ONE STEP AT A TIME

I took the StrengthsFinder2.0 test about six months ago, and "Activator" was identified as one of my five signature themes (a signature theme is a natural talent that can become a strength with the right combo of knowledge & skills ).  Here is the description of the activator theme: 

When can we start?” This is a recurring question in your life. You are impatient for action. You may concede that analysis has its uses or that debate and discussion can occasionally yield some valuable insights, but deep down you know that only action is real. Only action can make things happen. Only action leads to performance. Once a decision is made, you cannot not act. Others may worry that “there are still some things we don’t know,” but this doesn’t seem to slow you. If the decision has been made to go across town, you know that the fastest way to get there is to go stoplight to stoplight. You are not going to sit around waiting until all the lights have turned green. Besides, in your view, action and thinking are not opposites. In fact, guided by your Activator theme, you believe that action is the best device for learning. You make a decision, you take action, you look at the result, and you learn. This learning informs your next action and your next. How can you grow if you have nothing to react to? Well, you believe you can’t. You must put yourself out there. You must take the next step. It is the only way to keep your thinking fresh and informed. The bottom line is this: You know you will be judged not by what you say, not by what you think, but by what you get done. This does not frighten you. It pleases you.

I had to laugh because 1) this is dead-on and 2) as much as I appreciate my action-oriented nature, it has a tendency to take on a life of its own! I start wheeling and dealing in two seconds time and before I know it, I've bypassed enjoyment and am onto the next thing. Can you relate?

Well, this week something big happened: I finalized a long awaited move to San Francisco! I sat down with my boss, asked for what I wanted, and it turned out wonderfully. But I immediately dove into logistics (taxes/tenants/SF roommates/travel) and next steps. At 4:00am, I awoke in a panic about whether I would apply to business school in October 2014. How will my move impact my admission odds? How will this decision affect my career choices? How/when will I find the time to revisit the GMAT? Am I playing it safe by opting for business school? Will not attending business school preclude me from a dream job someday, somewhere? You can see how this would kill the excitement.

If I've learned anything from my 2 year+ mindfulness journey, it's that small victories matter. In fact, small victories MAKE a life; they need to be experienced and celebrated. One step at a time! My move to SF is one such victory, so I'm wrestling the activator in me and trying to stew in the satisfaction of a new adventure. Action will be required soon enough.

SO cheers to the small victories - to asking for what you want, a meaningful conversation, a compliment, the act of standing up for yourself, a delicious meal, a great run, the perfect gift, a deep laugh, the acknowledgment of how far you've come! These are the moments that add up to a life.

Let's take it one step at a time...

Pick-Me-Ups

Some things that have been inspiring me recently...

Danielle LaPorte's credo for making it happen

Takeaways: The ENTIRE pep talk. AND this lovely excerpt: "a beginner's mind is an open mind, and an open mind innovates," which is an important reminder for young people and entrepreneurs!

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Susannah Conway's brilliant take on the beauty of aging

Takeaways: Impermanence, and no feeling is final. 

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Michael Sam's courageous act of owning his story

Takeaways: Tell your own story, and inspire others in the process. 

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Beyonce's "Grown Woman" music video

Takeaways: Dance, creativity, & sass

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Justine Musk on joy

Takeaway: Joy is an exercise of courage.

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Face time with loved ones

Takeaway: Gratitude

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Jonathan Fields' 10 Commandments of EPIC Business

Takeaway: The aspiration to build a business with SOUL

Pick-Me-Ups

I've decided to make this a recurring post to honor the many muses in my life, so here are some gems that have been resonating with me lately... Gail Larsen's incredible book Transformational Speaking (highly recommend!) & the concept of original medicine as discussed here:

We each have a singular set of gifts and talents that define our role in change. Indigenous cultures call our natural attributes and abilities our "original medicine." No one is more special than another, but each unique expression is essential and irreplaceable. In a society that more often encourages us to fit in rather than stand out, the process of excavating and revealing our originality is an essential step to fully experiencing and expressing our true power. Knowing and accepting your medicine is core to expressing your personal power, strength, and understanding.

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Tara Mohr's five questions for 2014:

1. What have you always believed about yourself that life is showing you may not be true?

2. Where do you complicate life by turning outward for advice instead of trusting the answer within?

3. What's scary and what's thrilling about trusting yourself more immediately and more often?

4. What kinds of self-care truly feel like self-care to you (and not like a self-care to-do list)?

5. Where in your life might less (less effort, work, time perfection, research, activity, etc.) actually be more?

#2 and #3 feel especially important for me right now! Tara is hosting a call TONIGHT at 7pm EST to walk through this exercise if you're interested.

