A Moment to Realize Your Potential
Stop. Wherever you are right now, just stop for a moment. Read these words, but don?t move. Take a deep breath. Realize that right now you are in a most situation. Right now you?re about to realize your enormous potential.
Whether you?re life is going great or terrible, that doesn?t matter. What matters is this: you?re aware of yourself in this moment. You?re aware of your freedom. EVERYTHING?and I mean EVERYTHING?can change. And it can begin right now.
As someone who?s been giving professional dating advice for years, the one thing I wish I could change about most students is their willing TO change. It?s human nature to simply want a solution that will improve your life without having to make a change.
So, as a dating instructor, a lot of guys want me to tell them what they want to hear. They want to believe there?s a ?secret? I can give that will let them hookup with hot chicks without having to change any aspect of their lives.
Whenever I encounter students like this, I want to shake them and scream, ?WHAT YOU?VE BEEN DOING HASN?T BEEN WORKING! AND IT?S NOT GOING TO START MAGICALLY WORKING TOMORROW! YOU! NEED! TO! CHANGE!? No one can have it both ways: either change or keep wallowing in failure.
And if it were just as easy as shaking students and screaming at them, then my job would be pretty easy. However, it?s not. I can shake and scream all I want, but change has to come from within. It has to be the student?s decision to change.
This decision is what I like to ?the jump.? The trite and obvious metaphor is the jump off of a high diving board into a cold pool. As someone who hated jumping into cold pools, I still have haunting memories from childhood where I climbed up the ladder, got to the end of the diving board, and then turned around and climbed back down the ladder (pretending not to hear the insults and taunts from the kids who were waiting for their turn to jump off the high dive!).
I know the fear of plunging into the unknown, of looking down and only seeing pain. I know the feeling of not wanting to do something, of wanting to put it off until later. However, this simply won?t fly is you want to improve your life.
You need to embrace ?the jump.? In self-help/dating advice, that means you need to commit yourself 100% to your goal. People are laughing at you? Deal with it. You don?t feel comfortable with your new behaviors? Deal with it. You?re having second thoughts about approaching that girl? STOP BEING A PUSSY AND GO DO IT!
When I grew into an adult, I stopped fearing ?the jump.? I?m not yet 30-years-old and I?ve made several ?jumps? in my life: I moved to New York City when I couldn?t afford it; I committed myself to becoming better with women despite many critics thinking I was an idiot; I quit my cozy 9-to-5 day job and started my own company; I even got married and divorced (no joke)!
Some of my ?jumps? worked out, and others didn?t. But all my ?jumps? have in common is this: at least I did it. I am always embracing change. I consider it my greatest asset and biggest liability. Sometimes the change works out, other times it doesn?t. But I?ll never again be the pussy who?s climbing down from the high dive because I didn?t have the balls to jump off.
Turn your attention back to yourself. You?re in the same place you were when you began reading this article, however something?s changed. You now know what?s stopping you from realizing your full potential. You now know you need to embrace ?the jump.?
I haven?t tried to glorify or sugarcoat ?the jump.? Like I said, ?the jump? has made my life awesome, and it?s made my life terrible. I?m not saying ?the jump? is the answer to all your problems. But I AM saying ?the jump? is the answer to changing your life.
Don?t view ?the jump? as the cure-all self-help solution. See ?the jump? as something you simply NEED to do in order to evolve. You?re standing where you?re at, with the potential of the world at your feet, but you?re only going embrace that potential when you bend your knees and take that jump.
About Rob J. Rob J. is a writer and dating instructor in New York City. Themes that resonate in both his teaching and writing are masculinity, genuineness, rational self-interest, and general awesomeness.