When you’re feeling in your power, that’s the perfect time to Scare yourself-and Grow
Day #7 of 30 Days of Insights, and turning them into actionable wisdom I can use in my life.
My latest insight from being coached:
I’ve had a series of personal breakthroughs over the past couple of months. The most recent one shifted me so much that my past ‘personal ceiling’, what I had been reaching for inside myself, was now my new ‘floor’. It’s a place of wide openness. And I have a new ceiling. I didn’t know it until a couple of days ago, but my new ceiling is much higher than before.
In this glow of expansion, I got an unexpected ‘turn’ to be coached in my weekly coaching group. “Hmmm“ …I thought, “I’m in this great space, I can’t think of anything I want to be coached on right now, but since I’m saying yes to whatever comes my way now days, let’s see what he can get out of me.”
My coach said: “You’re flying, what could I do to make sure you keep flying?” … Bam! I intantly saw that higher ceiling. The idea to reach for the ‘stratosphere’ popped in, like it was calling me.
He continued…”How can I set things up so you hit a thermal and just keep going?” That did it, he had my full attention.
Yes! What do I need to do to go even higher when I am already flying high?
Leveraging your wins
Think about it. You’re empowered by success, open, energized, and swimming in possibility. You have a win underneath you, so you feel grounded, secure, more aware of and confident in yourself and your abilities. That’s jet fuel!
Just because someone is in a great space, doesn’t mean it can’t get bigger-and fast. That ‘great space’ can make bigger possible. Fast can make it Scary. And yet, there is a place way beyond where I’m at, that is calling me.
In creeps the Scary. What do I need to do to blast off? And am I willing to do it? Blast off to where?
“Are you willing to drop the thing that got you here in this great space, where you are now, to get to Stratosphere?”
You can conquer almost any fear if you will only make up your mind to do so. For remember, fear doesn’t exist anywhere except in the mind.
When mindset is dead weight
Was I willing to ignite something new by dropping what has been useful? I saw what has been useful was my current way of thinking. Sticking with what is doable. Is that way of thinking now dead weight? Holding me back?
I saw how easy it was to settle into “I’m feeling good right now, let me just enjoy this”. Maybe I even felt entitled to do that. But what if I could exponentially leverage this new, more open mind and heart set to blast me off in a direction I haven’t imagined yet?
Its so easy to get stuck in comfortable. And from comfortable, when I look at what’s next, I see what’s doable rather than what’s possible. There has to be a willingness to quickly get back into and appreciate uncomfortable. Didn’t I just write about this?
Take advantage of opportunities that show up (and they do) that feel ‘edgy.’
Get busy doing more things that are uncomfortable, that scare me. ‘Test‘ them.
Make a habit of shaking things up. Say ‘yes’ to things I initially resist because it requires me to open my mind and stretch.
OK. Doable got me where I am right now, my ‘focus on what’s doable’ mindset. What is doable is safe, and well, doable, but it isn’t exciting. It doesn’t stir my imagination. ‘Stratosphere’ was not in my ‘doable’ vocabulary. In this new moment, what was true before is no longer true.
I sit with this, let it sink in.
Human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind.
You don’t need to see your exact destination to jump
Then my coach said…” If you were an alien and you were to drop into Ginny’s body and her life circumstances, her experience and what she knows, and this situation was the beginning, what would you do from here? What would you create?”
What would I do if I were an alien, with the raw material of my current life?
Nothing came. Blank. That is the Scary doing that. Yet I could see that the alien would see what to do. And Scary was just a thought.
What i could see was that there is a jet stream to jump into; I saw ‘keep moving, keep creating forward momentum.’ I saw that I don’t really need to know the destination, the ultimate goal. It’s ok if I don’t EXACTLY know where the stream is going. What’s the next level of altitude I can climb into? That’s all I really need to open my eyes and see. The specific direction can be adjusted as I go.
Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
Momentum serves a spacecraft-and you
Very generally speaking, a spacecraft has the basic direction of ‘upward,’ propelled by its rockets. It can only begin the next phase of its journey upward when it drops the rocket that gave it lift off. It drops what made flight possible. Because what got it there will now only hold it back.
The dropping has to come first in order to start the next phase. That’s an act of physics and faith. And now it has to keep momentum or it will fall back to earth. Its committed. All it can do is focus on forward, relying on constant adjustment to manage direction. The Scary is channeled into focusing on what’s next.
Yesterday’s mindset is todays anchor
It was clear its time for me to jettison the mindset that got me where I am, in order to step into the one that will take me where I can go. I’m guessing this current one has been a 2–3X. I have probably only been thinking about doubling or tripling what I’m doing. I want to drop it in favor of one that will take me to at least a 10X level from where I am right now. And that will require a 10X level of thinking. And happily, that is what coaching is for!
Applying this insight
There is no telling how quickly that thinking and action transformation will happen as I let go of my current mindset. And all that takes is continuing to examine what’s really true…and focusing on momentum as I drop this thing. All my attention will be on the action I can take that results in forward movement and continued momentum….No room for Scary.
What creates momentum for me? Brand new places, situations, conversations. Doing more that I don’t know. Doing things, thinking things that are completely different and igniting stuff in me.
I’ll keep feeding this openness. From that place of openess, I will create more conversation and meaningful dialogue with more people in more contexts. Each person is a world of experience and ideas unto themselves. I’ll find stories and information, wisdom and inspiration, all things to create and co-create with. That is how what is calling me will step into the light.
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