Every Day
This morning a dear friend sent me this cartoon. Tickled by an inner kinship to Charles Shultz, I wanted to pass it on to you. One of my big goals this year is to publish my book on thriving life leadership (which is why my website, workshops and mobile app marketing are relatively quiet). One step at a time.
In many ways Snoopy’s quote sums up why I’m writing a book. Because leadership is all about how we choose to make the most of every day to lean into the values and vision by which we want to live. And that takes incredible courage, vulnerability and personal responsibility.
Our ever louder external world would love to define success for us. How many likes or retweets did we get? Which poll reinforces what we want to hear? What activities, accomplishments or acquisitions came from the outer world to tell us we are worthy?
Somehow it’s never enough. But here’s the deal we need to remember and internalize: we are all so deeply, amazingly, powerfully worthy! And we are learning. And we fall sometimes and need to find the strength to get up again and again. That is the journey of life.
How do we learn not to get too bruised every day? How do we find our own light and power when it seems pretty dark? How do we avoid falling into distraction, numbing or depression just to pass the day when so much feels out of our control?
It starts quietly, with a few minutes of commitment to yourself. It starts by you asking yourself who you want to be every day. What values by which do you want to live? What is one super small thing you could do today to help you embody that vision every day?
If you spend three minutes today breathing in that value or vision of the you inside, two minutes writing down your intention around how you want to show up and what you want to embody for yourself today, and just one minute write down something for which you are grateful, you have begun the practice of Six Minutes Daily. See the miracle of life around you. Allow it in, no matter how small. We get to choose what we focus on.
I am not diminishing the powerful force of emotion. It’s important to feel and acknowledge our feelings. But let’s also remember and make the internal commitment to ourselves that we are more than our feelings. We are the powerful mountain that still stands after the most ferocious of storms pass.
