Be the Dragon

The Moment

There comes a time in every milestone, progressive moment, and breakthrough where your fear of staying the same outweighs your fear of the unknown. In addition, there is also the moment when you realize that you have to get out of your own way, your own head, and just freaking do it already.  You reach the tipping point of your mediocrity.

I just had the moment that has been building for a while. The catalyst was unexpected. A friend posted a picture of her mom walking six weeks after a stroke. This woman defied odds and doctors by walking, and one of my relatives is an amazing survivor of three strokes in a two month period. In my head I thought, “and what limitation are you suffering from to limit my potential?” Nothing except the most important one of all: my old story that I am not good enough.

Photograph taken by Pete Kreiger. A moment of quiet reflection in Florida.

Reflection

Last year at this time I was pushed to my brink by forces outside my control, and it got my ass in gear big time. Crisis equals problem to solve, which for me is something I can and do tackle with gusto. I sit here with tears in my eyes, and reflecting on the year that was 2016. Amazing, powerful, emotionally one of the hardest of my life in very different ways than last year.

I am changing and growing. I am getting past the obstacles of the past few months. I am moving towards OWNING my breakthroughs and break them down brick by brick with a sledgehammer. Fear the dragon or be the dragon.

The Demon and Choice

The little things I have been ignoring in my life are like a pile of brush near an ember  on the edge of a forest waiting to be lit. Those little things that I KNEW deep down I had to and deserved change in order to be my best self rose up to become big fiery ball to slay me. The choice becomes yours. Let it slay you, and cower in the fear of your own demons forever in its shadow. Or you rise up and slay your fear with a fury you didn’t know you had. Fear does not like to be challenged, and it will wither like a brushfire with no fuel. It is just waiting on you to grow a set, and slug it like Muhammad Ali on fight night. To take no prisoners. To be the dragon that slays the crouching demon within.

Codependency and Responsibilities

The two biggest lies about adulthood is that your life is now your own, and that you should live your life to be “comfortable”.

The other thing that people don’t tell you about adulthood is that it is Fraking Hard. You essentially have two choices once you reach the pinnacle moment in adulthood: to stay or create a the cloud of comfort known as mediocrity or change into something bigger. The something bigger is almost always painful, and often times brings you into positions that you’d never thought you would have to fulfill or want to fulfill.

Responsibilities

This is what being an adult comes down to responsibilities. This is why I love certain aspects of my life, because I have none in one of my jobs. I still do them because I have a strong work ethic, but it’s not expected. And if you don’t, there really aren’t consequences that are noticeable at first. Depending on where you are in your life, those consequences may not surface for a very long time (raises hand).

This is what has separated my apparent adulthood from actual adulthood, codependency. I paid most of my own way for most of my life, except college, which will be forever grateful for, except living space. It was easy and comfortable, and I settled into a cloud of mediocrity. I am sure that my parents thought they were doing me a favor and I am grateful for them, but they didn’t realize they were doing me a disservice.

My life was not ultimately up to me. If I didn’t make “rent”, it’s not like they were going to kick me out. So I stayed, and I stayed far longer than I should have because of the cloud of codependency and comfort of mediocrity allowed me to.

As I am making epiphanies as I write this, it is evolving as I write it. Here is what I have learned about being comfortable in a fog of mediocrity: it is comfortable, but truly unfulfilling. You begin to question your own self-worth, as well as so many other things about your life.

Decide to Thrive

The word Decide means to literally cut off. Who wants to cut off a portion of themselves? Nobody. If a person has gangrene, and it was up to them most people would let it fester and spread throughout their bodies. Why? It’s easier that way. The pain of surviving that pain is often worse than living in their current state.

Changing sucks. It just does. What I have learned about change in the last year is that it happens, and often at odd times in one’s life. It forces you to grow into a role that you didn’t expect to ever take on. Roles that you never wanted to take on, sometimes. Circumstances dictated you to be the rock., be the one to ask questions, and be the painful truth teller in your family.

It would have been so nice if your journey had stopped there. But it doesn’t.

The Choice

Growth and change never stop in the world of responsibility and adulthood. When it does, a person starts sinking into the mediocrity of comfort. I was used to love being comfortable, until one day it wasn’t. I craved more. It was easy. I am OVER it being EASY. Nothing good happens there, bring on the pain.

Here’s the choice that we adults get to make every day: be comfortable or grow into something better. There is no judgment for being comfortable. I lived in comfort for about a decade, and I struggled sometimes in the mediocrity of comfort.

I spent the majority of my life being “comfortably” uncomfortable. It was easy, it was being meh, and it ended up not being enough. I have written before that most of my life was spent trying to be invisible. One day someone saw something in me, and suddenly that was not enough. It shouldn’t be enough.

The pain and growth I experienced in the last 4.5 years was worth all of it to experience the journey of self-discovery.

The regret? It will suck worse than any of the intensely person growth I have experienced in the last 4.5 years. It is about being an inspiration to not only others, but more importantly yourself. Choose your inspiration.

Type of Decisions

Life is not a series of moments; it’s a series of decisions. I have come to the conclusion that there are three types of decisions. One is deliberate where you choose to go after something in your life. Two is passive, where you let the decision come to you. Three is where the situation determines your decision. The third option may seem like passive, but I beg to differ.

Passive is where you are ambling through life, but situations arise and you ride that flow without participating in it much. Situational decisions are where you make an active decision driven by circumstances where you decide to drive your own your circumstances. If you don’t see the difference, please continue to read.

I have always enjoyed puzzles, and life is no different. I have always been good at dealing  with problems and obstacles, regardless if they were mine or someone else’s. I have never been one to panic when faced with an obstacle because it’s an objective problem I can fix. When my car bumper was literally hang by a few pieces of metal, I fixed it with cable ties. When power has gone out, I grabbed my head lamp so we could search hands free. The pragmatic and solution oriented approach to problems have always come easy and natural to me.  It is a situational decision brought on by fear.

Everyone goes through things in their life that are presented as obstacles. Last November life presented me with a series of the biggest obstacles I have ever faced, and I used it to propel me forward. I responded to the situational decision, and I used it to fuel me. I grew more than ever, both in life and personally.  This post is not to brag about that level of growth, for which I am proud of accomplishing and grateful for.  The growth I experienced was driven primarily and instinctively by fear.  It is a small way to grow, however.  I would like to show you a better way to grow without external stimuli.  Fear will push you into greatness only so far.

This post is what happens when there is no crisis or obstacle, and you still have an all-consuming desire to grow.  When there is no life event that makes you realize that you have been playing small, and you better step up.  It is what happens when you turn from an amateur (in anything) to a professional.  Because your decision and action is not propelled by fear, but it is propelled by love and faith in something bigger than you.

I have heard time and time again in my network marketing business it takes a decision. It takes a shift. Each time I promoted, it was because of an external event. It’s not enough. To be truly better, you deserve to strive to be better when there is no propelling reason to be. This is that moment for me. I have no external struggle happening in my life, but I have not felt this much internal determination to be better than yesterday in quite some time.

Situational decisions will only get you so far before you hit a wall of your belief. If you feel the pull to greatness, be aware that your mindset and soul deserve more than to be pawns in a situational game. Be an active participate in your greatness, and make that decision now to live in a life that is not fear based.