Last week’s introduction of The Habit of Facing It To Fix It must have resonated with a number of folks because the phone started ringing shortly after the blog was posted and has continued to do so ever since.

Many of those who called did so to share with me the years of their lives they spent with their heads deeply buried in sand, vehemently denying to themselves, and others, the existence of challenges and difficulties in their lives.

Several callers told of their immense feelings of shame at the situations they found themselves in and that choosing to ignore The Habit of Facing It To Fix It was preferable to having to stare into a mirror and admit to having problems larger than their ability to mend them.

The old adage “we can’t fix what we don’t acknowledge” is a powerful truism that serves to remind us that pretending gravity does not exist will never prevent us from being struck on the head by objects we throw into the air.

As I listened to several of the callers sharing their years of anguish caused by them resolutely choosing to continuously suffer the stress, pain, hardship and often, embarrassment caused by their unique situation, they all acknowledged they did so for the sole reason of not wanting the world to know that behind the façade they presented to the universe each day, resided a fearful, weak and desperate soul frantically wishing for a miracle.

If it is true that we do what we do either to gain pleasure or to avoid pain then each of these folks admitted that as painful as their individual challenges were, they all felt that the pain of facing these challenges in order to fix them, would be even greater.

Consequently, they selected the long-term pain of ongoing struggle over the short-term pain of facing the demons head on in order to stare them down and rid themselves of further anguish.

Today, each of those callers has adopted The Habit of Facing It To Fix It and in so doing are enjoying happiness and abundance.

They shared with me the wonderfully cathartic feelings of freedom they experienced the very moment they came to understand that you truly can’t fix what you want to acknowledge and faced up to their challenges, thereby taking the first steps to fixing and overcoming them.

The Habit of Facing It To Fix It is not easy to adopt. Most things that are worthwhile seldom are easy, but every person I spoke with was united in their conviction that The Habit of Facing It To Fix It must reside within each of us if we are to have any hope of slaying the dragons that breathe their fire of misery into our very souls.

These sharing folks assured me shame and embarrassment are simply symbols of false pride and that there is no weakness in admitting weakness. Instead there is great weakness in denying it.

If regret is in any way a worthwhile emotion, each of these folks expressed regret that the time and amount of pain and discomfort they subjected themselves to before gathering the courage to face up to the demons, and then finally rid themselves of these demons completely.

I am grateful to each of these wonderful people who took time to call for with every conversation came a lesson that will stand me in good stead for many years.

Perhaps the most important lesson of all was this: Challenges will seldom go away by themselves and the quickest, least painful and most practical way to move them from our present into our past is to face up to them and then fix them.

It is no wonder The Habit of Facing It To Fix It has such a large fan club.

This truly is a life-changing habit.

Let’s make a habit of meeting like this.