“The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.” — Albert Einstein
How does one begin to change anything?
The 1st level is seeing that there is something one wants to change.
The 2nd level is getting clear on why one wants that change.
The next level from there is being clear what must occur for said change to come to fruition.
Beyond that one must move forward in the steps perceived to create said change.
The master of change is one that is okay if nothing at all changes after all that concerted effort.
Time and again, year over year, I have been guilty of this. Wanting to change.
As a person. As a leader. As a coach. As a man. As a “insert label/title”. In addition to wanting all of that. I also wanted everything else.
You know the story. More money. More love. More success. More achievement. More this. More that. The never ending ‘more’
The trap I have lived in for years is believing all that more will allow me to feel something I could not before. Happy. This is not to say do not want money, love, success and the like.
What it is I am saying is seeing the reasons with which we want it. An inquiry that I more and more bring to the table:
“Why do I want this?”
“What will I make it mean about me and my life if it does not happen?”
Again, nothing wrong with wanting change. But how do you or I feel about the time and space leading up to said change?
Are we enjoying this process of making the money? Are we enjoying the process of creating a burning romance that will stand the test of our time on this earth?
Are we enjoying learning to dance and master our body? Or, is it the other way? For me, the “other way” often has been the:
I’ll be happy when I’m at X amount of revenue in my business
I’ll be happy when I am as proficient at dancing as I am working with my clients
I’ll be happy when I see myself as this tall order image of who I want to become
Notice that I shared the changes I continue to work on in my life. The great opportunity here is to allow enjoyment to exist. I use to believe that enjoyment and goal actualization were mutually exclusive.
I never consciously thought that, nor did those words leave my mouth. However, if you were to look at my moods, my actions and the way you might feel by spending time with me, you would likely feel what I mean.
Like in my last post where I talked about “standing for the &” (I borrowed your ampersand, Kristen Cook)
I unwillingly was living in the belief that I’m either enjoying life or I’m focused on my goals.
It’s weird when I say this now.
It’s weird to see the words and remind myself of the experience that I had been operating under that it was not possible to focus on my goals & enjoy myself while doing so…
Weird. Still weird reading it again.
But that felt true for me because to me the process of creating something was about grinding, striving, and pushing. And of course, I had to have certainty that it was going to work out along the way, or you can forget the idea that I will enjoy myself.
Uncertainty, along with lofty goals, plus enjoyment. No way. You are living on a cloud if you believe that.
I remember when I went through my professional training as an Executive Coach over three years ago and one of the first things I heard was, “trust and enjoy the process.”
That statement annoyed the hell out of me. If I am honest, there are times I hear it from my now coach and spiritual mentor.
And at times, I still hear that little voice that says, “Come on. Really? That’s your go to response to my challenges with the work I am doing.”
I am laughing about this as I write. Because I realize that without some level of trust and enjoyment in what I am doing, whether I achieve or not, I just wasted a bunch of time being anxious, worried, and frustrated while the seconds that do not renew themselves continue to tick away.
With change in mind and all I shared here, the questions that emerges we might choose to live into each day are:
“How can I enjoy this?”
Or even…
“How can I learn to enjoy the process of this?”
In life, there are certainly end goals in mind. Those that are financial, physical, romantic, social, and beyond.
Along the way — We might be finding ourselves feeling frustrated, flat, and downright disappointed with the process that seems to never end.
Maybe that is because we believe we can’t enjoy the way there. Or, it’s the fear we have about what it means if we do not achieve said goal.
I pose this question for anyone reading this, and equally posed to myself — is this really how we want to choose to feel about the use of our one un-renewable resource, time?