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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's TED talk on the problematic single story:

p.s. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is also featured in Beyonce's song "Flawless" (around 1:00).  Don't miss Adichie's TEDxEuston talk on how we should all be feminists.Thanks to both women for being awesome and claiming feminism!

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Danielle LaPorte on friendship & making the trip (or as she so eloquently states "getting off your ass for love")

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Loneliness in a connected world:

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My word for 2014: COURAGE

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Meeting Failure & Disappointment

Fear of failure. Fear of disappointment. We know them well. They can keep us from making important changes, from standing up for ourselves and others, from pursuing work/travel/hobbies that really speak to us. But Mark Nepo offers a wise way to meet the fears of "not getting what we want" in his beautiful book Seven Thousand Ways to Listen:

We are taught early on that to have ambition and to work toward it is how we contribute to the world and move ahead. In and of itself, this is true. But along the way, we often incubate a self-centeredness that breeds like bacteria in the dark corners of our psyches and something else happens. We begin to associate getting what we want with success and not getting what we want with failure. We begin to expect that we can will things to happen, that we have some right to control events. We are deemed skillful if we can steer people without their knowledge. Soon we wake with a sense of entitlement: that we have a right to have things go our way; a right to get what we want; a right to steer people and events toward our will.

Of course, life has other things to say about all this. Sooner or later, everyone will face not getting what they want. How we respond to this unavoidable moment determines how much peace or agitation we will have in our lives. This is the moment that opens all others, for our acceptance of things as they are and not as we would have them allows us to find our place in the stream of life. Free of our entitlements, we can discover that we are small fish in the stream and go about our business of finding the current.

This deeper chance to shed our willfulness does not preclude our sadness and disappointment that things aren't going the way we had imagined. But when we stay angry and resentful at how life unfolds beyond our will, we refuse the gifts of being a humble part in the inscrutable Whole. (...)

When we can stop blaming others or nature or God for not getting what we want and be honest about what this inevitable rearrangement does to us, then humility and compassion are possible. (...)

Eventually we are asked to undo the story we have been told about life - or the story we have told ourselves - so we might drop freshly into life. For under all of our attempts to script our lives, life itself cannot be scripted. 

This passage brought two important things to light for me:

1. I have, in fact, spent most of my life believing that I could will things to happen. It sounds ridiculous and laughable when I put that down on paper, but it's true. The acknowledgment and release of that belief is nothing short of liberating. I can hold myself responsible for my actions, but that is where my responsibility ends. Life involves multiple parties, and after I do my part, I've got to let the rest go.
2. I believed that life could be scripted. Theoretically I understood that things could change in an instant - that I could lose someone I loved, that I could fall ill. Nevertheless, I harbored a misguided belief that if I lived my life in a certain manner, I had a right to a particular kind of life - a scripted life.

And I don't think I'm alone.

We often experience failure as a form of punishment - as if we should have been able to secure our desired outcome if only we had done X,Y, and Z. But when outcomes involve others' cooperation (individuals or organizations), it's important to understand what lies outside of our sphere of influence. And surrender.

We're Not So Different, You and I...

We have become brilliant at performing for one another - at wearing our masks of success, beauty, genius, adventure, spontaneity. We perform in the pursuit of connection - to fit in, to belong -  but ultimately at the expense of connection. We, as a society, have never felt more alone.

I worry about us. Government shutdowns, economic uncertainty, random acts of violence. Fear is in the air. Fear drives extremism. I'M RIGHT, YOU'RE WRONG. SHUT UP. Fear drives anxiety - that edge/tight chest/gnawing feeling that makes us a little less empathetic, tolerant, and kind. Fear drives polarization and social and political paralysis. No handouts! No rights for you or you! We are left grasping for certainty, for something to hold onto.

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It's perfectly human to look at someone else's life and think "must be nice." I'm certainly guilty of it. But the appeal is an illusion; it lies in the fact that we haven't been lugging around his or her baggage for our whole lives - the hard days, the heartbreaks, the losses. We come to the world with one experience, our story, and it's a mixed bag. Well, so is everyone else's.

