In his article, “Resist Discouragement“, Rick Warren rates discouragement as being the second greatest enemy of fulfilling your life mission (first was procrastination). I agree with Rick that there’s very little that puts a damper on the accomplishment of activity in your life more than the oppressing weight of discouragement. I’m sure my readers will agree as well – when things don’t go the way you thought they would, when people pick apart your “grand ideas” or when illness prevents you from doing what you want to do the resulting discouragement can not only put a halt to any progress you’ve made in your dream, mission, or idea but can also create a cycle of second-guessing and apathy that hinder any future activity.

So what to do about discouragement? We all suffer it from time to time – how do we undo it? Well, I agree with the start that Rick Warren suggests. It comes from recognizing that discouragement is a choice. It’s a choice that occurs when something contrary to what we expect, or opposition to where we’re going disrupts our plans and we choose to be discouraged because of it. The truth is – nothing ever goes hunky-dory, there will always be someone opposing you, or a wrench of some sort thrown into the plans we make (sometimes little wrenches, sometimes wrenches the size of buses!). We have no control over those things – what we do have control over is what we think about such things…