Challenge and love

I love the feeling of rising to a challenge.

Can I do 50 more push-ups?

Can I grow my company by 10x?

Can I lose the fat?

Can I make this business work so I can quit my day job?

--

But sometimes you miss, right?

And how do you feel then?

Do you hate your body for its fat?

Do you get down on yourself for not making enough money?

...

We need both the challenge and the love.

We need to be challenged. Preferably by ourselves.

And we need to be loved unconditionally. Again, definitely by ourselves.

We can be so afraid of our own self-hate that we don't even begin to challenge ourselves! That's crazy!

And at other times we challenge ourselves super hard, but we're doing it because we hate ourselves the way we are.

--

Here's the deal:

Any amount of NOT loving yourself exactly the way you are is not helpful.

Any amount of withholding love, hoping it'll make you better, is unproductive.

Try it with a newborn, see how well it works.

Hint: It doesn't.

You absolutely need to love yourself. Completely. Unconditionally.

And you need to challenge yourself.

Because the challenge is what makes you grow.

It's a cliche, but it's how muscles grow, right? You put stress on it, and in response, it grows.

But there's ZERO need for self-hate or self-loathing or self-punishment, or even for being slightly down on yourself.

Zilch.

Nada.

--

This is exactly what a healthy, loving dad does. 

He loves unconditionally.

AND he challenges.

Most of us lacked at least one of those.

It's not your dad's fault. Hey probably lacked at least one as well.

But it's too late for your dad to do anything about it.

You have to find that within yourself now.

Your job now is to be that healthy, loving father for yourself, that perhaps you didn't have growing up.

(And even if your dad by chance did do this perfectly, it's not his job anymore. You're grownup now. It's your job.)

I love you, and I challenge you,