Do you sense time is going by fast and you are still not as
fulfilled as you would like to be?
This is a common experience people have so you are definitely
not alone. As a matter of fact, having experienced this in my
own life is what motivated me to study human behavior as both a
scientist and independent student of the nature of being human.
I have found that life has certain “truths,” if you will, that
cannot be changed. One of these “truths” is that human nature is
not static. In other words, you are constantly changing, all the
way from your bodies to your emotions, to your thoughts,
relationships dynamics, and your likes and dislikes. One year
you like chicken and the next you prefer fish. One moment you
are calm and patient and then next you feel like you are ready
to explode. This ever changing process brings about a lot of
uncertainty in our lives and in some ways makes us feel insecure
and vulnerable. The reason is that often what we want to happen
does not, and instead something totally unexpected takes place.
This uncertainty is so true in sports for example. One day you
may play great and the next, even though you are still the same
player with the same talent, your performance totally sucks.
You ask yourself why, what’s happening, how could I have gone
from being so confident to now feeling so out of control.
Now, this is where you have an opportunity to flow with this
“truth” of life!
Remember I am talking about the “truth” that life is in
constant change. Nothing is static forever because everything is
energy and the nature of energy is that it is in constant
motion. So you have a choice. When you find that you are not
getting the results you want, you can either become your best
teacher or your best judge.
Which one do you choose most of the time?
Most people chose to become their best judge. I don’t think
this is done consciously though because I think people are
smarter than that. Seriously, if you had the choice of a teacher
who is understanding, caring, loving, kind, knowledgeable, and
unconditionally available versus one who is judgmental, easily
frustrated, impatient, reactive, arrogant, stubborn, and
conditional, who would you choose? Even if you are partially
awake right now, I think you would choose the former 100% of the
time. So why do most people make the wrong choice and elect the
latter (to be their best judge)?
One answer, like it or not, is that you may in fact be less
than partially awake. It is highly possible you may be sleeping
your way through life. I don’t mean to say that you are choosing
to be asleep. Instead, I am inviting you to explore the
possibility that you’ve been programmed to live with minimal
awareness. The other possibility causing you to make bad
decisions is your lack of trust. This lack of trust stems from a
low self-esteem and is also caused from living with minimal
awareness.
Think about this for a moment. People are constantly trying to
replicate previous states of emotional fulfillment. They are
trying to do this through actions, hoping that the results they
get will give them a sense of self-value. The problem is that
people seldom get to experience life exactly as they want to or
expect to. This brings about frustration, lack of confidence,
and often a “giving up” of what you would most like to achieve
in life. This is usually the beginning of emotional illness,
troubled relationships, physical aches and pains, and a sort of
departure from who you are. I am talking about a separation from
who you truly are in the most genuine sense.
Anybody who is looking for results to validate them and give
them a sense of value has a very low self esteem. So getting
results is not the solution for obtaining life fulfillment.
Getting results will give you enough fuel for continuing your
progress toward getting more results but it won’t provide you
with that sense of enduring fulfillment you are looking for.
If you want your fulfillment to endure independently of the
results you get, you would greatly support your journey by
learning to live with uncertainty!
When you allow your capacity for uncertainty to arise, when you
give uncertainty the space it wants and deserves, you begin to
engage your ultimate potential. In other words, you begin to
live life with a dynamism most only experience a few times
during a lifetime. You begin to get clues as to how your life
experience can consistently quench your thirst for an apparent
impossibility (timeless fulfillment).
The keys to enduring fulfillment are to (1) Have the freedom and mental flexibility to accept what’s
in front of you without trying to “fix” it or manipulate it to
meet your immediate needs (2) Find a listening partner who is
unconditionally committed to supporting you, (3) develop a
system to stay motivated and committed to the results you want.
A person does not become average merely as a result of
circumstances he/she faces in the process of living – challenges
and limitations, for example, are always present – but as a
result of being vulnerable to these challenges and limitations.
It is the person-environment relationship, one that is always
changing, that determines whether peak performance is manifested
or not. Here, person is synonymous with subjective and
environment is synonymous with objective. So the person or
subjective piece is the primary agent for peak performance. Not
the other way around.
If you are involved in sales for example, the “sales” are the
objective piece of the equation and “you” are the subjective
piece. You have much more control of you than the actual sales
transaction and would do very well if you approach the sales
process with a solid sense of the outcome you want to
accomplish, the personal reasons inspiring you to accomplish it
(this is unique to everybody), and then designing an action plan
that is congruent with the person you are (your strengths and
limitations). Most sales people focus on the objective piece
which is the outcome (making the sake). But the most important
thing is not the outcome but the personal purpose that you bring
into the transaction.
