To ensure that intention is behind what you do every day, every moment, you need to be able to sit with what makes you feel sad, scared, uncomfortable. You need to be able to accept that and avoid making decisions that will make those feelings go away temporarily. You need to embrace that inevitable part of life so that you can also welcome the exact opposite, equally inevitable, at the appropriate moment.
It sounds so counterintuitive that almost nobody does it.
There’s a difference between doing something because it’s what makes most sense, here and now, and doing the same thing because the opposite makes you feel sad, scared, uncomfortable.
Being with someone because you enjoy their company instead of being with someone because you dread being alone.
Being in a job because it’s what better serves your purpose instead of being in a job because you need to pay the bills.
Going out every evening because that’s how you feel you are contributing to your well being instead of going out every evening because that’s what everyone else does.
Intention is the difference. And we can all benefit from claiming some of it over our actions.
It’s all great that companies have so many ways to communicate, share information, ask and answer questions nowadays. But as it’s often the case, new tools don’t fix old issues.
Like assuming that communication happened just because you have communicated something.
Like expecting an immediate answer to trivial or unimportant questions to placate your anxiety.
Like spreading information left and right with the hope that those who need it will get it and absorb it, while others will forget about it.
Communication is a skill and it needs old-fashioned training, not new tools.
Out of an audience of 100 people, seeking advice on how to get started with a project, when the speaker – who has extensive experience with that project – invites the audience to connect, this will happen.
90 people will do nothing.
7 people will send an invitation to connect.
2 people will send an invitation to connect and a personal message.
1 person will send an invitation to connect, a personal message, and ask a question that will help them get started with the project.
The points being:
Breaking a habit feels bad.
And it’s true whether you are just getting started or you have been at it for years already.
It just feeds that little voice in your head that tells you that you are a failure, that you will never make it, that it was all just an illusion, and that the truth is you don’t deserve it.
Of course, the reality is that building a habit is difficult, keeping it alive is constant work, and never missing a beat is impossible.
To keep that little voice quiet, you need an extra effort to see the 61.
Yesterday I forgot to post on the blog, for the first time in almost four years.
Today, though it’s difficult, I want to focus on the 61.
Let’s go.
You've got this 