Tag Archives: Want

What Are You Willing To Struggle & Suffer For?

dsc_0435“You can have anything in life if you will sacrifice everything else for it.” –J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

Hello friend,

I was talking recently with an entrepreneurial friend of mine whose new business is failing. She was wrestling with different options for how she might save it, or whether just letting it go was the best choice. It is a horrible spot to be in, to have to consider giving up on something you believed in and very much wanted to succeed.

I am not very good at advice—I tend to think people are the experts on their own lives–so I don’t give it often. Instead, I usually just ask them questions. My hope is that my questions will help them think more clearly about their situation so they can come up with the answer on their own that feels right with both their brain and their gut. I think that when you make your own decision rather than just doing what someone told you to do, you are more likely to take responsibility for the result. There is no one else to blame.

So, when she asked me what I thought she should do, I had no sure-thing strategy or any story about the times when I have had to make a similar decision. The only thing I had was a question.

Is it something you are willing to struggle and suffer for?

In other words, is it so important that this dream succeeds that you are willing to make big sacrifices—your time, money, emotions, etc.—to see it succeed?

Let’s face it, we all want our stuff to succeed. You want your new business to flourish. You want your relationship to be healthy, happy, and lasting. You want to make more money. You want to go on vacation next year. You want work that is meaningful and fulfilling. You want to be fit and healthy. You want to be self-aware. Right?

But which of those things are you ready to truly sacrifice for? The proof is almost always in the pudding.

A couple of years ago, I wanted to begin the transition out of my career coaching tennis. I knew that if I had a gun to my head, my answer for what I really wanted to do was be a writer. However, my confidence for achieving tangible success (i.e. a regular paycheck) doing that was low, so I was open to other avenues. But those avenues had to work around my kids, because giving my time and energy to them was my true top priority. I started taking classes to become a Life Coach, which sounded like a career right up my alley: fulfilling and flexible. I took a job out of tennis that wasn’t fulfilling but kept money coming in while meshing perfectly with my kids’ schedule. And I kept writing.

While in pursuit of the coaching avenue, a business opportunity doing something I wasn’t interested in was basically handed to me. I made a deal with myself to give it the minimal amount of time and effort to see if it would “magically” produce clients and dollars, crossing my fingers and hoping to strike it rich, at least until it no longer made financial sense to keep the experiment going. And I kept writing.

So, basically I had a job and three things I wanted to work out (under the condition that they let me be with my kids most of the time). That’s not asking for much, right?

What happened? Well, it was pretty straightforward. With the business that I didn’t care about, as soon as it looked like I had to work and get uncomfortable to turn a profit, I pulled the plug. Because I knew my conditions for that one going in, I was at peace. The next one to fall was the Life Coaching training. That one was much more painful to let go of, because it really would be both fulfilling and convenient as a career for me. And I loved it. But it would be a lot of work. More classes, trying to scrounge up clients from scratch, marketing, etc. Struggling, scraping, sacrificing, and suffering. If it was the only horse in the race, I would have kept at it.

But there was the writing thing. That was the longest shot of all of them, the one with the most uncertainty, most likely to fail, most difficult to gain steady employment, and generally most tormenting of all (as creative ventures are prone to be). I would have jettisoned all thoughts of a writing career, except for one small detail: my heart was set on it.

I knew with what little time I have when I am not at my regular job or busy with the kids, I simply could not attempt to press on with the Life Coach training and the writing simultaneously. Push had finally come to shove, and, as I said, the proof is in the pudding. The writing is all that remains. It is the only career-related enterprise I seem willing to struggle and suffer for.

There are bigger tests to pass with it, though, as it won’t be long before I will have to challenge myself to replace my safe day job with some form of actually being paid to write. It remains to be seen how much I will be willing to sacrifice, how much I will compromise, and how stubbornly I will take a stand for “writing or starvation,” as it is much tougher to be principled when there are other mouths to feed.

Will I truly be willing to suffer for my writing, or will time bear out that I only really like the idea of being a writer but not the actual writer’s life and work? Inevitably, the proof will be in the pudding.

The only other area of my life that I have shown the willingness to make sacrifices to make it work is mentioned above: that demand to spend my children’s childhood with them rather than consumed by work. Before my daughter was born, I was in a position of some authority and made a comfortable amount of money. But I worked a ton. If I had kept that schedule, I would have hardly seen her or her future brother. So, I stepped down, taking a lower position and a much lower paycheck. But I staked a claim to my schedule. I have hardly compromised it in the eight years since.