Stop wasting your time by trying to manipulate the environment
to obtain the results you want. What you are doing is
manipulating everything and everybody around you so that you can
feel good. By the way, this manipulation includes you. If you
continue doing this, you are surely going to end up frustrated
and unfulfilled regardless of how “successful” you were in
creating the results you wanted.
The alternative is to work within your own understanding to
become committed to your purpose and passion for life. If you do
this, life will take you on a path of complete adventure and
joy. I recently took my 3-year-old daughter to see a Sesame
Street Show at the Performing Arts Center. When we walked in the
theatre, she was pulling my hand to move faster. Finally we got
to the entrance to our seats and when we walked in she saw Elmo
and Big Bird. She loudly screamed their names and jumped up and
down of excitement and awe. I was so touched I got tears in my
eyes. I was reminded that this kind of raw passion is available
in all of us. It is so easy to forget this and be driven mostly
by what others expect from us. This is lack of responsibility
among other things. Many people have disconnected from it but
the good news is that it is not that hard to reconnect with our
inner compass and find the true calling of our heart and soul.
It is only through this subjective reconnection that you have
any chance of living with enduring fulfillment.
In order to re-awaken that passion for living, the one that you
have within you and can never be taken away from you, you must
learn to listen to your inner wisdom. Yes, learning to listen.
Listening is such a simple thing to do; yet most people have
forgotten the power of it. There are too many things to do so
people postpone listening to a time when they aren’t so busy. I
am talking here about a listening that is holistic. In other
words, it is not only listening to the sounds and words people
make. It is a listening of your body, inside and out, a
listening that transcends mental noise.
So how do you develop your holistic listening capacity?
You can start by taking five minutes to sit with your eyes
closed, in a time when you are not pressured to be anybody and
accomplish anything. Remember to choose the inner teacher that
best supports you, one that is patient and curious rather than
conditional and judgmental. Allow anything that arises to come
up in your awareness and follow its own course. Don’t try
anything or reject any experience, simply allow whatever
experience you are having to surface regardless of what it is.
Do this daily and think about journaling your experience to make
sure you are digesting your discoveries and deprogramming your
sense of deficiency. It will not only allow you to create the
results you want more efficiently but will make the people
around happier to have you in their team.
My “Peak Performance Mini Course,” gives you 20 key principles
to achieve peak performance while creating a life-long
foundation for self-fulfillment. If you don’t yet have my “Peak
Performance Mini Course,” for goodness sakes get it now! It’s
the only peak performance course of its kind out there. Because
it is a holistic approach to peak performance and guide to
building the foundation for a life of ever-increasing
fulfillment regardless of the results you are after or the field
you are in – totally created from my experience as a
professional athlete, clinician, scholar, entrepreneur, husband,
and father!
I won’t waste your time adding to your quick-fix tool kit
because I don’t live that way myself and am not interested in
quick fixes. But I will take you through a journey of personal
factors that will strengthen your certainty and unleash your
true potential to reveal itself in your practical day-to-day
life.
“The Peak Performance Mini Course” is packed with wisdom to
help you be a consistent achiever who doesn’t depend exclusively
on results for personal fulfillment. It consists of 20 simple
lessons you can implement immediately to:
- Identify your natural strengths;
- Develop unconditional self-trust;
- Overcome doubt;
- Accelerate the pace by which you achieve your goals;
- Clarify what you want to manifest in your life right now;
- Maintain your integrity in your path to peak performance;
- Let go of past worries and future concerns;
- Learn to live from your heart rather than from what society
says is right and wrong; - Learn to let go of your self-judgments; and,
- Create a congruent life destined for enduring fulfillment.
Check it out for yourself. To get the complete details, click
the link below, or cut and paste it into your browser.
http://www.peakperformancemastery.com/ecoaching_progr
am.html
Whether you are professional coach, athlete, executive, sales
leader, or Mexican gardener growing tacos in Beijing, remember
to listen before you speak, feel before you think, and observe
before you act. Don’t try to “fix” your life or that of others.
No one needs any fixing, including you. This way, your wisdom
will emerge and guide you to a life experience that is your true
calling.
Ruben Perczek, Ph.D
Guiding business leaders accelerate the pace by which they
achieve their
goals.
PeakPerformanceMastery.com
(800) 732-5991
(800-PEAK-991)
