“Change is painful, but nothing is as painful as staying stuck where you don’t belong.” – N.R. Narayana Murthy

What happens when we fall?  Think of the moments when you were 6, and you fell off your bike and skinned your knee.  Think of the moment when you were running, your feet got tangled, and you tripped, tearing up your hands from trying to catch yourself.  We sat down and wondered, ‘Why me?’.  ‘Why does this always happen to me?’, ‘Stupid bike. ’  Now imagine us having the attitude about falling that first time and saying, ‘Well, now I only have 5 more times of falling before I learn better’.  We become better at falling and recovering. 

​ We could take the attitude of throwing our bike away and saying, ‘I will never touch that bike again’.  We avoid everything and anything that has caused us pain.  If this were true, we would never have learned to walk.  We would still be crawling on our hands and knees, as we did when we were 1.  Imagine driving to a grocery store at 45, crawling out of the car, crawling into a grocery store, grabbing one of those motorized shopping carts, and then crawling our groceries back into the house.

With every fall, there are consequences; we get to choose those consequences.  Do we pout, do we laugh, do we get angry, do we learn, do we become small, do we grow?

Growth rarely feels comfortable. But gratitude allows you to see pain as direction — not punishment.  Thank your challenges, for showing you what can no longer stay the same.  You are not being broken. You are being reshaped.

My life’s experiences are as unique as a finger print.  Everyone has a finger print, but no ones’ prints are the same.

We need to set a bar for our level of accomplishments. 

​We want to set it high so that we are accomplishing great things, we are accomplishing more than we did yesterday, we are accomplishing above our current potential.  It is called the, “The Law Of The Lid”.  We are only as good as the lid we place on ourselves each day.  We can rise above it unless we study more, educate more, and put ourselves out in the real world, more.  Besides our lack of ambition to become more, there is a problem that occurs when we compare our successes to others. 

How do you view the paths of others?  Do you see their lives and only their wins, their milestones, their smiles.  Now see your own path, different but just as worthy.  Comparison is the thief of gratitude. It makes you forget how far you’ve come.

Your road is yours for a reason — it’s shaping you in ways no one else could understand. 

When you look at others successes, catch yourself comparing, tell yourself: “Their path isn’t mine.” “My accumulated struggles have been unique to me, Then my successes are also unique to me”.

“I am not what happened to me. I am what I chose to become because of it.” – Carl Jung

FEAR has always been a big part of the mindfulness lessons.  Fear has a wide breadth to it, that ‘fear of’, and many reasons that keep us from acting and moving forward.  Our past failures can hang over us like a huge weight or a steel trap door, which we think should never be reopened.  We use the excuse and say things in a shameful response, “I have learned my lesson”, and learning from your mistakes is one thing, having them refrain you from trying again is another. 

​Never let that be your cage; try again, but with a different attitude or perspective.  If there is something you believe is in your path for success, and you fail, try again using a different approach.  We all have moments we’d rather erase—times we fell short or made poor choices. Shame keeps us from seeing the lesson and robs us of gratitude.  Something needs to change in order for the outcome to become more.  The definition of insanity is: doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results.

Look back not with judgment, but with appreciation.  Every mistake was part of your apprenticeship in living.  Today, revisit one past failure and identify one good thing that came from it—a skill, a truth, and a bit of humility.  Humility, not shame, is always part of your path.  Honor it as part of your training.

“The easy road makes for weak travelers. The rough road builds strong ones.” – Anonymous

How many times have we woken up and told ourselves that TODAY, especially on a Monday, we have said, Today, better not have any problems or issues.  I want today to go smoothly and problem-free.  Maybe every day?  Then, after a successful week of no problems, you say, This job is horrible, I am not being challenged.  So, finally, you are associating problems with a challenge.  Challenges become growth, events that push you and determine your strength.  We look around and assume others have smoother roads, forgetting that their strength came from the same stumbles we are resisting.  Have you ever not looked up to a Navy SEAL?  Have you never looked up to someone in the Special Forces?  Almost everyone will say, These soldiers are to be respected and admired.  Why?  Because of the intense training they go through.

Now peel back what they went through every training day, and still go through in order to keep themselves sharp and proficient.  Sore muscles, exhausted bodies and minds, drills and skills that test their resolve, people berating them as they train, whose sole purpose is to intentionally break their spirit.  Now we look back after they have reached their pinnacle, and say they overcame and they conquered.  They deserved to be admired.  SO DO YOU!
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When you have a mindset that quitting is not an option.  I was beaten down yesterday, and I survived.  I can expect more tomorrow, because tomorrow I will thrive.  Shift your focus from ease to endurance.  Be grateful that the path is challenging—it means you are still growing.  Today, when something frustrates you, pause and say, “This moment is teaching me something I need.” The obstacle is not in the way—it is the way.

It’s easy to be grateful when life feels smooth and everything goes according to plan. But real gratitude—the kind that transforms us—comes from acknowledging the value in the hard times.

Every fall, every setback, every painful lesson carries wisdom if we stop long enough to see it. Success without struggle leaves us shallow.

It’s the moments when we’re tested, when we fail and rise again, that carve out our strength and build our character.

This week, we’ll practice mindfulness around those moments of falling and getting back up—learning to see them not as failures, but as the very path that leads to our strongest selves.

Everyday Courage
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Day 1: Expecting an Easy Path
Day 2: Being Ashamed of Past Failures
Day 3: Giving Up Too Soon
Day 4: Comparing Your Struggles to Others
Day 5: Resisting Change After A Fall