“Personal Development is not a race to the finish line. It is the journey of our lives—the way we come to see and re-see ourselves and the world around us.”
It is how we live the journey of our lives that colours our response to many situations and events. Some we value and appreciate, and then, there are others we may wish had not occurred.
The way we learn the lessons from both the positive, and not so positive, will determine the narrative we place around them. This will in turn impact the choices we make.
This has been my experience recently.
Last month I shared the elements of creativity with you. I encourage you to read them carefully and take them on board:
• destroy the past – especially the forms and assumptions that are standing in the way of moving forward
• preserve the present – safeguard the best of what’s already working, continuing to develop and streamline, experimenting, innovating and evolving into the future
• re-imagine the future – dare to live at your creative edge. Be ever curious and return to the drawing board again and again – as often as is needed.
You must adopt a mindset of Being diligent as these are key qualities which we must have in our ‘capacity’ to live our journey.
Robert Fritz is a person I greatly admire who focuses on structures. A musician by training, he is now a leading management consultant specialising in structural thinking and creativity. He recently wrote an article on Ideal vs Reality and I acknowledge these insights below.
I have personally seen many of the clients I am working with experience them which is quite wonderful!
“Most people have expectations about how things will go, how the world is, what the rules of the road are, and what is supposed to happen in most situations. Let’s call these expectations your concepts or ideals. But most often, reality turns out to be different. Some experience a constant battle between their ideals and reality. You can hear them complain about ‘how things are'”
What is the basis for their complaints?
Let’s think about this structurally. That means, looking at these two elements within the structure – ideal/reality – and how they are connected. The stronger the ideal is held, the more the frustration when reality contradicts it. The less the insistence of the ideal, the more flexible one can be”.
Robert believes that “your ability to create what you want includes the ability to be fluent in reality”.
The creative process happens in reality.
One way to define the creative process is the ability to bring what you want to create into reality. If you are not able to create the results you want in reality, you haven’t actually created it.
When you incorporate the three creativity steps above, particularly re-imagining the future and being willing to get curious, go back to the drawing board and refine, you are developing your ability to live at the intersection of structure and unpredictability.
You are able to, work with the visible and invisible.
The skill to develop, no matter what you thought reality should have been, is to understand reality as it is. It does not matter what preconceived ideas you had, it is being able to Be in the moment, and fluent in reality.
In essence, having a clear idea of what you want to create along with a clear understanding of the current reality as it stands, in relationship to your vision.
Over the past 15 months, I have enjoyed working with an executive leader while he is on assignment in Australia. He experienced this dilemma recently. He was offered an excellent promotion in the USA, and contacted me to discuss whether he should accept or not. His concern, was not whether he could do the job, rather that he thought he might be offered something more ‘exciting’ on his return. I asked him to not think what the role was, and to think what he could bring to the role – his value creation in other words, as a leader.
The shift in his energy was noticeable – “I had not thought of it like that” – was his response.
He then proceeded to focus on how he could lead the people to ‘re-imagine’ what the business could be, not as it is, and take them on journey of futuring the narrative for the business, repositioning it in the marketplace.
The next time you find yourself complaining about how things aren’t the way they should be, remember that it is an indication of your ideal in conflict with how it really is. Develop a preference for seeing reality accurately, no matter what you happen to expect.
Robert would say, “reality is an acquired taste. A taste that is good to acquire”.
Filtering the noise, and noticing what you are paying attention to is also essential to remember.
“Everyone has a perfect gift to give the world and if each of us is freed up to give the gift that is uniquely ours to give, the world will be in total harmony.”
— Buckminster Fuller
(from The Soul of Money, page 182)
When we give the gift that is uniquely ours, sometimes the decisions come more easily.
This was evident with this young executive.
When he stepped back to reflect on not what the job role was, but what he could bring to the role in his leadership capacity that would expand the thinking and possibility of the people who work for this part of the business.
All it took was a shift of mindset from what to who he was and how he could lead. (To own his gift of people leadership.)
Sometimes a pivot from that old story to the new story is all it takes to see what is possible if I show up with my gifts.
• Where do you show up with your gifts?
• What choices can you make that are aligned with your gifts and expand your value creation?
• How are you embracing reality in your decision-making?
Are you ready to begin your journey toward Walking Tall, and owning your gift?
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