Ever notice how there is the way everyone does something which seems to work more or less for some or even most of them, and then there is a radically different way that some people do it that either works fabulously for them or they die alone and broke?
Long sentence I know, but I think the gist of the phenomenon comes through. I’ll assign some percentages temporarily but I reserve the right to tweak them in a minute.
Lets say 80% of the people believe that the path to a career is to go to college, get a job, work it for 30 years, then retire and have time a place freedom to relax for 5 to 10 years before becoming too old to enjoy it all. (Given the current college loan debt forgiveness THING that’s going on I almost didn’t use this example but…it’s just the best example.)
Group A
So there has always been a group of people who just looked at that option and said, “that’s not for me.” Maybe they went to trade school and then still worked 30 years, etc., etc. but they skipped the a key ingredient and substituted another.
So when we look at the numbers, and now with the fullness of time, we can look at these two approaches and see that group A didn’t get the results they thought they were going to. Group B is pretty happy in general. There could be a lot of reasons for this, including the fact that the size of group A was too big and group B was too small. Another explanation is that colleges graduated people with degrees there was no worldly demand for. But regardless of the reason it’s pretty obvious that it didn’t work. (And NO, department of education the fault doesn’t sit in the lap of for profit colleges, State Colleges are just as guilty.)
The real question is, how do you avoid following the crowd and destroying your financial life for decades?
Actually it’s even bigger than that because career is just one place you face the decision to follow the crowd or go off-road. It might be, do I buy a PC or an Apple product? In a sense, no one lays awake at night wondering if they should have bought a different tech product, but even in this little area of life, if you started your computer journey on one platform you likely stuck with it unless something happened to change force you in a different direction. Then when cell phones became a thing it likely impacted your phone buying decision, and later it impacted your streaming decisions and so on.
To make things a tiny bit more nuanced…
There are more options than group A and group B! Group C is made up of unicorns who reinvent the wheel before they settle for what anyone else is doing. These are the entrepreneurs, the people who build their own PC and write their own code. In a world of Dog and Cat pet owners they buy a parrot. When 80% of folks live in a city or a suburb, they own a ranch or a farm. They bought the first electric cars and now they’re trying to decide between an old propane bus or a prototype hydrogen fuel cell car.
The point is, these people get more satisfaction from not doing what everyone does. These are the real 20% crowd because group A and group B together add to 80%. That’s the perception, except the truth is their is a group D.
Group D??
Yes, some folks don’t find any of it working for them. They’ve auditioned everything they can think of and in at least one or more areas they are failing to achieve their goals and feeling miserable about it. Group D doesn’t care whether you use Money or Happiness to keep score they’re failing at both.
Because there are several areas to consider and degrees of success in each area, the truth is group D is the biggest group. Most people feel like they’re failing to thrive in one or more areas that they truly care about. Also most people when you get to know them, believe that they can’t find success doing what everyone says will lead to it.
They want breakthrough in that area, and they don’t want to sacrifice ground they’ve taken in any area that is working.
The Answer:
Okay, I can’t put a single answer to this big of a problem into a single answer that fits all. But I can point you to where the path begins. You need to know yourself. You need to know what’s important to you. You need to know how you define success, not just what hurts right now. You need to be familiar with what you bring to the table. How do people perceive you? How do you perceive you? Where did those ideas come from?
This is only one of five things you need to figure out your personal success map, and when you have them you may need to add some skills and tools, or change some mindsets, but seriously start at the beginning. You can book a zoom call with me at this link and lets chat about this. Free no obligation.
We’ve all asked for things in the name of Jesus and not had it work out. We’re told that God won’t withhold any good thing from us and we pray in his name we will receive. In fact we’re told that we have not because we don’t ask, and we need to have faith that it will be done. (Psalm 37:4, Luke 12:32, James 4:2-3, Matt. 17:20).
One of the core things that goes wrong with goals is that we set them. They need to be the result of a prophetic process if we’re going to make progress, but there are a host of reasons why Christians don’t hear God when it comes to our goals.
Our goals are actually aspirations in the context of our larger purpose. Until we figure out what we’re here to do in partnership with God, goals that God helps me set won’t make sense.
God sets goals in partnership with a version of ourselves we aren’t seeing. We need to see ourselves the way God sees us in order to understand the goals on our hearts.
Put another way, we are constrained to the level of our heart & soul health. The enemy gets to continually mess with us as we pursue the desires of our carnal heart, no matter how lofty and selfless those goals may be.
So how do we set goals the right way if I’m a work in progress? We need to meditate for a bit on what Grace really is. (See the next section)
Even in the world they’ve noticed that we have to take our focus off the desired outcome to gain traction in our journey toward it (“the inner tennis match”). Focus on the outcome leads to “don’t screw up” thinking. We’re much more effective focusing on what it feels like when we’re doing it at our best. The gurus would say that its a mix of instinct and the hours of skill building to learn how to do it. In other words we’ve invested in achieving a certain level of success and you’ve hit the ball out of the park a few times, what state of mind were you in when you did it right. You probably weren’t thinking, “please don’t miss.”
The gurus aren’t wrong, I just have a third source of right thoughts. By inviting God into your process you can have what Graham Cooke would call “brilliant thoughts.” These are thoughts about how to show up correctly in circumstances you haven’t even been in yet. It’s the next level of What Would Jesus Do? This is more like, by faith I know Jesus has the other end of this heavy burden we’re lifting, what’s our plan?
