a hero’s journey

“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.” Joseph Campbell

Hero‘s Journey

Epic in nature, it is your journey through change and life.  It’s your story and it is about your outer world, the one you see, and your inner world which remains hidden.

As we figure out what we want we have to make choices that involve what we can do and who we are.  The hero’s journey is about discovering who you are to do what you want.

The journey involves facing some of your deepest fears and when you are able to face those fears and battle with making a change then you are able to grow.   Tackling your fears is where having someone with you to identify what is holding you back is beneficial.

 

Where are you in your journey?   Are you struggling and not sure why?  Are you stuck or trapped and need a helping hand?   Are you growing or are you staying put?

“Nobody ever talks about the pyramids that weren’t built, the books that weren’t written, the songs that weren’t sung. Stop letting your fear condemn you to mediocrity. Get out of your own way. Your dreams are a poetic reflection of your soul’s wishes. Be courageous enough to follow them. There is no greater time than now to experience the full power of your potential. Make this the day you take the first step in the beautiful journey of bringing your dreams to life.”
― Steve Maraboli

as things are …

“We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.”
― Anaïs Nin

Illusions … blind spots …we think we know and we don’t.

What do you see here?

A young lady or an old lady?

Our minds don’t see things as they are, it sees things as it believes things to be true.  We have gaps in our ability to see everything around us.   Now if we have visual blind spots we probably have other blind spots as well.  Areas of knowledge that are incomplete.  Beliefs about ourselves that are not true or beliefs we have made up to improve our own self-image.

Our blind spots are often called “weaknesses” areas in our lives that appear as shadows, that are hidden from sight, or we are totally unaware that they exist.  Removing blind spots and illuminating those areas in our lives can produce startling positive outcomes.   We could generate better work in our career.  We could build stronger relationships with others.  We could solve a myriad of problems that have eluded us for a number of years.   We could start seeing what we have not seen before.

Imagine what you could do if you knew where your blind spots are?   Imagine how businesses could start to thrive if they knew what their blind spots are?

Information can turn to knowledge if we seek what we are missing in our lives.  Just the information about our weaknesses are can set us free from a number of things that hold us back from performing our best.

So, it’s not you that experiences or has experienced change blindness.  OK, let’s see what happens.  Watch this.

How did you do?   Now, how many things are you missing in your own life, things that are hidden from you yet in plain sight of those around you?   Imagine being able to see those things, imagine what it would be like.

That is what life/leadership/professional development/relationship/career  coaches do, they work with their clients to discover blind spots.  It can be transformational.

pursue peace

by Christian D. Larson

“Promise Yourself

To be so strong that nothing
can disturb your peace of mind.
To talk health, happiness, and prosperity
to every person you meet.

To make all your friends feel
that there is something in them
To look at the sunny side of everything
and make your optimism come true.

To think only the best, to work only for the best,
and to expect only the best.
To be just as enthusiastic about the success of others
as you are about your own.

To forget the mistakes of the past
and press on to the greater achievements of the future.
To wear a cheerful countenance at all times
and give every living creature you meet a smile.

To give so much time to the improvement of yourself
that you have no time to criticize others.
To be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear,
and too happy to permit the presence of trouble.

To think well of yourself and to proclaim this fact to the world,
not in loud words but great deeds.
To live in faith that the whole world is on your side
so long as you are true to the best that is in you.”

Think of ways to add peace to your life, for your good and for the good of others.   Think of ways to add a good deed to your life for your good and the good of others.  Think of ways to smile at a stranger for your good and for the good of others.  Think of ways to say a kind word to a person who needs to be lifted up for your good and for the good of others.   In this way you’ll find peace in our life for your good and for the good of others.

living with authenticity

“Often misconstrued, authenticity is not about being an open book, revealing every detail of yourself without rhyme or reason. It is simply the act of openly and courageously seeing what needs to be seen, saying what needs to be said, doing what needs to be done, and becoming that which you are intent on being.”
― Scott Edmund Miller

What does it mean to be authentic?

