The Iron
Lady
I just watched the movie Iron Lady this
evening ( January 20th) and for anyone who doesn't know what the
movie is about, it’s about Margaret Thatcher the first and only female Prime
Minister of the United Kingdom who smashed through the barriers of gender and class to be heard in a
male-dominated world. I remember hearing the name a lot when I was
a young girl living in Nigeria and the only thing I knew about her was she was very
strict and not liked by a lot of people and that was the perception I had of
her.
Watching
that movie was intellectually stimulating and eye opening. Here was a woman born to a family of grocers
who ended up becoming Prime minister. She believed in hard work and not being idle
as she saw idleness as a sin; which helped her become Prime Minister. She ran
for parliament in 1950 and lost but because one of her philosophy is “you may
have to fight a battle more than once to win it”, she ran again 9 years later,
won and used that as a stepping stone to becoming Prime Minister.
Seeing
what she had to go through to achieve what she wanted has me even more amped to
accomplish my goal as a World Renowned Motivational Speaker. While she was a
bit rigid, I liked that she always embodied the importance of standing up and
saying what she believed in no matter what anybody thought. She says “If you set out to be liked, you should
be prepared to compromise on anything at any time, and you would achieve
nothing”
One
great lesson I learned from watching that movie is to be logical and not
emotional especially when making decisions. There was a scene where she was
asked how she was feeling and her answer was, people don’t think anymore, they
feel. They’re always talking about how they feel. She went on to say “One of the great problems
of our age is that we are governed by people who care more about feelings than
they do about thoughts and ideas, ask me what I’m thinking and I will let you
know”. Although I have read and heard
this several times, it really hit home for me today. “Watch your thoughts, for they become words, watch
your words for they become actions, watch your actions for they become habits, watch
your habits, for they become your character, watch your character for it becomes
your destiny” What we THINK, we BECOME.
I
can already hear someone saying why would I want to be logical rather than
emotional when most of our decisions are made based on our emotions? That’s
exactly my point. We make decisions based off of how we feel and sometimes
because we’re so emotional, they end up being the wrong decision. Let me elaborate.
Have you ever been in a disagreement
with someone and because of the way you felt at that moment, you said something
you shouldn't have and wish you could take back? This is why we need to take control
over our emotions instead of letting our emotions rule us. Now I’m not saying
we should feel no emotion, I’m talking about having control over how we react to our emotions once
we feel them. Like they say “To master ones’ emotions is to
master ones’ self”
The
first step to learn how to master your emotions is to understand that all
emotions serve you then identify what emotion you are experiencing at that
particular moment. This is important because if you’re not sure what kind of
emotion you are experiencing then you will struggle to respond accordingly. To
help you through this step, ask yourself the following questions:
What am I feeling right now?
Am
I really feeling this, or is there something more?
The
greater clarity you have here, the more you will have to work with as you move
through this process.
You
will notice that the more control you have on your emotions, the better
decisions you’ll make. If Margaret Thatcher, who had all the odds against her could
become the first woman Prime Minister, I can and will become a World Renowned
Motivational Speaker. I just have to discipline myself to do what I know is
right and important while taking control of my emotions so I can make logical
decisions.
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