Alexandersmap

    Category: Personal Growth

    • Incremental Awareness

      As the days grow longer in the Northern Hemisphere we detect the changes around us. The changes were happening anyway, but it seems to accelerate. Just this morning I watched the sun rise through a window where I haven’t seen the sun rise since last autumn. A mix of travel and weather conditions made it a complete surprise when it happened.

      And what of the changes we take ourselves through? We exercise, eat the right food, read and write every day and nothing seems to come of it. And one day we catch ourselves in surprise at who we’ve become without realizing it. Hey, that’s me! The light dawns on Marblehead, as they say in Boston when you’re the last to know. We know we’re changing, but don’t often see it in ourselves.

      Until we do.

      Why don’t we have more incremental awareness? Why don’t we see the smallest of changes in ourselves as we’re making them? Are we lacking self-awareness or are we just not giving ourselves the credit we deserve for doing the work? It’s as if we’re trained not to notice that we got up and worked out for three days in a row, we have to wait until we have washboard abs to be allowed to celebrate.

      The only way to be incrementally aware is to track ourselves. To write it down. To draw a big X through another day on the calendar (especially when you didn’t really feel like doing X that day). It’s not about the washboard abs or the number on the scale or the published novel, it’s about the process — saying we’re going to do something and following through on it. And then doing it all again tomorrow. Incremental action isn’t suddenly seeing the sunrise after your first day, it adds up over time and reveals itself slowly.

      When it will suddenly dawn on you.

    • Discipline, Daily

      Watch the man beating a rug.
      He is not mad at it.
      He wants to loosen the layers of dirt.

      Ego accumulations are not loosened with one swat.
      Continual work is necessary, disciplines.
      — Rumi

      We’re all on our journey of becoming. We’re all working to grow in our chosen work, to experience life more richly, to continually refine and reinvent ourselves, to reach our potential. But we can’t grow in a box. The journey requires some space and momentum, which necessitates cleaning out some old beliefs and habits acquired along the way. Sometimes cleaning up the old is easy because it was never really a part of our core, but sometimes the old is so embedded in who we are that we’ve got to beat it out.

      I have some old beliefs and habits I’m not particularly willing to carry around with me anymore. I don’t give them any light to grow, but ugly beliefs and bad habits don’t need a lot of light to fester. The process of clearing them out requires a lifetime of consistent effort.

      Discipline is derived from the Latin disciplina, which means “to learn”. But any dance with the dictionary will indicate that discipline also has another meaning: “to chastise or scold.” Discipline thus has both a positive and negative connotation. No wonder people shrink away from discipline! So what are we to make of it?

      We’re all works in progress. Old habits are like old friends that remind us of what we once were. Sometimes that’s a delight. But often we shake our head at who we used to be. To live in the present is to acknowledge that former self and see who we are today. Every day is a reset, a chance to move forward or to slide back. Every day we get to decide what to be and go be it.

    • Create Evidence

      “Belief in yourself is overrated. Generate evidence.” — Ryan Holiday

      What does your personal scorecard look like as we crossed off the first 100 days of 2022 earlier this week? What were your highlights? What hasn’t met your expectations when we began the year?

      Doesn’t that inform us of what needs to change immediately?

    • Developing Identity

      At what point on the line of consistent routine does a habit accelerate from a regular part of your life to a major part of your identity? Put another way, if we are what we repeatedly do, at what moment does what we do become us? It may be that moment when you can’t imagine doing anything else but this habit now and forever. But I think it’s a notch beyond that: when others see you as that character you’ve developed into and that habit is reinforced and self-perpetuates.

      Consider a friend who has only been consistently hiking for maybe ten years. Her identity developed around hiking and she’s gained hundreds of followers on her InstaGram account because people associate an activity they want to do more of with her. Or consider my bride, who has run consistently since she was a teenager. Half the town knows her as that lady that’s always out running. Heck, I sometimes think of her as that lady too. Consistent routine develops identity. Identity becomes the essence of who we are.

      But both of these women began with a first awkward step out into the unknown. Both learned what worked for them and what definitely was not going to work. The essence of who we are is derived from what is essential for us. The rest is marketing. You either inform the world of who you’ve become or wait for them to see it for themselves.

      Like a river carving its deepest channel on its truest route, what we say yes and no to as we favor our chosen path becomes the deepest part of our channel. In a river oxbows gather silt and are eventually cut off altogether in favor of the channel. Likewise, some things that were so very much a part of our identity peter out and die from lack of attention. I once fancied myself a sailor, yet I don’t currently have a boat. A friend also fancied himself a sailor and purposefully accelerated and reinforced that identity by trading up to bigger and bigger boats and forgoing career advancement for a log book full of hopes and dreams realized. Who’s the sailor?

