MAWMonday Motivators 07/09/2017

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

Process, Your Progress & Canaries in Coal Mines

This week’s inspiration is in process and progress. Revere the process with greater esteem than you have been. Accept progress as simply as you allow the inhale and exhale of breath. That feeling of stretch is the process. You are going to emerge stronger and live your potential as you take the cues of the process as urgency and certain progress. Leave worry and anxiety about the ending out of your progress equation. Do what is necessary right now. Take the next step as outlined. Breathe in. Breathe out. That is progress.

Twitter is my canary on my right shoulder cheering me on as I write to inspire you. Find peace in the process. Progress as sure as you breathe.

1. Show Up Best

Your contribution. It seems the most hidden, enigmatic truth while you search for it. But, any marketer or coach will tell you that it has been with you all along. In the questions people ask of you. In the conversations you find yourself having. In the memorable themes and passages of books, articles, and movies lies your contribution. Showing up is a process. First, accept purpose. Second, inform purpose. Third, package purpose. Fourth, share purpose. Fifth, show others the process. Repeating is showing up at your best. Repeat!

2. Respect the Process

We are often told to trust the process. What is sometimes lost in that quote is the reverence for the ways in which the process will stretch us, challenge us, and utterly reveal our imperfections. This too is the process, to reveal us to ourselves in ways that we cannot deny, obfuscate, or rationalize away. To give proper respect to the process is to realize that the difficulty, frustration, and fear we experience is stretching. The disorientation, uncertainty, and bewilderment is challenge. That feeling of inadequacy, longing for approval, and hope for achievement reveals our imperfections. The caterpillar must commit to the incubation, release worry and regret, allow. The ending is a butterfly. No matter the now, each step is closer to first flight.

3. Uncover Opportunities

Problems. Perceived in one way, they are the bane of existence and an insurmountable, constant reminder of life as toiling work. But, that’s only one perspective. Even seemingly impossible, intractable problems change with perspective. Like Sisyphus pushing the rock up the hill, we can focus on the challenge and its ever-present reminder of our ToDo list. Or, we can recognize how our muscles, intellect, and insight grow as we check off and add tasks in the continual cycle we call a life. We can begin to find joy in the activities we address. We can create games for the processes we fully understand. We can find mystery, intrigue, and fun in the processes we are tasked to learn. Our problems are opportunities masquerading. It is not ours always to unmask, but it is always ours to perceive the mask in our own conjured reality–to solve problems with the building of our ability as well as the completion of any tasks.

4. Know Your Strengths

Mining value from experience is courage to revisit dark spaces looking for gems. Search them. Be brief. Take a flashlight and a canary. -Michael theMentor Wright

Experience is a great teacher. The class is much more fun when the teacher is someone else’s experience. Your experience as teacher brings a level of realness, urgency, and insistence that can be intense at times. You may be hesitant to enroll in the course. Overtime, your resistance is layered over with history as the lessons were not clear in the moment. The heat of stress and the pressures of life compact your experiences and create new formations. And those lessons, like gems, form in the reality of your experiences. You must mine them to get the value out. Do so with caution, a perspective on progress, and the continual reminder that your power is in your next choice. Mine, not with the intent to look backward, but with the intention to inform your forward progress.

5. Appreciate Who You Are

Take a deep breath. All the “want to” and the “needs” and the “one day” can drown out your experience of right now. You have made progress. Even your insistence on seeking better is progress in mindset. Now, understand that working is not about getting. Achievement is not about settling down. Success is not about ending. You are in a cycle, a spiraling upward creating a spring for others to bounce from. The more evenly and intentionally your growth upward, the more spring you provide. Appreciate who you are, how you have grown, the promise you represent. Take heart in the growth, and allow the production to flow with each breath.

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.