However, when we perform for others, we suffer silently. They suffer silently. We, as a society, forget that certain rules apply to us all:

1. Suffering is a shared human experience. We are not alone in our pain. We are not defined by our pain. It is an inescapable part of life.
2. Uncertainty produces fear and anxiety. We live in an inherently uncertain world. Sometimes we will feel afraid. Sometimes we will feel anxious. That is OK.
3. Rejection hurts. Because...
4. We are hardwired for connection. We are not made to go it alone. Your community/relationships may look different than mine, but love and belonging are fundamental human needs.
5. Love heals. Not just romantic love. Self love. The love of family, friends, colleagues, peers.

In times of great uncertainty, we have each other. We need each other. It's positive sum.

Uncertainty = Possibility

The experience of uncertainty is uncomfortable; sometimes it's downright excruciating! Navigating uncertainty requires patience, open-mindedness, and trust, but the problem is we do NOT trust uncertainty. No, sir! We like to plan for and anticipate our life events. We have timelines and strategies. We like to call the shots.

However, life offers no guarantees (with the exception of death, of course). Perpetual uncertainty has always been a part of the human experience despite our best efforts to deny it, and much of our suffering stems from resisting uncertainty by playing it safe, bracing ourselves for the worst, or trying to control people and/or situations.

So onto the good news...

Pema Chodron, a brilliant spiritual teacher, has a more loving take on uncertainty. She refers to uncertainty as "fundamental openendedness." I love Pema's frame because an openended life implies a life ripe with possibility. If there are no guarantees, anything could happen. In fact, the freedom from guarantees allows us to be more creative and daring as we define our respective paths. It allows us to shed those limiting stories about our lives that we've carried for far too long. In this sense, uncertainty is liberating.

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What are you waiting for right at this very moment?

The job? The promotion? The move? The relationship? The acceptance letter? The first home? The first child?

Waiting can be so uncomfortable; it even has the power to make us physically ill. We often believe that if we JUST knew how this one little thing would pan out, everything else would be OK. But we're kidding ourselves. Instead, we quickly divert our attention to the next thing - the next milestone. The waiting begins again, the what ifs? overwhelm us, and we think to ourselves, "man, I'll feel so much better as soon as I have resolution on this one last thing." And in that moment, we sincerely believe that one more resolution - one more piece of certainty - will curb our appetite for more. But then there's the next thing....

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Life is a waiting game. The stakes get higher, and the uncertainty is perpetual. BUT uncertainty doesn't have to be the enemy; it could, in fact, serve us well. Maybe it will empower us to exceed our own expectations of what is possible for our lives? Maybe it will remind us that if nothing is guaranteed, we essentially have nothing to lose?

Anything could happen.

Personal Growth Is Not Linear

I write about a number of big concepts (fear vs. love, authenticity, worthiness), and I'll be the first to admit that putting them into practice is no simple task. It's easy to feel defeated when it seems as though we've taken a step back (by lashing out, staying silent, causing harm to others, causing harm to ourselves). But the truth is growth is not linear. Setbacks should be expected and acknowledged as an important part of the process. There are good days and bad days. One day we feel grounded, committed to self-acceptance, tolerant of uncertainty. The next day we feel overwhelmed, frustrated by our lack of progress, fearful of the unknown. And the pendulum swings.

As we begin to interrupt old patterns of thought and action, we'll likely feel some high high's and low low's, and that is just fine. We have to build our endurance to live authentically. It takes courage, commitment, and patience, but like any consistent workout routine, it gets easier over time. Ultimately these practices become our new baseline, and we move forward to accept the next challenge.The key is to start where we are (which varies day to day) and be gentle to ourselves.

Navigating Rejection

One of my favorite speakers at the World Domination Summit shared a beautiful story about rejection - how he faced it, felt the pain of it, and ultimately embraced it. Here are a few of the best moments from Jia Jiang's talk:

I ran away from rejection , and I ended up rejecting myself. 

Rejection is nothing more than an opinion. 

What if I didn't ask?

If you act, you will not be ignored.

Watch it here:

[vimeo http://vimeo.com/70167462]

The bottom line: act on love, not fear. Actions fueled by love will allow you to follow your intuition and pursue your boldest dreams. Actions fueled by fear will have you settle for the mediocre/comfortable/uninspiring. Self rejection is far more dangerous than rejection from others. If you reject yourself, your body and soul will continue to scream for more...because you deserve more.