Life is about days or weeks when we feel bullet proof and days when we feel useless, broken, failed.
No one is exempt, except maybe the delusional.
If you are admiring a rock star in your field, a trail blazer in business, then certain as the sun will rise tomorrow they too go through days or weeks or months when they feel like a failure, a fraud, an imposter. We just don’t see those days in them…because all we see are the bright shiny things….
Here is the deal. There is nothing wrong with you when you have these days, or weeks.
What makes the difference between the rock star trail blazer or the person who lives a life they love (with or without the rock stardom, because not everyone wants that, and success is not just about being a rock star) is how they respond to these days.
Today when I woke with the bogies biting, here is what I did.
Notice that they were present. “Hello old friends.” They are not the enemy. The enemy is how we choose to respond to them.
Have a conversation with them. “What are you telling me? Do I need to pay attention to something that I am currently ignoring? Or are you remnants of my past? Old fears and shadows of no longer useful stories?”
Once we have determined the exact message and nature of the bogies, we can do something about them.
If they are remnants of old stories that no longer serve…stories like…I am a failure…I am the kid that wasn’t picked on the team…I am the fat/silly/dumb/nerdy (choose your pattern and poison) kid…I don’t know how to do this and so I become useless, waiting to be rescued…
..whatever your story or stories…then let the story be no longer true. Yes, you may have failed…but that was then and this is now. Besides, if you don’t give this a go…will the regret of that be bigger than the possible failure?
Often our bogies are conveying a very important message. For me it was two fold.
I am not my past. To not give this project everything…EVERYTHING…would be to not be able to look at myself with any level of respect…a price far bigger than any failure…
AND…move your arse Christine. Get to it. Stop hiding under the safety blanket inventing new distractions. JUST GET ON WITH IT.
Bogies bite. The bigger the project the more they bite, and the deeper. Big projects are going to change who you are in the world. So welcome your bogies. Even love them.
In a world becoming obsessed with obstacle courses like Tough Mudder, think of your bogies with the same pleasure you would a Tough Mudder challenge.
Once you have faced the challenge you keep going. That is where the triumph lies.
