Aspire

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Each one of us has something no one else has ... your fingerprints ... Be an individual. Be unique. Stand out. Make noise. Make someone notice. That's the power of the individual. -JON BON JOVI AMERICAN MUSICIAN, SONGWRITER, AND ACTOR

You are accountable for your life. Nobody else is. Therefore, you need to align with who you are and refuse to be held hostage by what others want you to be, do, or have. You need to serve your best interest and not be constrained by a role that was assigned to you by someone else. You need to aggressively pursue what is important to you, and you need to pursue it rationally and with clarity.

Born into the Kennedy dynasty, Maria Shriver has spent a great deal of her life living up to her famous family's legacy and expectations. She is not only the niece of former President John F. Kennedy and Senators Robert and Ted Kennedy but also the first lady of California as the wife of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. That can be a heavy burden to live up to, and she admits that she acquiesced to surrendering her passion for her journalism career for the good of the family and the demands of NBC when Schwarzenegger became the governor of California. In October 2007, during a speech before a packed crowd at the annual California Women's Conference, Shriver made her stand in a confession of sorts. "As long as I was trying to anticipate what you wanted from me, as long as I was trying to fulfill other people's expectations, I was in a losing game, a game that I had been playing since I was a kid. That's what I want to focus on this morning ... letting go of other people's expectations of you so you can own your own life, write your own story, and live your own legacy." She is on that journey at age fifty-two and revealing her thoughts in her latest book, Just Who Will You Be? It is a good book and you should read it.

In order to help keep true to herself, Shriver wrote a list of "Ten Things I Pledge to Myself," and she invites others to compose their own pledges. Her pledge is as follows:

1. I pledge to "show up" in my life as myself, not as an imitation of anyone else.

2. I pledge to avoid using the word "just" to describe myself. For example, I won't say, "I'm just a mother," "I'm just a student," or "I'm just an ordinary person."

3. I pledge to give myself 10 minutes of silence and stillness every day to get in touch with my heart and hear my own voice.

4. I pledge to use my voice to connect my dreams to my actions.

5. I pledge to use my voice to empower myself and others.

6. I pledge to serve my community at least once a year in a way that will benefit other people.

7. I pledge to ask myself, "Who am I? What do I believe in? What am I grateful for? What do I want my life to stand for?"

8. I pledge to sit down and write my mission statement.

9. I pledge to live my own legacy.

10. And I pledge to pass it on.

I want to own my own life, write my own story, and live my version of Maria Shriver's pledges. After I inhale my final breath, I want to then vanish, having been all used up. I cannot reach that final objective if I am numbed out, driven by an insatiable ego, or directing my life to solely benefit others.

When autopilot conditioning and wide-awake awareness intersect, I hope that the latter will prevail. A life of frustration awaits you if you allow a frightened ego, disheartened by what others have or do, to dominate as you wind down to a state of conformity and unfulfilled dreams.

Do not live in the darkened shadows of what could have been. Refuse to choose a life of quiet desperation and irreversible regret. Reject the notion of playing it safe for the sake of inheritance, acceptance, or obedience to others so that they might be comfortable, served, and justified. What are you choosing? What are you invested in being, doing, and having, and for what reason and rationalization? Pay attention and be an active detective investigating your life. Your fingerprints are on all of your results.

Take care of yourself first with good intent. You can take care of others better from a foundation of strength rather than when your feet are mired in quicksand and you are being sucked down into a subservient life. You deserve more from life than finding in your final moments that your shackled hands are reaching desperately toward the surface for what might have been, but never will be.

Many are laid to rest with their dreams entombed along with them beneath chiseled headstones. Or the cooled gray ashes of what their lives might have been are scattered ceremoniously on fickle winds or outgoing tides. Eulogies are read commemorating what the departed achieved rather than what they held in abeyance. Time-stamped achievements often pale in comparison to the untapped potential that passes unnoticed along with the deceased. Grieving friends and family are left wondering who might be the next to leave undeclared hopes and desires behind. Don't let this happen to you. You deserve better. Take a stand for your life. Do it now! There is no other time to create your future.

