What would amaze you if you did it this week?
You know the feeling. You’re in the shower or doing the dishes, and your heart whispers: something needs to change.
A few years ago, I kept circling around a big idea: start my own business. On paper, it didn’t make much sense. I had a stable job I enjoyed, great colleagues, and a great paycheck. But I couldn’t shake the craving for a slower pace, more time with my kids, and more joy in my everyday life.
And just as clearly, another voice in me yelled, almost sarcastically, ‘You can’t do thaaat. What if it doesn’t work?’
(If only my current self could reassure that younger me that everything would work out better than I could have imagined.)
In Modern Man in Search of a Soul, Carl Jung writes
“Thoroughly unprepared, we take the step into the afternoon of life. Worse still, we take this step with the false presupposition that our truths and ideals will serve us as hitherto. But we cannot live the afternoon of life according to the programme of life’s morning— for what was great in the morning will be little at evening, and what in the morning was true will at evening have become a lie.”
We need to update our beliefs to stay centered into the current vision that’s emerging, not one we outgrown.
That’s the pattern I see with many clients lately. They feel the nudge to build something new… then resistance rushes in.
“It’s not that I don’t know what I want. I just keep hesitating to make a move.”
I’ve been there, and still am. When I’m not fully grounded in my real Self, I default to overfunctioning and avoidance, because old protective patterns take over. It’s important to know your own default wiring, so you can manage it.
Leadership begins with self-awareness of your values and vision.
When you’re honest about what you want, you have to do some hard things - like saying no to a compelling job offer because you know you’re meant to build something of your own. Or saying yes to a role even when others say you don’t have a shot.
In the IOLA program last week, we explored one of my favorite principles:
Follow through on your priorities—because if you don’t, you’ll spend your energy working on someone else’s.
I know my own pattern of avoidance and self-abandonment intimately. I also know the thrill of dreaming big and being true to my boldest Self.
Last week, one of my clients asked a question that stuck with me:
“What would amaze me if I did it this week?”
How great is this question? I love the built-in assumption that the goal is to do something so great, that we actually amaze ourselves.
I brought it to my coach, and it cracked something open in me. Within the hour, I sketched out a bold plan for my business. It feels exciting, bold, and also completely right for me.
So let me ask you: What would amaze you if you did it this week?
What’s a priority you’ve been wanting to follow through on?
When you do hard things your fear will always be triggered. Building the courage muscles to manage it, is in itself part of the initiation process we all go through.
As Jung reminds us, we can’t live the afternoon of life by the rules of the morning. In other words, what got you here won’t get you to the next level.
