Excuse me, but who’s responsible for your life?
Given that you’re reading this, I can be reasonably certain that you’ll say you are responsible. That you are all over personal responsibility.
But…
…are you living that way?
Or are you waiting for your life and business to unfold the way you wish they would?Waiting and wishing are twin traps that can keep you forever in a state of dissatisfaction. Of suspended animation in which you can work like crazy but never quite get where you wish you were going.
The inner critic thrives on waiting and wishing
The inner critic loves to gather evidence of how you are flawed, and there’s nothing like waiting and wishing to produce that evidence.
(The evidence isn’t actually of your shortcomings, but of the shortcomings of the waiting and wishing strategy. But when the critic is loud enough, that’s hard to remember.)
The opposite of waiting and wishing is creating
Creating means holding the tension between a vividly imagined future and a grounded present. There is still a distance, but as a creator you engage with that distance to close the gap.
Waiting and wishing argue with reality. Creating leverages reality.
Waiting and wishing put a box around the present
There’s infinite freedom, joy, and power in the present moment. Infinite potential for creative action.
But waiting and wishing put a box around the present, separating it from the possible future. What you wish for is always distant, ever out of focus.
You fix that by making decisions.
Decisions turn wishes into vision
Every day I see Accidental Entrepreneurs who are stuck in waiting and wishing because they can’t make a decision.
They can’t decide whether to do an ezine or a blog.
They can’t decide what to charge.
They can’t settle on a brand or a name or even an income goal.
And so long as they fail to decide, they will remain stuck in waiting and wishing.
But as soon as they decide, they’ll have a vision. A destination. An experience, thing, or relationship to create.
Baby steps transform waiting into living your vision
When you’re stuck in waiting and wishing, you imagine that big things will be in the way. That there’s no point moving because you can’t see a move that will take you very far.
But creating is all about baby steps. It’s about seeing the next tiny thing you can do to dial in your vision. To close the gap.
When you create you don’t wait for things to go right. You just start living in whatever ways are available that are congruent with what you’ve decided to create.
What have you been waiting and wishing for?
Where in your life and business do you feel like you’re stuck in a squirrel cage?
Like you are bashing your head against the wall?
What have you been waiting and wishing for?
There’s a way out
Here’s how you get out of waiting and wishing.
- Make a list of the decisions you haven’t made.
- Make them.
- Look at your newly defined vision from where you stand right now.
- Choose a baby step.
- Declare your baby step to someone who holds you big. (I invite you to declare it in the comments below.)
- Take the step.
- Rinse and repeat.
Does that seem simplistic? Well it’s not. As soon as you stop waiting and wishing, you start engaging with life’s complexities.
Until then, you’re just making it complicated.
The origins of Shaboom and an invitation to apply for individual coaching
The name of my company, Shaboom, is taken from a tune written and recorded by The Chords in 1954. The refrain, “Life could be a dream” captures the promise and impermanence of dreams. It calls us to be bold, visionary, and creative. It honors intuition and alternate ways of knowing. And it reminds us not to take ourselves too seriously.
It’s exactly what I want for myself and for my clients. To learn more and schedule an exploratory conversation, please click here.
Image credit: Soggydan via Flickr