The passing of those you care deeply about can be the wake-up call that alerts you to what you want more of. Your mortality clock will stop ticking one day, its hands idle. Science, medicine, and positive thinking have slowed the process, but they cannot end the inevitable fate of all human beings. It is up to you to learn from what is happening in your life and take appropriate action now. Are you up to it?

Wake up. Be aware. The only future you are assured of is this moment. Resist the mind-numbing, habitual herd mentality. Stop the obedient penguin march back to established and traditional patterns. Escape from the perceived safety of bordered comfort zones. End the erroneous thinking that someday you will get to what is essential to you. "Ah, someday I'll ..." Someday is always too late.

The following line from Les Misérables warns us about the danger of conformity, falling in love with what we know rather than exploring what is outside of our comfort zone on a different path. "The common herd is like an old Narcissus, who adores himself and applauds the common." The herd mentality allows you to see only what is immediately in front of you. Self-inflicted blinders make you unaware of other life-enhancing possibilities that might lie just off the beaten path. You might miss an unexpected opening as the ritual of predictability, familiarity, and conformity continues to dominate your life and keep you on the straight and narrow. Many fail to seize this opportunity, and the ritual continues. Break the cycle. You cannot steer or accelerate your transformation while the car is on autopilot, directing your thoughts, mental pictures, and emotions. Biding time as your mortality clock ticks away is commonplace. Be uncommon.

SKIRT THESE ROADBLOCKS

Research shows that we create self-imposed obstacles that block us from what we aspire to have. Dr. Scott Peck, for example, suggests two such roadblocks in his landmark self-help book The Road Less Traveled: life is difficult, and people are lazy. These two inhibitors govern our potential, and in the end, they stimulate unbearable regret.

Life Is Difficult

Dr. Peck writes, "Life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult-once we truly understand and accept it-then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters." Stuff happens; no one is spared from having an impaired day. Loved ones succumb to cancer, subprime mortgages default, and seemingly solid marriages dissolve. The evening news reports that a massive hurricane has destroyed an entire city. Young men and women are sent to the Middle East to fight a war that seems impossible to win. We place our dreams on hold when the latest unforeseen drama of life interrupts them. It seems anything can happen.

Position, status, or yesterday's success is not a firewall that can protect anyone from experiencing adversity. The haves and the havenots are all potential targets for what can go wrong in life. Adversity is an equal opportunity offender; it does not discriminate, no matter who you are, what you have achieved, or how many titles you hold. We are all vulnerable.

A paradox comes into play with successful, proactive people: They increase the odds of experiencing difficulties in life by not sitting on the sidelines. They deliberately place themselves in the bull's-eye of life. What separates them from less successful people is how they respond to the speed bumps and move on to whatever is next.

Achievement-oriented people do not remain stuck in the negative past or paralyzed by the current drama. Television legend Merv Griffin, who recently lost his long battle with prostate cancer, said: "You have to be constantly turning the page, which prevents me [sic] from getting caught up in any negativity. I just keep moving and enjoy the ride."

Griffin and other successful people find looking through the windshield at what lies before them to be more interesting than fiddling with the rearview mirror and dwelling on the ground they have already covered. High-achieving people have a curious forward approach to life; they want to explore what is next. They focus on what lies ahead and thus are not blinded by any bright approaching headlights reflected in the rearview mirror. Satchel Paige, legendary pitcher of the Negro baseball leagues, joked: "Don't look back. Something might be gaining on you." That something gaining on you might be an element of your past that has restricted your open-ended potential and has sentenced you to a no-growth life.

You cannot outrun the past if you keep focusing on it. Do not let your life be defined by sentences ending with a period. I encourage you to repeatedly insert a comma and the word "and" or the phrase "to be continued." Doing this will help you keep moving ahead.

In his book The 10 Dumbest Mistakes Smart People Make and How to Avoid Them, Dr. Arthur Freeman writes the following: "It doesn't make any difference whether what you face is something that affects your work, your personal relationships, your sense of security, your appraisal of self-worth, or your appearance ... the way you think about your situation largely determines whether you will do anything about it and what you will do." Yes, life can be difficult. What are your thoughts regarding any current difficulties? Are you considering options, or are you tightening the noose?

