The Times November 27, 2018, by Pat Falvey Column Thunderer
Success comes from having a goal and making it happen
If you think you can you will and if you think you can’t you won’t. It’s a saying my grandmother told me as a child. It’s a phrase that shows, with self-belief a person can achieve anything by being positive. Looking into a mirror and seeing what is reflecting back can be intensely difficult. Especially if feelings of losing control of how life is turning out become overwhelming. No matter what paths a person chooses throughout their life, change can happen.
The change will alter a life
The change will alter a life if wanted badly enough. Life is filled with success, failure, fear, frustration, pain, love, selfishness, passion, victory, death and reflection. They can take any form they want in a person’s life. They can become good and bad influences. I’ve had many ups and downs in my life and continue to have them, but from as far back as I can remember, I have considered every day as a new adventure and looked forward to what it might bring despite all the bad.
Becoming a millionaire at 23 from working in construction. To lose it all several years later by being obnoxious and by over-trading. To attempted suicide. As a 29-year-old I had come full circle from the boy of 15 who had left school without education. By taking a chance and deciding to go for a walk, with a friend who was trying to help me. My life changed, leading me to become an extreme adventurer, author and motivator.
Self-belief is key
Self-belief is key and we all have the power to change and succeed in life no matter what form it takes. Life can be all about firsts for a person, in many varying ways, which matter to them. On entering the world of extreme adventure, I achieved a number of firsts, becoming the first person in the world to complete the Seven Summits twice by climbing Everest from both its north and south sides. The first Irish person to summit an 8,000-meter mountain without oxygen, the first person to lead an Irish team across Greenland. The first person to lead an Irish team to the South Pole and the first person from the Republic of Ireland to stand on the summit of Mount Everest.
Exploring and managing mindset
It may sound to be boosting but it’s not. Anyone can achieve a first or firsts but only the person themselves can make it happen. From my youth in Cork city’s north side to the joy at standing on the summit of Mount Everest, I had the self-belief that change does happen. A person has to want to explore their negative mindset in an effort to realise they can become who they really want to be. Exploring and managing mindset so that it is your friend and ally, enabling you to live your best life, is what matters.
I paid the price and reaped the rewards for refusing to accept the restrictions society, I felt, were placed on me by my world throughout the decades of my life. The way to succeed is to have goals that you love. To be positive and to surround oneself with positive people is what can ignite change. For more than 30 years I’ve been an adventurer who luckily got another chance at life and seized it with every bit of my being. Life is for living and I’m still learning but anyone can make change happen for the good. Becoming the hero of your own life is what matters.
Accidental Rebel
Accidental Rebel is Pat Falvey’s seventh book, an autobiography, detailing the life of a man who has both paid the price and reaped the rewards. Purchase Book.
