"Those who are victorious plan effectively, and change decisively. They are like a great river that maintains its course, but adjusts its flow. They have form, but are formless. They are skilled in both planning and adapting, and need not fear the result of a thousand battles: For they win in advance, defeating those who have already lost." — Sun Tzu
I am well aware that there is nothing new under the sun, and that most of what I perceive to be 'original' ideas are actually my musings and reinterpretations of what I have read, been taught, talked about with others. This quote, which so powerfully expresses why it is vital to have a vision for one's life, is from The Art of War by Sun Tzu, which I read over twenty-five years ago. It made sense then, and it makes even more sense today.
Yes, it is talking about being victorious, as if it relates mainly to war. But I believe there is a direct correlation between his concepts and the struggles we all face in carving our way through life.
It reminds me of another quote, this one from Norman Vincent Peale, "if you wake up one morning without a problem, you better get on your knees and pray for one, because if you don't have a problem, you're dead!"
Life is about problems, working through them, overcoming adversity, meeting challenges and continuing to grow through it all. The moments of pleasure and peace are fleeting, because another challenge is ever present for us to experience. In fact, this is one of the main topics I work on with most of my coaching clients. They create the fantasy that they will do some heavy duty work, mentally, emotionally and/or physically, and from that will 'arrive' somewhere, where things will be easier.
If you step back and observe your actual life, you will see that each point of achievement brings the next challenge. This process of struggling through to moments of joyful enlightenment and an 'aah' or 'yeah, got it' is never ending. As Demartini frequently says, we cannot finite the infinite. There is no point of enlightenment to reach--at least I can attest to that being true for my human experience. Each ‘outcome’ is the ‘become’ of the next challenge.
We can’t wait to grow up and find true love, a life partner. Then we get engaged and deal with all the issues of learning how to couple with someone. We get married and suddenly have to live together! We have children, fulfilling a dream of creating a family, and then we have to raise them!
The more we grow, the more we see what there is to learn. But we cannot truly grow without a plan, a vision of where we're going. That is what I get from Sun Tzu's idea of a river maintaining its course but adjusting its flow--having form but being formless.
The challenge of being a Life Entrepreneur is to do this consciously. Live each day with a semblance of self-awareness, self-direction, a self-imposed program of Quality Control, using all the great teachings of W. Edwards Deming by creating a system of continuous improvement in our lives. It works in manufacturing, why wouldn't it work in creating the life we would love to live?
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Life Entrepreneurs Reach Out and Ask for Help
I woke up this morning doing my little guilt trip on myself about not writing in my blog for a month, feeling out of sorts, wondering why about a lot of things I'm experiencing. The good thing was that my eyes popped open at 8 am, meaning I had slept really well. Being a sort of night owl, I don't usually go to sleep until after midnight, so that meant I clocked at least seven hours and didn't wake up once! Could that mean something? Am I more settled inside? Enough to actually rest?
The past eight months were very unsettling for me. I discovered a major financial disaster around the first of June and spent the next three months crawling out of emotional hell. It seemed that everything I believed about myself blew up in my face. I lost my sense of confidence, doubted whether I would ever be able to make a "right" decision again, and had trouble doing the everyday things like breathing, eating, sleeping, talking to people.
I reached out to coaches and friends little by little, and slowly started to gain some inner stability. I used every bit of knowledge and experience I had to stop panicking and keep breathing. I felt like I was walking around with a big L for loser on my forehead. Cosmic joke: no one else felt that way about me. I actually found the opposite reaction from family and friends. They told me by my feeling so humble and going through such difficult times it made me seem more accessible to them, more real somehow. I had no idea I was sending out the vibe of "having it all together" but it seems that many saw me that way.
I even had clients and students who told me that they felt they had even more to learn from me after seeing me walk through such a challenging time. They felt I would understand and relate to them better because of it.
It is interesting to me how important it is to perceive those around us as just as human as we are. And also how little we really know about how others perceive us. We spend so much time trying to come across as having ourselves together, not realizing that might actually be a turn-off to others!
But to get back to my opening comments, waking up this morning, I found the unsettled feelings running rampant, so I called my "inspiration point" Lida, and just hearing her voice helped me feel more "here" and able to ground myself. We had a good talk, not about dire or urgent things, more about the daily things--our kids, our grandchildren, handling health issues. I am so grateful to have this person in my life to share my daily things with, and I know she feels the same.
