October 1, 2013 -- The U. S. Government closed its doors, and after a badly needed good night's sleep, I got up with purpose. I should have been concerned...maybe even frightened...about how I would pay the bills until my next paycheck at some unknown date. I wasn't. Instead, I went for a long walk on a beautiful October day. It felt great to move. It felt even better to break the shackles of my workplace and have time when nothing was scheduled. Bonus time if you will.
When I had blown the cobwebs out of my mind on the walk, I came back with the intention to accomplish two priority projects. And, I think, intuitively, I knew this recharge time was to kick me in the rear and propel me into what was to be next.
The first was to start posting regularly to this blog. I'd set up the site a couple years earlier, and just 10 days before the shutdown, I'd made my first post. I had no mastery of the mechanics, though. I posted a request for help on my building's bulletin board, and within a day, an angel in my building came over after her workout one evening and walked me through all the peculiarities of blogspot. By the time the government shut down, I was ready to roll. With the gift of time, I started writing. In the last three months of 2013, I made 100 posts.
The second of the projects was to get a more polished version of The Game Called Life onto Amazon and a Kindle edition published. Regular readers will know that this has been my serious work for the intervening three-plus years. I am nothing if not slow...and persistent. I accomplished the former in late January.* When I returned from volunteer work at a DC theatre at 11 p.m. last night, a message from Amazon reported that the Kindle version is now available.+
The Game Called Life is a very personal treasure to me. Both the writing of the book and its sponsorship smacked of divine intervention. I am happy to finally have broader distribution. I believe that it defines how we spiritually dance through life with divine intent. For many years, almost every reader was known to me or blog reader/commenter Amy Frost personally. When I gave up my home over a decade ago, I shipped most of my inventory to Amy, who became my main distribution channel. (Bless you, Amy!)
I truly don't know what this accomplishment will mean to the book or to me, but it feels like a huge albatross, which has been blocking me energetically, has been cast off. My persistence has paid off.
This morning, I awakened much earlier than I have been recently, bounced from bed with purpose, and was compelled to start clearing the work boxes from my closet. That project is not yet done, but I made a major dent in the project. I made several trips to the recycle bin, but found myself not quite able to throw away some major creative projects that I had done either by myself or with a close colleague. I am allowing myself grace. I am fairly confident that I will not ever use that small remaining pile, but I am granting myself a reprieve until I am ready. (Maybe there will be a second sweep.) I did make sure to leave a box in the middle of the closet so I will have to walk over it. I will persist with the project.
When I emerged from the closet in the late afternoon, I rewarded myself with a manicure/pedicure, and while I was being pampered and relaxed, ideas about the coaching business just started flowing. I came home a worked for about an hour capturing them. And, not unlike the closet project, I am giving myself grace with the coaching business as well. I am going to create simple materials on my own computer, and if/when I feel like I want to invest more, I can do that later. I am not going to spend money or energy on marketing, but I now that I have clarity of intention and being clear about intention is all I need right now.
Persistence has paid off in all of these areas, and clearing out the closet is creating energetic space for new things. I am eager for the new. While tomorrow is supposed to be a splendid day, and I don't work on my Sabbath any way, come Monday, I expect to be back in my closet.
For all of you who have supported me through these publishing projects, thank you.
If you have people who may be interested in knowing more, links to the book and Kindle edition are below.
Book:
* https://www.amazon.com/Game-Called-Life-Kay-Gilley/dp/0972198717/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1488684202&sr=1-2&keywords=Gilley+The+game+Called+Life
Kindle:
+ https://www.amazon.com/Game-Called-Life-Kay-Gilley-ebook/dp/B06XDJJ566/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1488684270&sr=1-1&keywords=Gilley+The+game+Called+Life
(Purchasers of the book, get the Kindle for free.)
Showing posts with label allow yourself to fail. Show all posts
Showing posts with label allow yourself to fail. Show all posts
Saturday, March 4, 2017
Friday, March 3, 2017
Allow Yourself to Fail
As I carried a box of office accumulation from my office on one of my last days of work, I ran into a colleague who didn't realize that I was making my exit from the organization. I told her I was entering a transition period during which I would explore new career options. She, and a number of others before her, remarked how courageous it was of me to leave my current position before having a new one in hand. I didn't think it courageous at all. To continue to be bored with my work seemed among the worst option that I faced; I just didn't want to do that any more.
As she and I continued to talk, I related five or six areas of interest that had been sparked in me. I said I wanted to explore each of them in some way until I found a place where I wanted to land for a while. I would try it out, and, if I enjoyed it and felt like I was making a contribution, I would continue. If I didn't enjoy it, I hadn't lost anything, except maybe a few weeks or months. I would move to another option on my list. I was quite excited about the menu of options before me. And, I was excited by the adventure of trying new things.
When both health coaching and refugee involvement--both items on my list--bombarded me with opportunities in early January, I was excited. I truly enjoyed being in learning mode with both. I truly felt fully alive. Then I finished the class about 10 days ago. As a bonus for completion, the organization offered us a significant discount on a number of items, including additional classes, that would help establish our health coaching practices...when purchased within two weeks of the completion of the first course.
I've been to the site a few times. I've stewed a lot. Is this really what I want to do? What about all those other things on my list that I haven't had the opportunity to explore yet? Do I want to abandon the executive, life, and spiritual coaching, which have been the foci of my work over 25 years, or do I want health coaching to be one more offering? This hadn't been unhealthy or obsessive overthinking, and often not even conscious questioning, but more like a soundtrack to my daily life.
