A Personal Journey Through Hardships and Adversity on the Creative Path
A guest post by Venli.
When my fifth attempt at starting a profitable small-business business failed, I was devastated. It had been ten years since I started on the road to entrepreneurship, and yet I hadn’t made a dollar of profit.
Then one day I came across these words, “When you were born, you were not born to be defeated,” which gave me faith to start afresh.
When my faith was reinforced, and I renewed my struggles, a better path opened up for me.
I have found that difficulties are not designed to devastate us, but to ignite the bigger successes of our life.
Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt
What the heck am I doing? Haven’t you asked yourself that question at least once while writing your book, or posting a blog or creating a painting?
Will I ever make money from my book? There are billions of blogs out there, who would want to read my blog? Why don’t I try something more conventional like a desk-job which brings in a regular paycheck? Who cares about my art! I don’t want to die a pauper like Van Gogh.
Every creator worries about the success of his or her work. Imagine Van Gogh slaving over his watercolors for years without being able to sell even one of them? Only his personal conviction in the truthfulness of his work kept him going.
I have often been asked how I keep my faith strong? What gives ME faith? What pushes me to strive for success in self-publishing instead of trying to climb yet another high-paying corporate ladder?
Having misgivings about your chosen path is natural. Uncertainties lead to curiosity, which in turn enlivens our faith as we discover answers to our questions.
I aspire for financial freedom without being dependent on corporate politics, and that, is certainly a huge motivation.
But what really encourages me to continue the path of writing despite all obstacles, is my faith in my work and its success.
My goal is to provide real value through my work. Since I know that I am putting in my most sincere effort, I have the faith that my customers will appreciate my honesty and earnestness.
My faith is fortified by my utter conviction that honesty and truthfulness are two non-negotiable elements in my work. There is no point in any business if it is not founded on the belief that it will benefit the end user.
The truthfulness of my work is what strengthens my faith. And faith is what keeps me going.
Faith is what makes entrepreneurs successful. Napoleon Hill mentions the power of faith driving business success in his legendary book, “Think and Grow Rich”.
When you have faith that you shall be successful, you would feel encouraged to put in 100% of your effort instead of simply kicking at tires.
Even nature conspires to help those who have faith. Napoleon Hill wrote, “When FAITH is blended with the vibration of thought, the subconscious mind instantly picks up the vibration, and transmits it to Infinite Intelligence.”
It is too easy for our faith to be shaken when we face a setback.
In the past few years, life has tested me. I have lost beloved family members, and experienced desolation which is impossible to put in words. In my work, as an entrepreneur many of my initial projects were not successful, and no amount of wisdom seemed to help in the wretchedness I felt in my heart.
How do you keep your faith strong when faced with such despair? How do you develop your faith?
Wisdom and teachings can help only so much. Action, rather than words, is what revived me in my times of trouble, and allowed me to once again approach life with a sense of possibility rather than helplessness.
How can you act to make your faith stronger?
From a practical standpoint, constant affirmation or repeated instructions to the subconscious mind is the only way to develop faith.
How do repeated instructions affect our subconscious mind?
Consider for a moment how criminals come into being. The natural state of mind is to be truthful and despise wrongdoing. However, when a person remains in contact with crime for a long time, they learn to endure it, and eventually embrace it.
This illustrates how any impulse of thought when repeatedly passed on to the subliminal mind, eventually becomes ingrained in our subconscious as the ultimate truth.
The book “Mastery Through Conscious Autosuggestion” by Emile Coue proved how even sick people can guide their mind to heal their own bodies. Inspired by Emile Coue, people chanted the phrase, “Day by day in every way, I am getting better and better,” using strings of beads to keep count of their chanting. Newspapers reported how many people were healed as the auto-suggestion to their minds influenced transformation in their bodies.
Business strategists recommend that you read aloud with confidence and with faith, twice daily, the written statement of your goals. As you read, visualize yourself already in possession of what you aim for.
As a beginner you need to have humility and faith so you can practice constantly, and not be doubtful if the instructions seem abstract and unconventional.
Once you realize that repeated affirmations to your subconscious mind boost your faith, you will also start observing the effect of faith.
When your subconscious mind strongly believes in an idea or impulse, it influences you to translate that impulse into its physical equivalent, that is, into actions.
Your faith gives you confidence, which is reflected in your mannerism, behavior and …. actions.
When we act decisively with confidence, results automatically follow.
Have you not seen the sheer confidence of a team carry the day in a competition, even when they were not the most capable?
In Conclusion…
We have the ability to influence our faith either in the right direction. If we do not make conscious effort to do so, it will be steered on the wrong path by outside influence. Someone else will impose their agenda on us if we don’t set our own goals.
For us self-published authors and bloggers, who certainly need a healthy dose of faith to keep going every day, constant practice is the key to keeping our faith strong. FAITH is a state of mind and it can be induced, through repeated affirmations. Faith in our journey, inspires us to put in our best effort since we know that our efforts shall not go waste. And a Higher Power then steps in to reward us for our honest, best effort.
I leave you with these beautiful words by Tagore, “Faith is the bird that feels the light when the dawn is still dark.”
References
This is a transcript of the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8eL_rP6C-c
