Category Archives: pushing boundaries
Make a wish. (Or two.)
When my son and I take walks we look for dandelion heads to “blow wishes.” While we were out the other day I picked mine and asked, “should I wish for something I really-really-really want, or something I’m pretty sure I can get?”
And then it occurred to me that I should pick two and wish for both.
I sometimes think that our wishes are the very things that hold us back. We too often wish for the seemingly impossible, something so far out of today’s grasp, that we don’t even try to grab for it. It’s an impossible wish, right? We’ll never get there, right?
Well, maybe. So why not make two wishes?
First go ahead and wish for the seemingly impossible. Set the bar ridiculously high. Higher than you can achieve today. Higher than you can achieve next year, in 5 years, maybe in a lifetime. Go for an all-out, break-the-bank, a this-would-be-utterly-bleeping-amazing-if-I-got-it kind of wish.
Now wish for something that isn’t too far from your grasp. (Go ahead! Really, this isn’t cheating in the wish department. I promise.) Make a wish for something that you’re pretty sure you can achieve today, or in the next 6 weeks, or in the next 3 months.
Wish, achieve, repeat.
A decade from now look again at your big wish. Did you achieve it? Maybe not. But look back on all the little wishes and see how far they have taken you. Sometimes big wishes are exactly that — big wishes. But more often than not the little wishes become reality, and a sweet one at that.
Leo Burnett once said,
When you reach for the stars you may not quite get one, but you won’t come up with a handful of mud either.
He’s right. So make two wishes. Go.
Keep moving
A few weeks ago I wrenched my back, and the pain became so excruciating that I could barely walk. I went to the chiropractor and he gave me some advice that seemed almost insane at the time — keep moving.
He said to rest when the pain was severe, but to get up as often and move around as much as I could. Walk, bend, whatever I could manage. Don’t push too hard, but keep going. He promised that the more I kept at it, the easier it would become. He warned that if I stayed still too long I would stiffen up; it would be harder to get moving again and it would take longer to heal.
He was right.
The more I moved around, the easier it became. The pain lessened. Today, except for a little twinge now and then, I’m pretty much back to normal life. I worked through and past the pain.
I’m thinking his advice might be good not just for backs, but for life in general. We all get hurt, and feel that we’ll never get past it; we’ll never be “normal” again. We want to curl in a ball with our pain and stay right where we are. Surrender. Give up. It’s too hard. It hurts too much.
But we need to keep moving. Maybe just a little at first, working through as much as we can manage. Don’t push too hard, but keep going. The more we keep at it, the easier it will become. If we stay still too long we’ll stiffen up; it will be harder to get going again and it will take longer to heal.
Work through it and past it. Keep moving.
New beginnings
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
~ Mark Twain
The first day of spring.
Every year I’m amazed at the complete overhaul that Mother Nature miraculously pulls off. Within a short couple of weeks she converts a cold barren landscape into a wonderland of vibrant color, teeming with new life and seemingly boundless energy. A remaking of life with infinite possibilities. Year after year, she embraces the opportunity to do something utterly amazing.
Surely if nature can do it, so can I. So can you.
On this first day of spring I challenge you to take a page from Mother Nature’s book and reinvent your life in some way. Unmoor yourself from the attitudes and fears that are holding you back. Start something today that, twenty years from now, you’ll be glad you did. Push your boundaries. Take some risks. Set sail for an uncharted part of your life and see what you find.
You have only to look out your window for proof that it’s possible. It’s never too late; you’re never too old.
Go. Start a new adventure. It’s waiting for you.
A shovelful of intent
There are two kinds of people in this world. Those that dig holes and those that build mountains.
The hole-diggers focus their energy on removing ground. They push other people into the holes they dig, believing themselves superior because they’re now “above” said person in the hole. In reality they haven’t moved an inch.
The mountain-builders focus their energy on accumulating ground. They pile it up and climb to the top, legitimately reaching greater heights. From this new vantage point they enjoy a clearer view.
Both expend lots of energy in the process; one positively and one negatively.
Which one are you?
Again and again. Again?
