides equally in pursuit of your goals&#8230;and you&#8217;ll stick with it instead of giving up.<\/p>\n<p><strong>2. Virtuoso in action-<\/strong> As you&#8217;re &#8220;chipping away&#8221; on a daily basis, you may at times have a tendency to &#8220;beat yourself up&#8221; as to why things aren&#8217;t getting done fast enough.<\/p>\n<p>Along with this&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>You are likely to look at what other people have accomplished and compare yourself to them&#8230;while wishing your life was just like theirs.<\/p>\n<p>This leads to what I call &#8220;wanting things done yesterday.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>As a result&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>This can and often does lead to desperation in the form of looking for overnight &#8220;miracles&#8221;&#8230;or looking for that big &#8220;home run.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>What happens here&#8230;you start getting emotional and do foolish things.<\/p>\n<p>The virtuoso&#8230;the person who &#8220;chips away&#8221; day in and day out&#8230;the person who takes the &#8220;little big steps&#8221; each day is the one who all of a sudden seems to come out of nowhere.<\/p>\n<p>This leads to what I said at the beginning&#8230;about the true and mostly false assumptions showing up&#8230;and that only the people who know you really know the truth.<\/p>\n<p>And that is this&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>The people who are on the outside looking in will have a high probability of seeing the person who has achieved &#8220;success&#8221; and attribute that to things like &#8220;luck&#8221;, &#8220;born into a wealthy family&#8221;, or some other false assumption.<\/p>\n<p>The bottom line is&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>When you&#8217;re true to who you are&#8230;while doing what you love&#8230;and embracing both sides of life equally&#8230;without comparing yourself to others, you &#8220;chip away&#8221; each day and the results that seem like they&#8217;re taking forever for others&#8230;will come to you faster than you ever imagined.<\/p>\n<p>And if you should have those moments when you &#8220;beat yourself up&#8221;&#8230;we all do at some point&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>When you acknowledge that what you admire in others&#8230;that you have it as well and in your own unique way&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>You&#8217;ll be grateful and appreciate yourself much more.<\/p>\n<p>Plus&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>The &#8220;chipping away&#8221; each day will have you &#8220;in the flow&#8221; and you&#8217;ll be a virtuoso in action.<\/p>\n<p>And those true assumptions&#8230;that you earned what you&#8217;ve achieved&#8230;will be appreciated by those around you.<\/p>\n<p><strong>3. The illusion of miracles-<\/strong> Earlier I mentioned about miracles. On the surface a miracle seems like something extraordinary. However, what appears to be a &#8220;miracle&#8221; to one person may actually be a &#8220;normal&#8221; occurrence for someone else.<\/p>\n<p>Additionally and surprisingly to most people&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Miracles&#8221; and striving for miracles can convey a feeling of desperation.<\/p>\n<p>Think about it&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Take a person who knows what they&#8217;d love to do&#8230;has a mission&#8230;along with a strategic plan on how to carry out their mission&#8230;and &#8220;chips away&#8221; each day.<\/p>\n<p>What happens over a certain period of time&#8230;they&#8217;ll follow through on what they set out to do&#8230;right?<\/p>\n<p>Now&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Take a person who has no idea what they want to do&#8230;has no idea what their mission is&#8230;has no plan&#8230;shoots for the big &#8220;home run&#8221; and overnight results.<\/p>\n<p>Here you&#8217;ll have someone that has a high probability of feeling desperate. This person will be in search of miracles.<\/p>\n<p>While the first person I mentioned&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>They would have created their own so called &#8220;miracle&#8221;, except they haven&#8217;t because they took the time to plan out their life and then began &#8220;chipping away&#8221; each day.<\/p>\n<p>Therefore&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>You have one person who isn&#8217;t desperate and doesn&#8217;t see things as being miracles.<\/p>\n<p>And&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>You have another person who is likely to be desperate in search of miracles.<\/p>\n<p>This is why miracles are in a large sense an illusion&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Because when you acknowledge the true and divine order of the Universe&#8230;while also &#8220;chipping away&#8221; and being persistent day in and day out&#8230;while living according to what is truly most important to you&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>You eliminate the need for so called &#8220;miracles&#8221; in your life.<\/p>\n<p>Instead&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>You&#8217;ll see life as a blessing&#8230;something to be grateful for&#8230;and something to appreciate.<\/p>\n<p>And the same applies to you.<\/p>\n<p>The fact that you&#8217;re reading this right now is something to be grateful for&#8230;because you&#8217;re alive.<\/p>\n<p>And since you&#8217;re alive you have something of value to contribute to the world.<\/p>\n<p>It may not be obvious to other people. In fact it may not even be 100% obvious to to you right now.<\/p>\n<p>However&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>There is something about you that&#8217;s special.<\/p>\n<p>There is something about you that&#8217;s unique which allows you to be special.<\/p>\n<p>And it&#8217;s this &#8220;unique specialness&#8221; that demonstrates how much you do matter in the world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It starts out innocent. No one notices. Few if any even listen&#8230;except those who really know you. And then what happens? Attitudes change. People start paying attention. And then next thing you know the true&#8230;and mostly false assumptions show up&#8230; and only the people who know you&#8230;really know the truth. This is what happens when&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":556,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-211","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>How Much Of Your Life Is Being Chipped Away? - Because This Is Your Life<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/becausethisisyourlife\/2014\/08\/how-much-of-your-life-is-being-chipped-away.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How Much Of Your Life Is Being Chipped Away? - Because This Is Your Life\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It starts out innocent. 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This is what happens when&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/becausethisisyourlife\/2014\/08\/how-much-of-your-life-is-being-chipped-away.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Because This Is Your Life\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-08-11T00:51:53+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cweiner\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"How Much Of Your Life Is Being Chipped Away? - Because This Is Your Life","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/becausethisisyourlife\/2014\/08\/how-much-of-your-life-is-being-chipped-away.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"How Much Of Your Life Is Being Chipped Away? - Because This Is Your Life","og_description":"It starts out innocent. 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