And yes, I have wanted to make more money in those eight years. And I have wanted to go on vacation. But I haven’t been willing to do the necessary struggle and sacrifice for the money or the vacation, because that would mean compromising the time with the kids. The proof in the pudding, see?

So, I guess I have two stories for myself. I would say I am passing the test on the kids priority, not just saying I want the time but actually struggling to protect it. But I am willing to say that the jury is still out on the writing priority. I want to think that it is a done deal, that I will make all necessary sufferings and sacrifices for it and will go down swinging rather than compromise again, but that test has not been completed. I feel it coming to a head very soon and am gathering my strength and resolve for it.

But I also have the sneaking suspicion that these tests are never completely passed, that we have to step up to them and stake our claim over and over again as we continually define who we are in this life. I think sometimes we ignore them, though, and go sleepwalking through our little worlds for a while. But other times, the battle lines are crystal clear: you know the very value of your life is on the line, how hard it will be live it the way your heart knows you should, and that this is the moment of truth. I feel one of those crystalline moments approaching in my life. It is scary yet exhilarating, this opportunity to define myself by laying claim to what I value. I go willingly into the struggles. En garde! 

How about you? What in your life is so important that you are willing to suffer and struggle and sacrifice for? Open up your journal take a look at the pudding. What does the way you live your life say about the things you value most? First, it might be more helpful to begin with a rundown of the things you think you value or say you value. What are they? Now take a look at your history. What are the things, at different points in your life, that you have genuinely struggled for? As you look back now, how did those struggles shape you? Do you still value those things that you once struggled so hard for? What about now? Is there anything in your life right now that you are making the big sacrifices for, grinding so hard in the service of something you value so highly? What are the sacrifices and struggles and sufferings? How sure are you that it is worth it? Is it worth so much to you because of the struggle or in spite of the struggle? Okay, so now compare what you said you value with the things you are actually sacrificing for, if there are any? Do your mouth and your actions tell us different stories? Are you prepared to do something to correct that? Is there something in your life—a long-held dream, perhaps—that you want badly but have simply not had the courage to pursue because of all of the struggle and sacrifice involved? What small step can you take today in the direction of that desire? I dare you! Leave me a reply and let me know: What are you willing to struggle and suffer for?

Let your life be your message,

William

P.S. I hope you really climbed inside yourself on this topic, as I know that for me, that good, hard look in the mirror is so helpful, even if difficult. If it helped you, I hope you will share today’s letter with your world. Go and grow!

Who Do You Wish To Be?

DSC_0042“To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but at what he aspires to.” –Kahlil Gibran, The Madman

Hello friend,

Thanks mostly to the upcoming election, we find ourselves today in a uniquely character-driven moment in social discourse. Not character like, “Oh that Trump, he is quite a character.” But rather, character in terms of “Who are these people at their core?” Oh sure, character comes up at some point in lots of major elections. When attacks on an opponent’s policy positions or voting record don’t move the needle, a candidate takes a swipe at the other one’s character, trolling into their past to find some event that might portray them as unpatriotic, corrupt, or cold-hearted. But this election is unique, I think, in that it seems like almost all of the ads and the rhetoric are about character. The candidates are, in lots of creative ways, branded as lying, bigoted, demagogic, ruthless, misogynistic, cold, arrogant, cowardly, greedy, buffoonish, self-serving, hateful, criminal, and so much more. Each side seems to want only to disqualify the other by virtue of all of these terrible characteristics rather than declaring their own case based on their own virtues and positions. Even though I am very tuned in, I must say the approach from both sides has me very turned off.

What I have realized this week is that two of the big reasons I am troubled by this campaign are coming together in a perfect storm that is raging against my natural wiring and leaving me wanting to address my own core qualities.

First, I am heavily inclined toward associating myself with positive, aspirational type of people. I don’t like to give my time and energy to thoughts of all of those negative qualities I mentioned above, and I am not drawn to people who possess them. Well, it’s more than not being drawn to them, though; it is more of an inborn repulsion that I feel. Negativity and shiftiness repel me; I feel a natural disgust in my bones in their presence. I do my best to be tapped into my intuitions and natural inclinations as I go through the world, and I try to honor them by following their lead. It is the best way I know to remain authentic and at peace.

