Tag: Success

Posted on in Personal Thoughts

My Journey Is My Own

The next question that came was, “Do you enjoy helping others?” My first thought was a curiosity of other perspectives. Do people think my work is all about helping others? Do people think my goal is to help people? What an interesting idea.

I don’t try to help others. It’s not my goal, or my intention, or my reason for doing what I do. Admittedly, my process often does help in terms of providing insight or resources. I believe if I approached my work with the goal of helping others, I would fail often. That’s a lot of pressure with little direction.

I believe there is a process of becoming, an unfolding of authentic identity that must occur for purpose and passion to meet. I did not embark on my journey to help others. I did it to help me. I did not sign up for college classes or earn degrees with the thought of how someone else could be more successful. I did it to acquire new knowledge that was aligned with my deepest values and to navigate my own beliefs, fears, and possibilities. I never embraced a role, a job, or a duty to be nice or helpful. I did it because I knew without a doubt I was where I belong, and it would create momentum for the next leap.

Who I am and what I do are aligned, intertwined, and inseparable. Along the way to get where I am now, there were many levels, many upgrades, plenty of challenges, and so much to learn! Here’s the thing; I’m not done growing and I’m going to keep going! I love where I am but I know there is more for me. I don’t always know what my presence will mean to someone else, but I know that if I show up where I am meant to be as myself, it will be powerful, meaningful, and moving. I wish for everyone to reach this understanding and move into authentic being. Imagine what the world could be like!

Posted on in mindset, personal development

Planned Failure

Welcome to January 2023! It’s officially the prime time for goal desertion and resolution repo. A lot of folks came running into the new year with lofty ambitions and shiny new goals and they will start to discard them right about now. I could tell you all about why new year resolutions are a bad idea and how to do more with less. In fact, I might just do that, but not here and not today.

Today I am going to share a concept with you that I teach to my clients. One that amplifies the success of any goals you might want to achieve. Let’s talk about planned failure. If you are a perfectionist, the title alone might make you cringe, but you are exactly the kind of person that needs this. So often, I talk to people who never start a project or idea because they are afraid to fail. It might be starting a new business, or hobby, or journaling, or crafting art, whatever the target may be they never even start at go. Why is this true so often? Fear of failure is a real monster that kills all sorts of potential before it’s even born.

Good news! I have the remedy for that fear. It’s called planned failure. When you initiate something planning to fail, success is inevitable. This is true because if the worst potential outcome is realized then you’ve hit the mark you were aiming for, but if you do better than you expect your success is on a different level. Rather than holding a standard that you can’t fail, you can literally make failure the standard and then you can only succeed!

This concept was born in my life a couple decades ago when I played pool for the first time. Even now, I am not an exceptional pool player. For some reason, the first time I played I felt ridiculous pressure to be good. Something about the poker face of other players was intimidating and made me try too hard. Call it young naivety. So of course, I failed miserably and felt embarrassed. Then when I found myself wanting to play in a casual setting, I just started announcing that I was no good and would likely lose the game. With that low bar set, when I actually hit the ball I was aiming for or actually made a pocket, it was a huge success! It was also highly entertaining to friends who were experienced players.

I repeated this planned failure in my artistic pursuits. When I started painting with new tools or new ideas, I prepared for the outcome of nothing spectacular. I used lower value supplies and set my intention to be experimental with no need to perfect any part of my process. Sometimes I make uninteresting chaos but sometimes I make really cool art. The old perfectionist in me would have whined over wasted materials, wasted time, and wasted talent- if I couldn’t be good at all times. Now I don’t believe in waste. Even if I got an insignificant end result, I learned about the process. I might have learned how pouring paint feels, or how pressure on an airbrush needs to change to control the stream. All modes of learning are good in their own power.

So stop avoiding living your life over a fear that has no power over you. Fail! Do the thing and love the process as much as the outcome. If you practice planned failure, you will certainly level up in life.

Posted on in personal development, Spirituality, Success

Embodiment

What do you think of when you hear the word “embody“? The idea of embodiment involves giving a physical form or expression to something. We can embody a value through personification. It has to do with tangible expression. I want you to think of it as simply experiencing your existence through your physical body.

Assuming you are a human reading this, you are a physical being. You are a body, illuminated with life, with the ability to experience living through your senses. We have senses that come through our physical organs, mind and soul. If you are not grounded in your body and aware of your senses, you may potentially miss a lot of the experience of living.

Humanity is privileged with organized thought. The mind is a powerful tool that advances us through both societal progression and personal development. However, a pitfall of the mind is getting caught up in your headspace. People are chronic overthinkers. The responsibilities we’ve created lead to stress which leaves us overthinking more and less embodied. I’m on a mission to change that.

Embodiment is the experience of feeling what you touch, or what touches you. It is seeing what’s in front of you, listening to comprehend, tasting what nourishes you, and so much more. It is an awareness of how your body responds to your environment. It is the presence of emotion, awareness of meaning, and understanding how to respond. It is how you experience the world around you and yourself.

This is such an exciting and powerful topic. Every week I work with individuals on the process of embodiment and how to build these skills. I’ve seen it work to reduce stress, reduce pain, increase happiness, discover passion, heal relationships, and increase quality of life, work, and success. If you want to develop your skills and realize your own embodiment journey, let’s connect.

Posted on in personal development

Are you afraid to fail?

One thing I do is help people recognize and then overcome fear. Almost everyone I speak with has some sort of fear. Usually, fear appears tangibly through anxiety or depression. To put some perspective to this; if I talk with just 20 people each week that is over 1000 people in the course of a year. Over the years I have spoken with thousands of individuals.

The most common fear I encounter is the fear of failure. To not be good enough, to not do enough, to lose a relationship, to lose a job, to not make it far enough in a career, to mess up as a parent and ruin a child; there are so many ways that people believe they could fail. What is failure, really?

What if I told you the only way to fail is to give up or self sabotage by never starting at all? Anything you really want out of life can be yours. Rarely do we achieve anything instantly. Life requires commitment, patience, perseverance, and follow through. Do you cringe at those words? Many people do. If those are the attributes to success, why do so many people avoid them?

It is because You are afraid to succeed. That is the true fear. You cannot be afraid to fail unless you expect to fail. You cannot fail if you learn, grow, and continue to try. So in reality, the fear of failure is actually the fear of success. What would success mean to you? Would it require more time, attention, and energy of you? Would success mean living up to a higher standard? Would success mean personal responsibility?

Think of someone you admire. What qualities do they have that attract you? I would expect that anyone you view as successful and admirable would possess some particular character traits. I am willing to bet they are committed, patient, perseverant, responsible, and organized with their time and energy. So how does one get from a state of fear to a state of success?

It’s all about mindset. What you believe, you will be. Remember the post I wrote on thought seeds? Everything begins in the thought realm. There is power in what you think and anything you continue to think repeatedly becomes your belief. Success or failure is completely within your control.