The chasid Reb Yaakov Shalom Freund zt'l said in a tefillah to Hashem, "I am not asking You for what You don't have; I am asking You what You do have. And I am not asking for something hard; I am asking for something easy. Give us a good year."
A poor man would go to the local butcher at the end of the day, and the butcher would kindly give him the leftover meats. Generally, it was the hearts and brains of the animals, the parts that most people don't want to buy. One evening, the butcher told him that no hearts or brains were left. They were sold out that day. The poor man said to Hashem, "Ribono Shel Olam! What do I ask from you? Just for a drop of heart. Just for a drop of brains!" He turned the conversation into a tefillah.
In the Rosh Hashanah machzor, on the second day, after Zichronos, there's a tefillah that begins with these words, אדאג במעשי אפחד לזכרון בבואו דין ביום אירא עת בכל, "I am afraid because of my bad deeds, I am worried all the time. I am afraid when my deeds will be reviewed before Hashem on the day of judgment."
In Elul, the Belzer Rav zt'l would often repeat these words, and he would say them in a haunting, yamim nora'im tune. And then he would say (in the same tune), "The Rambam paskens that we must do teshuvah, and the Raavad doesn't disagree. What will be the תכלית, what will be the סוף?"
These are examples of how we can arouse ourselves to tefillah. We should invest in Tehillim and the Selichos, and it is good to find time to invest in tefillah in our own words, as well. It is the season for tefillah, and we should utilize this powerful tool to its fullest.