I follow the same pattern every morning when I wake up — make coffee, feed the cat, drink coffee, check email, drink more coffee, then off to the shower. I pack my kid’s lunch, fill the dishwasher, and get all the things ready we need on the way out the door in the exact same order. Every night at precisely 8:30 pm I herd the young’un off to the bathroom to brush teeth, put jammies on, and then off to bed for two stories. Every day, the same exact thing.
Boring, right? But it keeps me sane. That’s what routines do. They’re tried and true methods of helping us navigate the more mundane pieces of our lives without having to think too much about it. We switch on to autopilot, which saves our brainpower for the more pressing issues. Familiar routines comfort us, and give us an anchor in an ever-shifting world. In this respect routines are a very useful thing.
The danger is when we mindlessly let routines rule our lives, instead of consciously choosing them as a way to make our lives more manageable. “That’s the way I’ve always done it” is not always the best reason for doing something.
Periodically we need to re-evaluate our daily rituals –are they still useful? Is this really the best way to get things done? Have any of them inadvertently become a negative pattern in my life?
I sat down recently and took a look at some of my own routines. My morning ritual helps me get necessary things done before my brain is fully engaged, so that’s a keeper. So is my habitual baked potato and salad lunch — quick, easy, relatively healthy, and one less decision to make in my day.
I did, however, realize that a couple of them could seriously use some help. My weekly dinner routine could use a facelift; I’m bored with eating the same things week after week and as a parent I really should expand my kid’s culinary horizons. (I know, I just said that I eat the same thing for lunch every day and I’m okay with that. But dinner is a whole different ballgame in my book.) My nightly routine of playing on the computer for an hour or two after my son goes to sleep is encroaching on my decent night’s sleep, so that needs to be adjusted.
I realized that some routines were missing from my life altogether. Exercise is a big one – I really need to start doing that again regularly. Myprevious yoga habit got replaced by other stuff, and I need to get it back into the daily mix. Scheduling in more time to spend with friends and family is also on the list.
Take a look at your daily routines. What still works? What’s broken?
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The future awaits…
Change is the essence of life. Be willing to surrender what you are for what you could become.
Aren’t we all afraid of change, to some degree or another? It’s part of the human condition to seek a stable and predictable world. We all worry about the unknown, and what will happen next. If we decide to do something differently, what might we accidentally and irreversibly put into play?
The funny thing is, our whole existence – our whole universe – is predicated on change. From the day we were conceived until the day we die, “change” is truly the only constant. Our bodies change. Our beliefs and opinions change. Our situations change. Hell, even the weather around us changes on a daily basis. You’d think we’d be OK with it by now.
When things do change (as they inevitably will), we manage to find ways to adapt and adjust. The world doesn’t end, it just becomes a little bit different. We know this. We’ve experienced it a thousand times over. So why do we fight so vehemently against it? Why do we fearfully wait for change to overtake us, instead of running alongside it?
The future awaits, and like it or not it won’t be exactly like today.
What if we didn’t hold on to our familiar ways so tightly, let go a little of our “tried and true” that ultimately has a limited shelf life? Instead of steeling ourselves against it, what if we dove straight into change with both feet?
I’m betting we’d come out on the other side just fine. We’d adapt and adjust. The world wouldn’t end, but it would probably be different. Perhaps different in a way that was far better than we could have imagined.
Potential lies
How often do you lie to yourself? Tell yourself you can do something when you’re not really sure that you can? Maybe you should start.
If you start telling yourself little lies about what you’re capable of, perhaps you’ll start to believe it. Maybe you’ll try something new because of it. Maybe you’ll find out you’re good at it. Maybe not.
Maybe you’ll lie to yourself enough to continue trying, and through doing more you’ll become good at it. Maybe you’ll find that little untruth you told yourself wasn’t so far-fetched after all.
Maybe sometimes you need to tell yourself little lies to uncover greater truths.
The Fallacy of Failure
People don’t try new things because of a fear of failure. But what exactly does it mean to fail?
