It’s frustrating. Disheartening. Why can’t I just breakthrough to another level? Why can’t I manifest my Dream?
Believe me, I’ve been there.
I’ve noticed three things when I’m caught in a loop of one step forward, two steps back.
You may be familiar with the work of the late psychologist Abraham Maslow, best known for his development of a hierarchy of needs.
He also laid it out pretty clearly: In any moment, you will either step forth toward growth or step back into safety.
Meaning, you either let love rule, or you let fear rule. You either move toward what’s calling you forward, or you stand in place chit-chatting with fear.
So here are three things you need to move forward:
Clarity, commitment, and courage.
CLARITY
Are you clear on your calling? If not, have you identified the next step toward clarifying it? Clarity points you in the right direction. It helps to know what your overarching, nonnegotiable purpose is, so you don’t waste decades climbing to the top, only to find that what you really wanted, is three peaks over.
If you can’t hear what’s calling, it may be because you are facing your fears. You don’t really have to face them. They are going to follow you. In fact, invite them along. Assure them that yes, indeedy they are important and you appreciate them keeping you safe. Then pivot around and, as Joseph Campbell advised, “Follow your bliss.” Emphasis on YOUR, because it is that specific.
In not too much time at all, you will come to a choice point, where you will have to either move forward or circle back and return to the Known. You can also tarry at the choice point, but that’s akin to torture. You’re not actually moving forward, and your fears won’t let you rest, so you live in sustained stasis, and you don’t have either joy or peace. A very lot of people set up camp at the crossroads and live out the rest of their lives there, reassuring themselves that someday they may actually head down the path that has been calling them all along.
Here’s another one from Maslow:
A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if (she) is to be ultimately at peace with herself. – Abraham Maslow
Unfortunately, at these crossroads, for as far as the eye can see, are rows and rows of tombstones, because time ran out before Someday ever came.
So how do you take the road less traveled? How do you set foot on that path?
Well, that’s where courage comes in.
COURAGE
Courage, by definition, is the ability to do something that frightens you. Meaning, fear is coming with you. Fear is noisy and it will wave it’s hands wildly in your face as soon as it sees you looking down the road. It’s favorite line is “We don’t have enough.” We don’t have enough talent, resources, time, savings, answers, ad nauseum. It will distract you, throw a tantrum, find compelling research to make its case. The important thing is to picture fear walking beside you. You have legs of your own. You make the decision and let Fear react according to its nature.
As you start to take a step, Joy, bored out of its mind up to now, will jump to your side. “Are you kidding? Are we really?” It will start jumping up and down like a little kid on the way to the park.
Now you have two companions for the journey. Fear and Joy will never get in a fight with each other; they will only both keep flailing to get your attention. And the reason for that is because they both know you are in charge. You are the one who decides.
Fear’s case is compelling. Shit happens. Bad shit. But you know what? Bad shit happens at the cross roads, too. Those cemetery plots? Bad shit. Or old age. The terms of life are that it will end. So the real question is: Are you going to die at the crossroads? Or somewhere along the path you came here to live? Life is a mind-blowing opportunity to create an epic adventure of our own choosing. Seems a shame to waste it.
So if fear is coming with you, and it is, it helps to negotiate the terms at the trailhead. This is where commitment comes in.
COMMITMENT
It is now time to face your friends, Fear and Joy, and let them know you’re about to embark on a great adventure. Joy will race ahead; Fear will drag its feet. This is your pace. Your one non-negotiable is that you move forward. Fear can give you its list of demands. Meet the ones you can, while still moving forward.
Take three steps. Pause if you need to. Take three more. Never turn around. I promise Fear will catch up as soon as it realizes it can’t stall you. You’re committed.
“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth that ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.” — William Hutchison Murray
“But if a person has had the sense of the Call — the feeling that there’s an adventure for him — and if he doesn’t follow that, but remains in the society because it’s safe and secure, then life dries up. And then he comes to that condition in late middle age: he’s gotten to the top of the ladder, and found that it’s against the wrong wall. If you have the guts to follow the risk, however, life opens, opens, opens up all along the line. I’m not superstitious, but I do believe in spiritual magic, you might say. I feel that if one follows what I call one’s bliss — the thing that really gets you deep in your gut and that you feel is your life — doors will open up. They do! They have in my life and they have in many lives that I know of.” Joseph Campbell
So the only question is, “What are you waiting for?”