How to Create Space For A Purposeful Reinvention
Adam Markel
Resilience & Future-of-Work Keynote Speaker & Researcher | WSJ Bestselling Author of Pivot & Change Proof | TEDx & Podcast Influencer | Attorney & Mentor | Co-Founder/Chief Researcher at WORKWELL
Doesn’t it seem like the moment we make a decision to pivot, that voice in our mind comes to life? “...What if I fail? What if it doesn’t work? Are you sure about this?...” Or maybe you haven’t even decided yet, but you are creating space for something new and that voice wants to fill the space you’re creating, to take over, so you remain stuck.
You are not alone in this process. Every human being on Earth can read that and relate to it because fear is universal and being resistant to change is universal. But there are habits, rituals, and mindsets we can change and adopt to get out of this stuck-cycle and into waking up everyday (just like me!) and saying I LOVE MY LIFE.
Let’s Talk Mindset First
We often adopt and nurture a victim mentality without even realizing it. My TED Talk ruffled some feathers because the concept of loving life, especially when life is difficult, is not something we are used to hearing or adopting. There was a good percentage of folks that pushed back on my message and said, “You wouldn’t love your life if you lived my life…” and things to that effect. I cannot deny that life is hard, but the mindset and mentality we choose to adopt is where we can actually make a change to the reality we are living. If you hate your life, and it’s impossible to love, you can either keep talking about how much you hate it or you can pick one thing and do that one thing differently to begin pivoting into a life you can love.
Persistence + Consistency= Resilience
A mindset shift or ritual around shifting your mindset needs to take place daily. It cannot be something you do once or twice a week and then still expect a change. Your results will be as consistent as your effort. Persistence means you're doing something every single day that's going to move you forward, and doing it consistently is key. You don’t need to recreate the wheel everyday or build the Empire State Building all at once, you just need to be consistent. This is how we build resilience- the key to a happy and successful life.
Going Back to Mindset…
Tony Robbins always encourages people to think about things happening for them instead of to them, a concept that we often don’t acknowledge because we don’t take time to listen. As Dr. Travis Zigler put it in our recent conversation, “When we take time to listen, that’s when things start to show up. If you start to think about everything happening for you instead of to you, then you get rid of that victim mentality, and you start listening, then you’ll move your life forward. You’ll create the pivot that you need.”
Bottom line is this: it is so important to understand the value of resilience, pivoting, and adopting a mindset that breeds success and supports change. It is okay to be scared and move forward anyway. It is okay to be unsure and move forward anyway. It is okay to answer that debilitating voice in the back of your head with an affirmation to shift your mindset. It is okay to PIVOT. Take some time and ask yourself these questions to see where you stand when it comes to persistence, consistency and resilience:
- Are things happening to me or for me?
- Am I afraid of pivoting?
- What will it take to be happy?
- Does my life need more consistency?
- When was my last PIVOT?
- What is one thing I can do today to be more consistent?
Creating Space for Change
If you believe, which I do, that everything is happening to you for a reason, in the moments when you aren’t sure about the why, you need to create space for the answer. Sit down, ask and then listen. Life is so busy and noisy that we rarely (if ever) have silence, but if everything is happening for a reason, we have to make time to sit down and hear what that reason might be. And this concept is true for other things in life. We have to be willing to create the space for the pivot, the new job, the relationship, the hobby… whatever it is, part of asking for something or desiring something is also making sure there is a place for it in your life.
One Final Point
Creating space is how you get creative. It's funny, but we have so much clutter in our lives. That can be mental clutter, physical clutter, emotional clutter, even spiritual clutter. When we're talking about God or spirit or even the Universe, there's a lot of clutter in that space as well. And we know that there are no hard and fast rules to any of this stuff. It's fascinating that when you relax a bit, when you’re able to focus on and see that there’s an area for you to focus and consolidate energy and let go of some things that might have been clutter, that’s when we start to see things change.
If you know you’re ready for more consistency, let us know in the comments below how we can help you take that first step. You never have to do this alone.