By definition, failure is “the condition or fact of not achieving the desired end.” Fair enough. But who gets to decide what that desired end is? Your parents? Your boss? Your neighbor down the street? In practice we let the outside world dictate what counts as success or failure, but in truth YOU are the only one who can really make that call.
We put so much stock in lofty goals that the society at large establishes, but that sometimes don’t make sense for us as individuals. We don’t try because we are afraid that we won’t be the best, or the smartest, or the first. Odds are you won’t be the best or the smartest or the first in whatever you set out to do. That’s no excuse not to try.
Just like failure, success is also up to you to define. What if success was as simple as being really good at what you do? As simple as jumping the smaller hurdles along the way to a loftier goal? As simple as simply getting off the sidelines and giving it a shot? Would we be so afraid of failure if we actually made it harder to fail?
Pick your desired ends wisely, and failure is not an option.
The First Step to Achieving Escape Velocity (in 6 easy steps)
“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” – Albert Einstein
Acheiving “escape velocity” is something that’s being talked about a lot lately. Mostly it’s in the entrepreneurial sense; strategies for gaining enough support, cash flow and general oomph that allows you to break free from your current situation and launch you onto your new career path of choice. Even Chris Brogan talked about it recently on his blog, which you can read here. With escape velocity as anything else, you’ve got to start somewhere, and I think that’s part of the conversation that’s being missed. How exactly do you start? Well, you could learn more about your chosen path, talk to some people who have already gone that direction, start scouting out funding sources — all very valid suggestions. But where do you really start?
One of the most important first steps — no wait, THE MOST IMPORTANT first step — in the process is changing your own mindset. It doesn’t matter if you’re changing careers or just trying to break a bad habit, this is where it all starts. You need to stop thinking like a “_____” to stop being one. Now I’m not talking about the overly generalized “think like a winner, be a winner” motivational pep-talk stuff, I’m talking about really taking a critical soul-searching look at yourself and where you want to go, and then creating an action plan for change. It takes time and it takes effort, but it is doable.
The first step to achieving escape velocity (in 6 easy steps)
- Create an avatar. Make up a fictional character, the embodiment of someone who has achieved “escape velocity” as you define it. No, really — I’m serious! See this person in your mind in glorious detail. Give him or her a name. Draw a picture of them if you have to, but make them as real as possible for you.
- Make a list of your Avatar’s traits and behaviors. Write down anything and everything you can to really flesh out a description of who this person is and how they act. Is your avatar happy and outgoing? Willing to help others? Well-read? Disciplined? Willing to take risks? How big of a risk? What kinds of questions does he ask? What kinds of people does he hang out with? What does he do in a crisis? How does he act in particular situations? What time does he like to eat dinner? What does his diet consist of? How many hours of sleep does he need? No detail is too small or bizarre to include at this point. (Just keep in mind that we want this person to be awesome but still human – leave “ability to fly” and “can bend steel with power of thought” off the list.)
- Now make a list of your traits and behaviors. Do they match up to your avatar’s? Of course not — if you were already that awesome you’d already be living your dream life. But don’t despair, because here’s where we start to connect the dots.
- Create a plan for change. Line up your traits one-for-one against those of your Avatar; you now have a working list of “disconnects” between the current you and the person you want to be. Now you have a concrete list of things that need to be tweaked or changed to move you from Point A to Point B. Don’t be put off by the length of the list; we’ll get to that next.
- Slice your plan into actionable steps. Rank your list from quickest and easiest to those that will be the hardest for you. Also make note of those that will be most time/resource consuming.
- Blast Off! Start with the easy stuff — accomplishing a few changes and being able to check them off your list will help build your confidence and keep you motivated for more. Also pick one moderately hard thing to start working on now; working your way through the challenge will give you a real sense of accomplishment.
As you work your way through the list, remember that change can be hard, and sometimes really uncomfortable. That’s okay — the more you practice the easier it will become. The more you succeed, the more you’ll want to try. The goal is to get you unstuck and moving on that path towards the person you want to be. Don’t stay so focused on the end point that you miss the fun of the journey; no matter how fast or slow you progress just keep moving forward and you’ll get there. :-)