Just answer that question.  What would need to change in order for you to be fully authentic?   Being authentic means being honest with your talents, your strengths, your weaknesses and your assessment of yourself.   Too often people focus on what they think is wrong with them to such a degree that they hide their strengths and abilities.    Give yourself some time to do an assessment and find out what your authenticity score is.  In fact take this assessment (Authenticity Assessment) and see how you are doing with your own personal authenticity.

Why be authentic?

What happens when you pretend to be someone you’re not?   It usually results in an intense personal conflict that shows up in how you work with others, your quality of relationships, your career success and happiness and just about every other area of your life.   People don’t want to be fakes and feel like they have to be fake in order for others to like them and inside they feel like something is really missing.

Living authentically means revealing your true self to the world around you.   It means peeling away the layers that have been built over time to protect the ego.  The authentic you can become the happy you.

What would happen if you could really enjoy the relationships you have with others and restore broken relationships from the past.  How would that feel?

How would it feel to get the job that really matches your abilities and the way you want to work?   For most people it would be a huge relief to do work that had meaning and made a real difference.

Go ahead, take the assessment and evaluate where you are.   What do you want to change?  Take the (Authenticity Assessment) today, it will just a few minutes.

 

being stuck right where I am and liking it

“We are set in our ways, bound by our perspectives and stuck in our thinking.” ― Joel Osteen

Sometimes people seem to be stuck in the past.  I’ve heard people talk about how they want to change up until the moment they have to do something to create a change in their life.  They are stuck right where they are, bad job, bad relationships, bad finances, bad friends, and just about everything is bad from their point of view and they only want to tell people how bad things are.

Stuck!  Stuck right where they are in misery.   They say they want to make a change and can tell you everything that they want to change, or maybe it is that they really want the world around them to change to meet their view of the world.   Imagine that you could get a better job just by complaining about the one you have right now.  Imagine a marriage being fixed by just complaining about it.  Imagine living in abundance just by complaining about it.   For some people that is what they want, complaints that turn into results.    It doesn’t work that way.

Being stuck can be comfortable when the alternative means making a change.   Change requires facing a fear, the fear of something that could go wrong.  Our brains are tuned so strongly to listen to fear that it drowns out the power of a great idea.  “What if I fail?” rather than “When I succeed”.

When we experience failure we have to plow through the whole grief cycle.

1. Denial – this possibly can’t be.
2. Anger – who’s fault is this anyway, certainly can’t be my fault.
3. Bargaining – there must be some mistake here.
4.  Sadness – I’m not sure I want to do anything
5. Acceptance  – Maybe there is an alternative.

How many people want to experience going through the grief process?  It might be that those who are resilient and realize that temporary setbacks are just that temporary, they are learning experiences rather than a statement that says, “I’m not good enough.”

So, what do you do?  What does it take to push through the barriers of fear?  Look for the positive aspects of change rather than being held back by the fear of change.  How fast you progress through the grief cycle will have some impact on your level of happiness.

Do you want to stay stuck or move forward?

the rules of the cave

“Grug: Tonight we’ll hear the story of Crispy Bear. A long time ago this little bear was alive because she listened to her father. So she was happy, but Crispy had one terrible problem.
Grug: She was filled with curiosity. Yes, and one day she saw something new and died!
Thunk: Just like that?
Grug: Yes!
Gran: Same ending as everyday
Thunk: I get it, dad. I will never do anything new or different.
Grug: Good man, Thunk”

From the movie, “The Croods”

“The Croods” turns out to be a movie about change and adventure.   The movie starts out with a caveman family that hides in a cave when anything dangerous happens and relies on the rules of the past to play in a changing world.

If we look at the movie as a reflection on life you can see where many people live with a set of rules designed for the past and they just don’t work for the world today.   It doesn’t mean abandon the past, it does mean exploring, and investigating the current reality.

“The Croods” is an animated story about leadership and how it works and what happens when it fails.  Do we act on ideas or do we hide from them?   Do we take chances and learn and grow or do we hide in our cave?  The movie is about growth and learning.  It is a metaphor for life as it is today, challenging, sometimes difficult and fraught with change.

Is your life filled with “I’ll follow the rules” or are you doing something new each day?  Growth and change are necessary.