I still didn't want to get out of bed, so I knew I wasn't ready. And I called another friend I don't see that often and we shared our plans for her next visit to Dallas, how we are feeling about things, what to do about her cat throwing up on her comforter.....all the really important things about daily living.
That is the kind of reaching out and asking for help I do lately--staying connected to my dearest friends and getting the support, challenge, encouragement and advice I need to work through the day. I can't imagine who I would be without it.
In my travels through life, carving out my life as a Life Entrepreneur, the most important parts of this journey have been the friends I have cultivated relationships with and my family who have somehow always been there, no matter how screwy or out of sorts my life has seemed. Because I have them, I know I am wealthy beyond measure.
They are my constant resource, my ever-present source of supply to meet my deepest needs. They mean more to me than money, and because they are there, keeping me here, alive and somewhat well, I know I can weather the challenges of making money, living my purpose, providing for myself.
If I hadn't reached out, if I don't continue to do that and ask for help, I could easily slip back into the hell I was in a few months ago. By getting out of myself, doing some traveling, continuing to talk and share and listen, I was able to move on, redirect my thinking and from that emerged my series on being a Life Entrepreneur.
So I encourage you to let the important people in your life know what is really going on with you, how you feel, what challenges you are facing. Ask for help. It will endear you to them and take you into deeper, more meaningful relationships.
Isn't that the true wealth of life?
The past eight months were very unsettling for me. I discovered a major financial disaster around the first of June and spent the next three months crawling out of emotional hell. It seemed that everything I believed about myself blew up in my face. I lost my sense of confidence, doubted whether I would ever be able to make a "right" decision again, and had trouble doing the everyday things like breathing, eating, sleeping, talking to people.
I reached out to coaches and friends little by little, and slowly started to gain some inner stability. I used every bit of knowledge and experience I had to stop panicking and keep breathing. I felt like I was walking around with a big L for loser on my forehead. Cosmic joke: no one else felt that way about me. I actually found the opposite reaction from family and friends. They told me by my feeling so humble and going through such difficult times it made me seem more accessible to them, more real somehow. I had no idea I was sending out the vibe of "having it all together" but it seems that many saw me that way.
I even had clients and students who told me that they felt they had even more to learn from me after seeing me walk through such a challenging time. They felt I would understand and relate to them better because of it.
It is interesting to me how important it is to perceive those around us as just as human as we are. And also how little we really know about how others perceive us. We spend so much time trying to come across as having ourselves together, not realizing that might actually be a turn-off to others!
But to get back to my opening comments, waking up this morning, I found the unsettled feelings running rampant, so I called my "inspiration point" Lida, and just hearing her voice helped me feel more "here" and able to ground myself. We had a good talk, not about dire or urgent things, more about the daily things--our kids, our grandchildren, handling health issues. I am so grateful to have this person in my life to share my daily things with, and I know she feels the same.
I still didn't want to get out of bed, so I knew I wasn't ready. And I called another friend I don't see that often and we shared our plans for her next visit to Dallas, how we are feeling about things, what to do about her cat throwing up on her comforter.....all the really important things about daily living.
That is the kind of reaching out and asking for help I do lately--staying connected to my dearest friends and getting the support, challenge, encouragement and advice I need to work through the day. I can't imagine who I would be without it.
In my travels through life, carving out my life as a Life Entrepreneur, the most important parts of this journey have been the friends I have cultivated relationships with and my family who have somehow always been there, no matter how screwy or out of sorts my life has seemed. Because I have them, I know I am wealthy beyond measure.
They are my constant resource, my ever-present source of supply to meet my deepest needs. They mean more to me than money, and because they are there, keeping me here, alive and somewhat well, I know I can weather the challenges of making money, living my purpose, providing for myself.
If I hadn't reached out, if I don't continue to do that and ask for help, I could easily slip back into the hell I was in a few months ago. By getting out of myself, doing some traveling, continuing to talk and share and listen, I was able to move on, redirect my thinking and from that emerged my series on being a Life Entrepreneur.
So I encourage you to let the important people in your life know what is really going on with you, how you feel, what challenges you are facing. Ask for help. It will endear you to them and take you into deeper, more meaningful relationships.
Isn't that the true wealth of life?
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