      I’m about to click publish on this blog, as I’ve done every day for a few years running now. Does that make me a writer? The answer is what you want it to be. Decide what to be and go be it. And then inform the world (and yourself) with your consistency.

    • Avoiding the Bankruptcy of Life

      “To be truly challenging, a voyage, like a life, must rest on a firm foundation of financial unrest. Otherwise, you are doomed to a routine traverse, the kind known to yachtsmen who play with their boats at sea… “cruising” it is called. Voyaging belongs to seamen, and to the wanderers of the world who cannot, or will not, fit in. If you are contemplating a voyage and you have the means, abandon the venture until your fortunes change. Only then will you know what the sea is all about.
      “I’ve always wanted to sail to the south seas, but I can’t afford it.” What these men can’t afford is not to go. They are enmeshed in the cancerous discipline of “security.” And in the worship of security we fling our lives beneath the wheels of routine – and before we know it our lives are gone.
      What does a man need – really need? A few pounds of food each day, heat and shelter, six feet to lie down in – and some form of working activity that will yield a sense of accomplishment. That’s all – in the material sense, and we know it. But we are brainwashed by our economic system until we end up in a tomb beneath a pyramid of time payments, mortgages, preposterous gadgetry, playthings that divert our attention for the sheer idiocy of the charade.
      The years thunder by, The dreams of youth grow dim where they lie caked in dust on the shelves of patience. Before we know it, the tomb is sealed.
      Where, then, lies the answer? In choice. Which shall it be: bankruptcy of purse or bankruptcy of life? ”
      ― Sterling Hayden, Wanderer

      Hayden chose the opposite of a comfortable routine, breaking from a lucrative Hollywood career and a failed marriage, he took his four kids and sailed to the South Pacific. Some might demonize this act of defiance as irresponsible. For why would someone give up “everything” and let it all ride on one spin of the roulette wheel? The question, really, is about what you’re risking. Status and reputation? Or a steady paycheck to cover the mortgage?

      I know this debate. I have it often with others. Life is full of compromise and the occasional break from the routine. Isn’t it? But should it be all or nothing? Is there a place for measured discipline to live side-by-side with an adventurous spirit? Is there a place for the routine traverse sprinkled with small delights, or must we choose?

      I wander about in graveyards now and then. This isn’t a morbid fascination with death, but a visit with those who once lived. Two of my favorite graveyards are both named Sleepy Hollow. The one in Concord, Massachusetts has some of the great transcendentalist writers in history interred there—Thoreau and Emerson. The one in Sleepy Holly, New York has Washington Irving and a bunch of formerly rich people interred there. Most of the rich people build huge monuments for themselves, most of the creative types have modest headstones. It’s like a shout from the grave: “See? I once mattered!” The thing is, they’re all part of the infinity now. How they lived is gone, but for their legacy. And so it will be for you and me.

      Somewhere between the routine traverse of life and the bold adventure of throwing it all away in favor of a life of challenges lies a happy medium. To be present but to be bold. To make choices that stretch your limits of comfort and bend your routine. To feel the urgency of now, and live while there’s still time, but to do it in a way that keeps you present for those who need you the most. And that’s the trick—isn’t it?

    • Centered

      The knight and the castle move jaggedly across the chessboard,
      but they are actually centered on the king. They circle.

      If love is your center, a ring gets put on your finger.
      Something inside the moth is made of fire.
      — Rumi, A Mystic and a Drunk

      We wrap our lives around certain customs and communities, we pursue certain career paths and devote ourselves to certain people. But what is it that centers us there? Are we attracted to comfort and familiarity, or is it something more? When we get a sense of place, from where inside of us do we hear the siren?

      If we are the average of the people we spend the most time with, what in turn draws them to us? What energy are we bringing to the universe aside from a refrigerator full of beer? When friends grow old and drift away, when family is busy and distracted by life and the days grow silent, how do you fill the void? What is your fire that warms you in the dark?

      Our center is not the frenzied world we surround ourselves with. The problem with finding purpose and identity in a world full of noise is that we don’t hear our own voice. For all the talk of finding a burning purpose and following your heart, most people keep looking the wrong way. Instead of throwing more wood on the fire sometimes you’ve got to let things burn down to their essence. Our answers lie deep in the embers.

    • Upon Further Review

      “Suppose we suddenly wake up and see that what we thought to be this and that, ain’t this and that at all?” — Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums

      The world is full of revelations, for the way we see the world is never really how the world is. Collect enough revelations and you learn to take what people tell you at face value. People have funny beliefs about everything from political or religious affiliation to the subjectivity of the officiating at sporting events. Waking up to the truth in the world requires humility. We all think we’ve got it all figured out. Often what we figure out is that we didn’t really have anything figured out.

