Yesterday I was looking at the question of what word I see would, within looking at what I am facing in my life right now, could be transformed into a Living Word through which I could assist and support myself to live my full potential that I see within me in terms of how I could be applying the skills and abilities I see I have / have the potential for.
The word I arrived at is: Daring.
Currently in my life I am walking the point of establishing a business which involves meeting a lot of new people, communicating about my product and my goals, and placing myself in sales situations. I don’t have any previous experience with business and basically, the ability of my business to succeed is dependent entirely on my movement of finding people, talking to them, and selling to them.
I’m in a position within the system where I don’t know a lot of people where I am, and I also have very limited time during my week in which to find ways to meet people. What I’ve found so far is that the best way to meet people to support the growth of my business is through specific kinds of events and activities where I’m be faced with people who ‘know the industry’ at a technical level more than me, have more experience than me, and ask questions that put me on the spot in terms of communicating and expressing who I am, what I do, and why what I do is important.
Within this I’ve had experiences with people in which I wasn’t yet effective with my words / being able to stand by the value of my business / product and I went into inferiority and self judgment – and what happened was the meeting / communication would then kind of just end, and not result in making any real connection with the person. Afterward what I’ll do is apply myself within investigating what I need to learn / how I can become more effective, and I’ll walk the steps necessary to get to that point of effectiveness / developing the skills and understanding necessary to improve myself.
Within this though, the point I’ve been facing is that when I’m ‘in between’ opportunities, I’m totally stable within myself in seeing my actual potential / the skills I have / what I have the potential to do in terms of meeting and working with people — but when and as I am faced with the moment of stepping into an opportunity to actually try out a skill / ability I see I have within myself — there is a risk of failure involved – and I tend to access memories of past failures / ineffectiveness where I had judged myself, and then from there I’ll tend to go into a point of underestimating myself – where I’ll actually take the potential I see is within me, and I will deliberately ‘cut myself down’ a few notches to a ‘safe zone’ based on what I see would lower or eliminate the risk of failure, and I will take the smallest, safest steps, like staying in a tide-pool instead of going for it and jumping into the ocean..
Now I can see that I’m doing this because I had defined eliminating risk and ‘playing it safe’ as ‘what I’m comfortable with’, while I had defined taking risks and stepping into the unknown not knowing what is going to happen, as ‘uncomfortable’.
The funny thing is that afterward I’ll look back at the moment and see that, wow I really should have just went for it, because I had nothing to lose, and in looking at myself again, I can see I really DID have the ability to direct the moment effectively with the person — I just gave into the fear of risk and went with what is ‘comfortable’ — and I ended up missing out on the opportunity anyway!
Within this, there also have been many times where I HAVE dared myself to go for it and take the risk, and each time it has been worth it – whether or not I was effective in making a connection with someone, each time I’ve learned a lot about myself and how I can become more effective — things I wouldn’t have been able to learn any other way than actually daring to act in spite of what happened in the past, and in spite of whatever uncertainty I may be experiencing.
So the point I see here where I’ve been limiting myself is through deciding that ‘I just can’t be comfortable with taking risks’, and ‘I’m only comfortable with keeping it safe and staying away from taking risks’ — when, I’ve already proven to myself that in Daring to take a risk – that’s where I learn the most about myself and where I have the best opportunity to really expand my expression and my skills beyond mere potential, into a living fact of what I can do. And – nothing ‘bad’ ever happens when I fail – because all that’s required is to simply get more effective and try again!
I’ve been living the word Daring in my mind as a word defined through memories of emotional experiences – perpetuating a cycle of fear and limitation. But I see I can change the way I’m living this word so that it becomes a practical resource through which I can nourish and support my self expansion in living to my full potential.
So, to redefine the word Daring as a Living Word I can stand by / as into eternity:
When and as I am faced with an opportunity to step into / explore a point of potential I see I have, within expanding my expression into / as skills / abilities that involve risk of possible failure in order to develop / follow through with, I commit myself to realize that I can be comfortable within myself, with myself, as I am walking this point of risk-taking, as I have already proven to myself that I am able to stand through / within outcomes of failure and – nothing ‘bad’ actually happens.
I see and realize the potential within me to be comfortable with / within Daring to take risks, and thus, when and as I am faced with an opportunity to move beyond a limitation in my expression / abilities, and I see the potential within me to expand, I commit myself to stand within and as my potential, and decide to be daring, decide to take on the risk with a passion, within realizing that in this I will really get to know my expression and my potential for real, in real time – and within this I commit myself to dare to live without memories, and to stop underestimating myself through projections based on past failures, and start estimating myself IN REAL TIME based on what I am discovering in real time about myself through daring to take risks.
In looking at the words I’ve placed, I can now look at the word Daring within myself and — instead of seeing something scary and uncomfortable, I see a doorway to self discovery, to self expansion, to self expression — awesome!
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Really cool blog – thanks Matti!