Since I have decided to do more focused self-exploration during the 40-day Lenten season, I decided to start the process by drawing a "transformation" card* to focus my meditation. "Allow Yourself to Fail," it read. Among other admonitions, it continued, "Redefine 'failure' as 'steps toward progress'--a means of learning."*
I am rarely concerned about making mistakes, and I often joke that I prefer to work in pencil instead of pen because it allows me to fix mistakes more easily. However, I realized that in regard to this transition that I'd allowed myself to fall into the trap of limiting my options. I recalled the conversation I related above and wondered where I had let my sense of exploratory adventure go. All of a sudden, I had narrowed myself to a "Is it a yes or is it a no?" with regard to a health coaching practice.
Ah! I don't need to do that: additional meaning for "Allow Yourself to Fail." I have a graduate degree in management, and my marketing machine is a well-oiled one. When I started my consulting business in the early 1990s, the editor of the local business journal called me. He wanted to do an article about my marketing because he said everywhere he'd turned in the last two months, he'd hear something about me or read something about me. I know how to do that...well.
What I don't know how to do so well is not market, not have cards and brochures, not have a business plan--all the things that people do to keep their businesses from failing. You've got to be fully in--fully committed to your success all the books say. But I was more interested in sticking my toe in the water to check the temperature rather than jumping off the high dive. To "Allow Yourself to Fail" doesn't mean that I have to fail: it just means that I am willing to give myself that possibility.
Which is exactly where I was when I ran into the colleague when I was moving out of my office in December. "If it doesn't work, what did I lose?" I will now allow myself to shake free of all that Graduate School of Management programming and stick my toe in several pools of water before deciding where to dive in.
I recognize this pattern other places in my life. Something from outside of me pressures me to make a decision--a commitment--to something before I am really ready. Then I figure out how to "do it right," which inevitably puts me on a course from which it is difficult to deviate. Before I know it, I am years into something I didn't want to be doing. This time I really want to shop carefully. I want to make a decision that is correct for me, not because of external pressure...and then I want to allow myself to fail.
*www.ToolkitForTransformation.com
As she and I continued to talk, I related five or six areas of interest that had been sparked in me. I said I wanted to explore each of them in some way until I found a place where I wanted to land for a while. I would try it out, and, if I enjoyed it and felt like I was making a contribution, I would continue. If I didn't enjoy it, I hadn't lost anything, except maybe a few weeks or months. I would move to another option on my list. I was quite excited about the menu of options before me. And, I was excited by the adventure of trying new things.
When both health coaching and refugee involvement--both items on my list--bombarded me with opportunities in early January, I was excited. I truly enjoyed being in learning mode with both. I truly felt fully alive. Then I finished the class about 10 days ago. As a bonus for completion, the organization offered us a significant discount on a number of items, including additional classes, that would help establish our health coaching practices...when purchased within two weeks of the completion of the first course.
I've been to the site a few times. I've stewed a lot. Is this really what I want to do? What about all those other things on my list that I haven't had the opportunity to explore yet? Do I want to abandon the executive, life, and spiritual coaching, which have been the foci of my work over 25 years, or do I want health coaching to be one more offering? This hadn't been unhealthy or obsessive overthinking, and often not even conscious questioning, but more like a soundtrack to my daily life.
Since I have decided to do more focused self-exploration during the 40-day Lenten season, I decided to start the process by drawing a "transformation" card* to focus my meditation. "Allow Yourself to Fail," it read. Among other admonitions, it continued, "Redefine 'failure' as 'steps toward progress'--a means of learning."*
I am rarely concerned about making mistakes, and I often joke that I prefer to work in pencil instead of pen because it allows me to fix mistakes more easily. However, I realized that in regard to this transition that I'd allowed myself to fall into the trap of limiting my options. I recalled the conversation I related above and wondered where I had let my sense of exploratory adventure go. All of a sudden, I had narrowed myself to a "Is it a yes or is it a no?" with regard to a health coaching practice.
Ah! I don't need to do that: additional meaning for "Allow Yourself to Fail." I have a graduate degree in management, and my marketing machine is a well-oiled one. When I started my consulting business in the early 1990s, the editor of the local business journal called me. He wanted to do an article about my marketing because he said everywhere he'd turned in the last two months, he'd hear something about me or read something about me. I know how to do that...well.
What I don't know how to do so well is not market, not have cards and brochures, not have a business plan--all the things that people do to keep their businesses from failing. You've got to be fully in--fully committed to your success all the books say. But I was more interested in sticking my toe in the water to check the temperature rather than jumping off the high dive. To "Allow Yourself to Fail" doesn't mean that I have to fail: it just means that I am willing to give myself that possibility.
Which is exactly where I was when I ran into the colleague when I was moving out of my office in December. "If it doesn't work, what did I lose?" I will now allow myself to shake free of all that Graduate School of Management programming and stick my toe in several pools of water before deciding where to dive in.
I recognize this pattern other places in my life. Something from outside of me pressures me to make a decision--a commitment--to something before I am really ready. Then I figure out how to "do it right," which inevitably puts me on a course from which it is difficult to deviate. Before I know it, I am years into something I didn't want to be doing. This time I really want to shop carefully. I want to make a decision that is correct for me, not because of external pressure...and then I want to allow myself to fail.
*www.ToolkitForTransformation.com
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