With the characters we have trying to become President this year, I can tell that I am at war with myself over character issues that seem to plague both sides. I am not saying that I think it’s a toss-up as to which candidate feels more despicable to me—because I don’t—just that it is not a straightforward “Good vs. Evil” question when it comes to personal character. I like my elections—especially the ones for the highest offices in the land—to be between two (though more would be nice!) candidates who seem like good, solid people who just happen to hold different beliefs about what will make our country work best. Then it’s easy: just vote for the one whose vision is most similar to mine.

But it’s nice when the “Who This Person Is” part is not something that is troubling me, is not part of the equation when I step into the ballot box.

The second part of the storm that rubs against my personal grain is the “Focus on what’s so bad about the other/Show them who I’m not” tactic that has characterized the advertising and stump speeches of this campaign. Other than the fact that we have already had the scandals, slurs, and shortcomings rammed down our throats for months and months on end–and I am tired of that–my nature is to want the other side of the coin. I want to know about you, the candidate. I want to know what you are about, what you aspire to, how your life and your record reflect that, and how you think we can best move forward. That is the kind of political ad or speech that draws me in. (I have been proven wrong in my thinking that that is what they would want to tell us, too.)

Not coincidentally, that is the kind of stuff I like to wonder about the people I meet in my day-to-day life, too. I don’t enjoy small-talk, and I don’t enjoy complaints about how bad other people and things are in your world. I want to know what matters to you, what lights you up, who you want to be, and what you are doing to become that.

Actually, that’s exactly what I want to know about myself, too. It is the kind of stuff that makes good fodder for the pages of my personal journal. I might not address it head-on in every one of my daily entries—I am currently filling my 53rd volume–but it is part of the core of what my routine as a journal writer is about.

So, it is time to put my money where my mouth (or rather, pen) is! I told you that I am averse to hearing about how awful these people are from each other and how each will destroy us all. I told you how my gut draws me to aspirational people who are about telling their own truth. I told you how I long to hear about who a person is striving to be, what compels them. So, to Donald and Hillary, and especially to you, this is who I wish to be:

I wish to be a person who inspires others. I wish to be an example of how sincere self-reflection and an open mind can allow you to know who you are and what your purpose is. I want to be an example of how that self-knowledge, far from being something to fear and find shame in, is something that can grant you the deepest peace and gratitude, basking in the beauty that is your Truth. I wish to share the stories of people who are doing the daily work of lifting others up, providing the rest of us with living examples of empathy, courage, kindness, generosity, forgiveness, and social justice. I wish to be a person who brings people together to learn from each other, help each other, and enjoy each other. I wish to expose injustices where I find them, to give a voice to the voiceless. I wish to enlighten the most powerful among us in hopes that they will use their power for good. I wish to be an example of loving kindness for everyone I meet. I wish to be an example for my children of integrity and authenticity. I wish show my loved ones how valuable they are to me. I wish to embody Gratitude every day. I wish to be relentless in the pursuit of my dreams. I wish to be unapologetically me, all the time. I wish to be Peace. I wish to always be mindful of the Divine in me, and the unity of us All.  

That’s who I wish to be. Boy, do I have a LONG way to go! Oh well, at least I have a destination in mind.

How about you? Who do you wish to be? Open up your journal and your imagination. What do you see when you imagine the best version of you? In most of our minds, the quickest leap is probably to what describe what we are doing in that vision, but if you can, try to focus today on how you are being in the vision. What sort of character traits would you display while being the person you wish to be? What qualities would you embody? In general terms, in what areas do you see yourself being that ideal vision? In what positive ways would you like to affect people’s lives? How would you think differently about yourself? How would you treat your loved ones? How big do you envision your sphere of influence? Just how great is the best you? Does this aspirational thinking come natural to you? Are you generally more inclined to spend your energy kicking yourself for your character flaws and failings, accepting where you are now (the good and the bad), or envisioning your best self for the future? Write it out. Then leave me a response and let me know: Who do you wish to be? 

Shoot for the moon,

William

P.S. If this pushed you to think bigger about who you could become, please share it. Let’s challenge ourselves and encourage each other to rise to the occasion called Life!