Inspired by Instagram
?An Instagram reel inspired this share. It was a short reel that said – we all try hard to make so many people feel proud of us, but the only two people you need to make proud of is the 16-year-old you and the 60-year-old you. That’s all. Short reel.
I have been reflecting on this for over two weeks now…. the three points in life , the past 16 , future 60 and present gift . I remember the 16-year-old version of me - Big dreams but no details, yearned for freedom but no means, hungry but no plan, determined but no idea, wild but no way forward.
?As I gained experience I held on to my dreams and developed ideas, accessed the freedom by finding means, stayed hungry and developed new plans, harnessed my determination, and renamed the "wild" as creative. :) There is an inner forward movement that we all undergo as we live life, and this widens our perspective. The challenge today is that we don’t let this widened perspective recalibrate the idea of success or what the purpose of our life is. ?What we believe to be the purpose of our life sadly stays to be narrow and static , it fails to evolve with the pace of the experience and expansion life gives us. Its time to pause, reflect and to update our life purpose based on where you are now and who you are becoming. .
One thing I often see in my coaching experience is that when people fail to do this recalibration often, they experience acute dissonance.
It’s the dissonance between what one is becoming to be ?and what one has historically believed one should be. This dissonance interrupts our ability to be fully present in life in the moment and experience its entirety.
People experience this dissonance differently – some say they experience a sudden vacuum, some start seeking a deeper purpose, some say life feels empty , some start looking for relevance , some drown in ?the stress it creates , some struggle to name it but certainly feel it. Whatever the name we give, however we chose to express it – it is the dissonance between who we are becoming based on the widened perspective of this wonderful life and who we historically believed we should be.?
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It takes unshakeable clarity and inner freedom to deconstruct the “no longer relevant historical constructs” and go with the flow of life with curiosity and joy.
Not easy. Why not? 3 reasons:
1.Cemented Construct – Definitions of purpose, success, failure , and for that matter any other life phenomenon has been ?cemented in concrete for long. The door is closed, we have no means to enter and alter, the only way is to bring it down completely.
2. Reinforcing rewards – This has served us well so far, got us so far, it is familiar and reassuring. The affinity is real and rooted in deep emotions. Peeling layers off this affinity, will eventually lead us to place of clarity on what this really means to us and that meaning paves a way forward that is different.
3. Fear of Future – Unknown is always unnerving. How do we make a leap with faith and curiosity to discover and be, so we can experience the entirety of life. In this journey - We often are scared not about failure; we are scared about what if we win in this endeavor? Who will we be? Growth is painful, even in the right direction.
Being present here and now and accessing the full spectrum of possibility from the present and de-anchoring from the historically held definitions can open many more possibilities than what we set out to have when we started the journey. The state of going with the flow and being open to see where it takes us to by in itself can be very liberating experience.