You don't have to see the whole staircase. Just take the first step.
Martin Luther King Jr.
Jack Canfield's Success Principle #14 is "Just Lean Into It." It's no wonder that this one follows on the heels of taking action. Leaning into it is when you just start. You get into action with no promise or guarantee of success. You might not even have a sense of the outcome. Just move towards what feels right to you. Discover what it feels like. And when you do, you get a sense of whether you want to keep going.
When I started to become a coach, it was just like this. I knew that I wanted to work for myself. I knew I wanted to do work that was meaningful to me and that used my best skills. But I had no idea what that might be. I started coming up with millions of ideas. Every week I'd send out new ideas to my 'dream team' and ask them, "Which do you think would be the most successful? Which do you see me enjoying the most?" I had ideas from running a social activity group to having a newspaper reading service to being a clown for kids in the hospital (the latter my husband thought was the craziest but they actually have that now! See here.)
Suddenly I stumbled across coaching. It piqued my curiosity. It sounded like it could be a good fit. I signed up for the first course. And from that point I promised myself that as long as the next step felt right, I would take it. Here I am 4 years later a certified professional coach. As I'm preparing to take my practice to the next level by starting to offer workshops and programs, I can feel that I'm being called to lean again. It's time to stretch and grow. Time to put an idea into action and see what happens.
Another powerful point Canfield makes in this chapter is that it's this movement that allows you to be guided towards your true path. Obstacles may appear, but sometimes moving around them sends you where you actually are meant to go. "Even when you can't move forward, you can turn right or you can turn left, but you have to keep moving."
This makes sense to me. When I'm moving in a general direction, the Universe just has to send a little breeze, a little tap, to guide my movement. But if I'm sitting on my bum, imagine how much more force it would take to get me to sit up and get moving. Also, why should the Universe make that big effort? I haven't given her any indication I want to play. But when I'm up and moving, even if I'm completely lost, I have said I'm ready to move.
What are you going to lean into this week?
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