Your Life, Your Map, the Quill is in Your Hands - Part 2

Alright, we've written down our goal in life and maybe we're feeling more than a bit uncomfortable.  It can be surprisingly scary - wanting what we want.  We feel nervous about giving ourselves permission to believe it's possible.

Why?

Because we fear the obstacles, the disappointment.  We don't want to risk hearing family or friends tell us we're being impractical or selfish.  We're afraid of the unknown, afraid we're out of our league.  Ouch.  Do you know what's happening?  Before our dream has even had chance to walk out the front door and take it's first breath of fresh air, we've shot it down...in cold blood!  Haha, well not in cold blood actually, because then we'd have to be 100% aware of what we were doing...and we weren't.  That's the scary part.  Our fear has skewed and dulled our power of awareness and we've shifted the trajectory of our whole life without a second thought. 

And that is how most people go through life - operating on a very low level of self-awareness, driven by emotion and lulled by what's comfortable.  This is fine if you want an average life, but I don't think that's true.  Otherwise you wouldn't be reading this blog right now.  And the reason why I write this blog is because I know that God didn't create us to be average!  Every person has greatness in them and it is in cultivating that greatness that brings value and fulfillment to that person and to the world.

So why do we allow ourselves to make decisions that go against greatness and set us up for mediocrity?  Because it's easy to do so.  More than easy.  It's seductively easy.  Believe it or not, the choices that shape our life, that determine our destiny, are not big at all.  They are very tiny.  It doesn't feel like they matter.  But it does matter.  And when those choices add up and compound over time, they really, really start to matter.  And after years and years of making choices based on what feels comfortable and easy now, we find ourselves in very uncomfortable and difficult positions.  I'm sure you can think of examples.

So, how does this tie into your point B and charting your life course?  I want you to know that just as the steps to mediocrity (aka not striving toward your dreams in life) are very minuscule, so are the steps to success!  The only difference is that you are now acting in awareness instead of on automatic pilot.  You are responding instead of reacting.

But the steps you are taking are still tiny!  No matter how big or audacious you goal may be, it can always, always be broken down into baby steps.  You can look at any incredibly successful person of any field and see that their success is the sum of thousands of tiny baby steps.

So, before I go on to writing about mapping the steps from your point A to point B, I wanted to spend some time helping you get the right mindset before going into it.  Basically, this is what I'd like for you to take away from this article:

1) In order to truly start progressing from where we are now to where we want to be, we need to practice operating at a higher level of awareness so that we can be more conscious of our thoughts because our thoughts translate into choices and our choices determine whether we're stepping to or away from our goals.

2) Baby steps!  We can make ourselves feel so defeated by the obstacles we see before us.  We forget that the way to climb a mountain is by simply putting one foot in front of the other.  In other words, no matter how big, bold, or unreal your goal may seem, it can always, always be broken down into baby steps.  They may not seem to matter as you're doing them, but added up and compounded over time they will equal pure awesomeness.

Remember this in your journey:

"Spectacular achievement is always preceded by unspectacular preparation."

Alright!  Got the mindset?  We'll dive into part 3 of this article journey tomorrow.