Given the choice, would you prefer to sail into the sun or grind through the storm?
I had another powerful conversation with a client today. Like so many of us, the pandemic hasn’t slowed him down. If anything, he is juggling MORE. He prides himself on doing, getting sh!t done! But he’s noticing that after executing against one of his commitments yesterday, his bounce-back factor was as slow as molasses. Now, why would that be? He got it DONE! Shouldn’t he have been happy? Dare I say proud?
Well, in a word, no! Because he forgot one crucial thing. As he is saying “yes” to all these things, as he is in mean execution mode, he failed to remember why he is doing it all. WHY do we chase the things we chase, decide the things we decide and do the things we do? Well, that, my friends is the question, isn’t it! What are you trying to create? What is the feeling you are trying to generate?
This is the beginning. When we get clear on what WE are trying to CREATE vs. what circumstances we are trying to surf through, we take back control of our lives. Because the Happy End State does not revolve around the circumstances; instead, the Happy End State revolves around our relationship and choices to the circumstances. Wait, what???!!!
During our conversation, he profoundly said he feels like he is “grinding through a storm.” Ouch! So, I asked him, “How would you prefer to feel?”
“Like I am sailing through a sunny day,” he whispered.
Boom!
What a visual. Grinding vs. Sailing. And just like that, he created a powerful visual metaphor to begin to help him decide minute by minute, day by day, what to do, where to engage. Keeping the picture of swiftly sailing in his mind will help him choose mindset, activities, decisions, even people that will be in alignment with sailing orrrrrrrrr out of alignment with sailing (aka grinding!).
So I ask you, do you want to sail into the sun or grind through the storm?
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