      There’s been a plethora of articles in business publications recently about The Great Resignation. Millions of people decided to leave their jobs and to leap into another or just get out of the rat race entirely. I know a few of these people, and easily understand their desire to change things up. Millions of people looked around and said, “This can’t be my purpose here, can it?” They finally saw that it wasn’t all this and that.

      Every day offers an opportunity to review all those things we think we have figured out. All those beliefs we cling to. Every day offers an opportunity to change it all. But it also presents an opportunity to celebrate what we have. Isn’t that something?

    • These Next Five

      “Excellence is not a ‘hill to climb;’ excellence is the next five minutes.” — Tom Peters

      Tom Peters tweeted a one page summary of accumulated wisdom yesterday. I’ve quoted Peters’ “next five minutes” statement before, because it lays it all out there for us so succinctly. I’m using it again with fresh perspective after attending a trade show these last few days and reconnecting with so many people who have been integral in my career. It’s always been about now, not next quarter or even tomorrow. What we do with the rest of our life is nothing more than these next five minutes, stacked incrementally one after the other to form its substance.

      We can’t sustain high levels of urgency, but we can celebrate the ripe potential of each moment and remind ourselves to do something with it. Life is now, we all sense that. The concept of time is very human. Five minute increments are but a basis of measurement, conveniently contained in one hand. Imagine what we can do with these next five.

    • The Battle Inside

      “The greatest battle of all is with yourself—your weaknesses, your emotions, your lack of resolution in seeing things through to the end. You must declare unceasing war on yourself.”
      — Robert Greene

      We all have our moment-to-moment skirmishes with ourselves. We fight through our worst traits or we succumb to them. It’s easy to let things slip, easy to settle for good enough, easy to wrap up early or scroll through Twitter or your social media feed instead of focusing on what must be done in the moment.

      Seth Godin calls it our Lizard Brain, this thing that prevents us from doing the things we most want to do. Steven Pressfield calls it the Resistance. We’ve all felt it when it comes to following our calling: imposter syndrome, distraction or lack of focus, busywork, putting others first… and on and on.

      Routine breaks through the bullshit. Habits force a reckoning with the truth of the matter. We must get past ourselves and simply start doing what we were called upon to do. The battle inside rages, but it becomes a war of attrition. We either give in to it or we see things through to the end.

      Every moment we take meaningful action towards our calling or we slip backwards or sideways on the path. Becoming is dirty work full of blood, sweat and tears. The largest battles are with ourselves. But don’t we have to fight them? Decide what to be and go be it.

    • The Benefit of Being Lost

      Lately I’ve doubled down on getting lost. Now, I understand that deliberately putting yourself into a place where you’re lost might seem counterintuitive and odd. But the thing about being lost is it forces you to find your way out, and this is where learning takes place.

      Case in point: I dove into the deep end with learning languages, doubling down on French and German (!) and forcing myself further beyond my comfort zone with each. I’d been doing the bare minimum with French for a couple of years, never really proceeding beyond “Je m’appelle John. Je suis un homme. Où est le toilette?” Barely functional and not exactly conversational.

      Something triggered me to dive deeper into lost. With French it was a lingering dissatisfaction with scratching the surface of feminine and masculine terminology, never diving into the nitty gritty because I stuck with the bare minimum to check the box for the day. With German, well, I booked a trip to Austria and Germany and forced my hand to figure it out.

      The only way to truly learn a language is to immerse yourself in it. That’s true for a foreign language or the language of your craft. Want to understand the world of finance or a testing laboratory? Immerse yourself in that world and learn the world of pie charts or pipettes. Want to know how to build a house? Join a crew and start hauling lumber. Every apprentice begins completely lost in the world they’ve immersed themselves in. But then something funny happens—your hand is forced and you slowly, awkwardly begin to learn. We’ve all experienced this in school and in our earliest days after graduating and beginning careers. But then we get comfortable and stop challenging ourselves. We stop getting lost. And in our comfort we stop growing.

      Taking the easy path slowly kills our learning and kills us in the process. Comfort kills our brains. Kills our dreams. Kills any momentum for big leaps and dramatic turns. In nature we grow or we die, there is no stasis. Yet so many seek stasis.

      Maybe diving deeper into a couple of languages doesn’t quite equate to growing or dying. But then again, maybe it does. Challenging our own status quo begins with making ourselves uncomfortable now and then. It begins with stumbling through challenges and finding our way out of it. As with physical fitness, growth comes from stress. There are benefits to being lost. For in being lost we may find our way.