Sometimes It Takes A Little Courage
Here we are, one day away from a new year.
2018. Part of me sees that number and just goes: “Wow.”
As in: “How did that happen so quickly? When did we get to 20… anything?” And there’s a little calculation of my age in there too.
But when I interrupt all of that, which is standard new year’s fare, I really can marvel.
When I interrupt all of that and think about what has changed for me in 2017, I am more in WOW than usual.
In my last post I suggested a way to do a mini year in review, and I’ve been playing along as well.
And in some ways the results are predictable. There are big parts of 2017 I will be delighted to let go of. But there are also big parts that I just kind of stare at in wonder. I’m amazed at the changes I see in myself. I amazed at the changes I see in my business. I’m amazed at the changes I see in my relationships. Wow.
And so I enter this arbitrary restart point that is new year’s eve with the confidence and courage that really pushing yourself can bring. I’ve been doing the work (inside and out) and things are changing. And I’ve noticed that even when they don’t work out just the way I expect, they still get better. I see my own growth. I see my own progress. I can note how my learning, effort, planning, and time have changed my life for the better.
So I can come to my vision for the next year with some sense that whatever I’m dreaming up IS possible. I’m coming to this moment with a whole lot more “YES” than I’ve been willing to give in the past. I’m willing to take risks, work hard, and possibly even fail because when I do those things, my life is better. I feel better. Everything gets better.
It was not always this way for me. At some point in the not so distant past, I had to face this moment without the confidence that experience can bring. I had to face having a vision, a new idea for my life, a new hope with huge uncertainty in anything but my inability to accomplish what I imagined. I faced that moment with tremendous fear and a sinking feeling that it would never work.
If you feel that way when you look into the future, if you see no chance for change in your year to come, I want to tell you that you are wrong. And I’m going to ask you to take action anyway.
I get the impression that a lot of people think that courage is the absence of fear. We think that we need to somehow conquer our fear, banish it, overcome it. I’m going to suggest to you that courage is simply acting even though you are afraid. That’s it. That’s all it is, a decision to do it anyway.
There are lots of ways to go about this. You can imagine that your fear is a small suffering animal that needs you to be compassionate to it before you act anyway. You can imagine a chair where you can tell fear to go sit while you do the scary things. You can imagine that your fear can just exist and that you can notice it and allow it to be without doing anything at all about it. Or you can just be absolutely terrified and just proceed.
And then you will be acting, with courage, and creating the confidence you need to do it again simply by making that choice.
What would you do in 2018 if fear wasn’t driving the bus? What would you say yes to? What action can you take today that will give you the confidence to take another action tomorrow?
If you need some help creating courage or acting on your vision, I sure would love to help.
In discussing this time with Oprah, Ms. Arie said that she realized that in her early incarnation in the music business, she was not living her own life, but was rather inhabiting the one her mother wanted for her. She was doing all of the things she knew her mother would want her to do so she could have all of the things she knew her mother would want her to have. She was living her mother’s imagined daughter’s life. BAM. It was a revelation that pointed the way to an obvious set of next steps, starting with figuring out what she wanted independent of all of that.
I didn’t have the maturity or wisdom or emotional honesty to realize that I had done it to myself. A pushy parent or overbearing spouse can only go so far in taking us away from our path, as demonstrated by the fact that I had neither. To really diverge from our path, we have to submit to the desires of others (including the desires we imagine they have) and resist our own inclinations. We have to subvert our internal wiring and discipline ourselves thoroughly. We have to stop living our own lives and live someone else’s. Having a deeper, fuller, more satisfying time on this earth requires us to live our own lives.