In speaking with a business associate last week, he was surprised when I started referencing life as an adventure. He didn’t disagree, he had just never thought of it in that context. My doing so, caused him to step back and reevaluate his own life and how it had progressed. Accidentally? Per chance? With conscious choice in creating a life he envisioned or did he simply react to what was presented? Acknowledging each of these options as a choice, conscious or otherwise, his approach would be and has always been, a product of his choosing.
The concept of life being an adventure is not based on the illusion of continuous and wondrous discoveries of self, others, or nature. The adventure is very much an up and down reality that can inspire you along the way as you grow deeper in awareness of yourself, how you respond, what calls you to react, what picks you up, and what brings you down. In addition, you come to see the world in a continuously evolving way as well as your changing role in it.
Your energy is the defining factor.
The energy you walk in, the energy you create around an obstacle, confusion, fear, doubt, or even simply reevaluating where you are going, the price you are paying to get here, and so much more. Just as failure or missteps can create an energy of fear or regret, focusing on a success can create an energy of surprise, excitement, passion, and purpose. We start living up or down to our expectations.
Those ups and downs, all moving you forward, begin to create momentum. A momentum that naturally builds on itself with each experience reinforcing the last while bringing you into the next. Because human nature can call you to give up, to surrender to the exhausting journey, never reaching “there,” it can at times seem disheartening. That calls you to pause, to reevaluate, and perhaps to reframe or readjust the plans.
Sometimes it means checking in to see if you got lost along the way. I am finding repeatedly that leaders can get so caught in the struggle for success that they forget themselves, and what they were working for since all they began to see was the struggle itself.
The old saying that whether you think you can or you think you can’t – you’re right is on target. When we “know” we can’t, we become too discouraged to try. When we know we can, we simply see obstacles as a new learning experience, and keep on moving forward. Do you need to bring in friends? Do you need an accountability partner? Do you need to bring in a support person to handle the details of a project while you focus on the big picture and getting it completed. Whichever, just do it!!!!
It’s imperative to continue the momentum your adventure has created. Over time, we all learn tools and techniques, if we choose, to get ourselves back on track. To remember our purpose or our “why” for all this. What are your techniques, the ones you have developed or confiscated to support your momentum going forward? Are you even aware that you need them?
This adventure of ours, calls out the best of us and that best can only be reached when we continuously release all the baggage that misdirects us, calls us to get overwhelmed or to do it on our own. Go for it. See the adventure and bring life into it as well as into yourself. You soooo deserve it!