People Are Lazy

The second roadblock Dr. Peck identified-people are lazy-is especially true when it comes to making changes in our lives. He writes, "Please keep in mind that some of the hardest-working people are 'lazy' when it comes to changing. It is fear that keeps us from changing. Fear that keeps us from doing the hard work that change requires." Fear is mostly an illusion that shackles us to what we have rather than what we aspire to. It is a veil as thick or as thin as we imagine it to be. The veil of fear needs to be swept aside or penetrated so that we can experience the treasures that await us on the other side.

It takes conscious, focused effort and courage to challenge an unreasonable boss and risk receiving harsh feedback. It takes guts to enter life-changing therapy, to leave a destructive codependent relationship, to lose all that weight once and for all, and to revitalize a dormant marriage. It is difficult until you realize the new and better results. It is difficult until you allow better outcomes to shape your tomorrow.

Winners in life still experience fear, but they make the effort to move beyond the obstacles. They focus on what is on the other side of the barricade rather than on the obstruction. Unabashed courage is acknowledging that you are afraid, that your knees are shaking, that your mouth is bone dry, that your thoughts are scattered. In spite of all that, you choose to move through the discomfort to the desired outcome, with no guarantee of success. Many people are lazy and will settle for what is instead of what could be, what is predictable versus what is mysterious, what is convenient and comfortable versus what might stretch and expand their world. Are you being lazy about a challenge confronting you, or are you being courageous?

AVOID THESE HAIRPIN TURNS

Other obstacles may impede your journey to fulfillment and stall your progress. Two of them are actually just flip sides of the same coin: fear of failure and fear of success.

Fear of Failure

Fear of failure paralyzes many goal seekers. What if you declare a goal, do your best, and fail to reach it? What will people think of you? What will you think of yourself? The default position is to play it safe and return to the familiar, to let today be similar to yesterday and tomorrow be a footprint of today. There is no apparent risk in that plan.

The fear-of-failure crowd will provide you with abundant support as they, too, seek support for taking such a stagnant stance in life. It often boils down to either doing things right or doing the right thing. Conformists who are shackled by the chains of fear of failure suggest that doings things right is the proper path to take. It involves little risk. This approach to life demands that the implementers make numerous small decisions that have little impact. These same implementers are confined within tight comfort zones as they adhere to the norms of the tribe. It is a conservative "don't rock the boat" approach that governmental and business bureaucracies thrive on.

Those who choose to do the right thing, on the other hand, support the notion that the implementer will make only a few decisions, but the impact of those choices will be significant and will lie outside the boundaries of traditional conformity. Entrepreneurs, free thinkers, and risk takers dominate this crowd. Which crowd do you want cheering you on?

William Shakespeare wrote, "Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt." Dr. Maxwell Maltz, plastic surgeon and author of Psycho-Cybernetics, similarly states, "Often the difference between a successful man and a failure is not one's better abilities or ideas, but the courage that one has to bet on his ideas, to take a calculated risk, and to act." I encourage you to act. Turn whatever you are thinking, picturing, and feeling into a remarkable reality. Calculate and wade confidently and intentionally out to the deeper regions of your life. Be an explorer, not a settler.

Renowned poet David Whyte of Yorkshire, England, told an audience that I was a part of in San Diego that the territory is much larger than the maps that we have for it. I encourage you to go beyond the horizon.

When famous Early American explorer Daniel Boone was asked by a Washington socialite if he had ever been lost in the wilderness, he replied, "No ma'am, but I have been a might bewildered for a month or two." Go explore; get lost temporarily. You will find your way, and in that exploration you might discover who you really are and what you truly aspire to have. You might learn to trust your choices over the choices made for you by others.

You needn't plunge initially off the high dive into uncharted waters, however, risking everything. Quantum leaps can be intimidating, as well as an unconscious strategy to sabotage yourself. Rather, I encourage you to begin by thinking bigger than you normally do, eventually thinking LARGE, far beyond where you are. You be the judge of what works for you. It is your life, and no one knows you better than you. George Bernard Shaw suggests that "Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself." Create what brings you joy and gratitude. Go ahead and stretch until the stretch feels normal, and then stretch further.

If you are reading this book, there is a high probability that you have had numerous successes. Set your aspirations and climb to the next level. Propel yourself to where your heart, your spirit, and your longings push and pull you.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from ASPIRE by OLE CARLSON Copyright © 2009 by Ole Carlson. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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