MAWMonday Motivators 01/03/2015

by: Dr. Michael A. Wright In Blog, Coaching DiaryTagged , , , , , , , ,

And so, 2016 begins. My 2015 goals were shattered by some failures and some unexpected successes. I’m wondering how much of your experience is like mine. If it’s not, I’m writing with the hope that you get here quicker than I did. In short, I have realized how much of my daily life was about trying, attempting, working, hoping, doing–so much of the -ING. Then, seemingly all of a sudden, I was unplugged from the -ING. From makING a livING, I was left to make a life. Like being unplugged from the Matrix, I was left in a world that I would like to share with you.

1000px-The_Oracle
You have the gift, but it looks like you’re waiting for something…Your next life maybe?

Imagine if you were not working on getting, making, producing with the purpose tied to anyone other than you. Not the unsustainable selfishness of those ignorant to community, but the realization that your ultimate reason is self-satisfaction. Said another way, absolutely no one cares more for your vision than you. Your mom may come close, but even she does not have the power to let your vision go. That’s where an immense sense of power lies. Consider what you would become if you gave up the -ING of becoming. If you gave up the -ING of beING. What would you BE?

Maybe that’s too deep for the beginning of your 2016. But, consider that the resolutions, the plans, the MY Year pronouncements, and the hoopla fail before they begin. They fail because you somehow learned that more or next or future is where your ENOUGH lives. My wish for your 2016 is that you spend each today, each right now knowing that you are enough. Build anything else on that foundation, with that self-satisfaction as certain.

1. From Contender to Champion
Without the -ING, consider what this quote is communicating. Give up the pretense and the struggle. What would you have left? The love. What keeps you writing? What keeps you engaging? What keeps you waking and grinding? It is certainly not the cycle of triumph and disaster. It is not the celebrations or the sad sulking. Strip that all away, and you find love from some aspect of what you do every day. It’s more than a feeling, it is the pure un-enhanced, organically grown joy of something. REFUSE to give that up thinking that your motivation comes from anywhere else.

2. From Small to Big Impact
Without the -ING, realize that no matter how logical and mathematically sound the projections of numerical impact are, what matters is that you continue. The joy is not even in the impact or the network you sustain. The joy is in the fact that you persist. It’s not your humility that suggests that you would satisfied with even one who responds to your work. It is the hubris that results from even one acknowledgement that your life had purpose and meaning. Please understand that this is the opposite of “It’s all about me.” When that one responded, it ceased to be all about you. It then became about You, in the plural.

3. From Intentions to Deeds
Without the -ING, your intention of doing is now do, which makes it done. Too much? Oh well. What I mean to say is that you find a peace from which to act once you realize what you are and what you have around you in this moment. It was never how big the plan or proposed impact was. What mattered and still matters is what was done, however small.

4. From Planning to Action
Without the -ING, I don’t have to ask how you will get there. You are already there. Contemplate this alongside your goal setting and to-do lists. Removing the -ING frees me from the constraints of making sense of the contradiction. If I am already in the place I need and desire to be, I am in the best, most balanced position to act. I am not threatened by events and delays that set others off their equilibrium. I can act, not only with confidence, but with the knowledge of already.

5. From Impressing to Freedom
I thought about a dog. A dog does not seem to worry whether it perches on satin pillows or whether it sleeps on the streets. The dog has a quality that we call loyalty. But, I’m not sure that’s what it is from the dog’s point of view. Hear me out. What if the dog is just interested in being pampered? What if the ultimate in dog pampering is being with the human who cares? I said it! I think dogs are the most selfish and yet the most mindful animals on the planet. Without the -ING, the dog has learned that life is not about the beING. Life is just to BE. Wherever. Whatever the circumstance. Changes and transitions come and go. Freedom is in the revelation just to BE.

Dr. Michael A. Wright received his Doctor of Philosophy in Social Work degree from the University of South Carolina - Columbia. Since 1997, Wright has led MAWMedia Group, LLC, a firm helping individuals and organizations tell stories and translate ideas into capital.