Meditating on Grace for the Right Mindset
What if we’ve had a wrong interpretation of Grace and righteousness? Before the world began God designed us to a purpose, which he never intended for us to do alone. Jesus said he only did what he saw his Father doing. An adult son of God and co-heir in Christ is restored to the family business. Your role in this season grows out of connecting the desires of your heart and innate abilities God gave you to work with, and a prophetically determined understanding of what God is up to in the world. There is a bridge there to be built and God uses his Grace and his righteousness to build that bridge.
It will involve you building skills through perhaps thousands of hours of practice (honing your natural ability) or it might involve getting a degree/certification so the world acknowledges your right to serve in your role. It will involve solving problems for other people though we’re often tempted to make a lot out of that. Helping others is both noble and a source of income, however its an outcome. The time to consider outcomes is during planning and periodic review. We can’t focus on outcomes during performance or we’ll get so in our head we lose traction.
Are you saying what I think you’re saying?
Yes! I’m literally saying that the key to getting into a state of flow in every area of your life is to stop focusing on your outcome in that area and start focusing on what you and God are doing together.
There are several awesome definitions for Grace, and for Righteousness, but the combination of the two forces is a realignment of you between the design God had for you and what he’s doing right now. Setting our own goals the way the world does, by looking for the outcomes you want and creating a ladder that should lead you incrementally toward it, won’t work. Worse its a form of pride and self-righteousness. When we accept Grace then our own shortcomings stop applying. When we work in God’s righteousness then we are realigned as a conduit of what God is doing on Earth. See the graphic*
Like most human beings, we Christians want to figure out how to live abundantly. We want an amazing relationship with a loving spouse, to make money doing something we’re good at and that helps people, we want to be physically healthy and emotionally strong enough to deal with life without losing our positivity.
This won’t seem very exotic, but the answer is living by faith.
Now there is more to it, give me a second to explain.
Sometimes we’ve heard the same thing in religious circles so much that it loses it’s impact. For example, the term Christian means being like Christ. At a 50,000 foot level every Christian has the purpose of becoming transformed to the image of Christ.
I don’t know about you but I’ve heard pastors say that and wanted to gag. I want to be me. I want to have a special purpose on Earth. I feel like a puzzle piece in search of the puzzle that’s missing me–a place where what makes me come alive meets the needs of those around me in a way that just by being me I can point them to God. That excites me. Jesus was awesome, but trying to emulate him doesn’t excite me. I actually hope, and this feels awful to say but it’s true, I’m not that excited to be crucified for something I didn’t do.
I know I know…
I’m grateful that Jesus did that and I do want to love the way he loved, but being Christlike means something other than walking around in sandals, telling stories, getting crucified etc. Christ means anointed and Jesus exemplified a spirit-filled life. One of purpose. He was an adult son of God who saw what the father was up to and did likewise on Earth–which was how he brought God’s Kingdom to Earth.
God probably has a slightly different purpose for me, even though the effect will be bringing His Kingdom to Earth.
Why am I rabbit trailing about purpose?
Because the shortcut answer to how to have abundant life is to pursue your purpose.
Let that sink in.
It’s never about losing weight, going to bed on time, communicating with your spouse, etc. those might be things you need to do to work on that particular area of life, but think of the those things like branches on a tree. You won’t find success in those branches until you have a healthy trunk–which is pursuing your purpose with God.
There’s several ways to look for your purpose. I love teaching those ways, but step one isn’t examining your passions or writing your story etc.
The Foundation for Finding your Purpose
So the oversimplified way to state this is learning to live by faith, which sounds really religious. It conjures to mind 30 day fasts and casting out demons or worse–don’t drink, don’t smoke, don’t be friends with those who do. So gross.
Living by faith is something we Christians talk about when we’re going to preach on avoiding sin.
Here’s what I mean. God’s love looks like something. He’s your partner. He’s your power. He’s your provision. He’s your portion.
What if you believed that God was providing for you abundantly. Would it be easier to eat less if you really know God was going to feed you again very soon? Would it be easier to be patient with your relationships if you knew there was enough time, money, energy to still get everything done you need to do.
What does it look like to partner with God in every area of your life? What’s it like to actually treat your job as if you’re working for Jesus instead of that Jerk who calls himself your boss? What if stewardship isn’t just gritting your teeth and forcing yourself to be responsible. What if you really felt like you don’t own any of your stuff it’s just on loan from God for you to enjoy and innvest (without fear of losing it)?
There is so much to learning to live by faith, it’s about changing the lens through which you view yourself and everything else.
Think of it this way, God wants to give you everything you ask for (all your heart desires), but first he has to bring you to a place where you ask for the right things (not things that woud destroy you).
What if religion has completely failed to train you what you should ask for because religion has it’s own agenda?
God is faithful to complete the good work he’s begun in you.
So what is Step One?
You need context. You need to know who God is for you outside of religion. You need to know… who you are, where you are, how you got here, where you want to go and a little about what might get you there.
Then you need to surrender everything to God and be willing to take some baby steps. Let’s talk, use the contact form on the website or email me…
We know the enemy uses half truths to make us view the world through a lens that causes us pain and confusion. We know that half truths are easier to sell because they sound almost right. What we often don’t realize is that the enemy’s favorite kind of half truth is “the truth” out of context.
Things like truth should be immutable–unchanging. However, Christians know that the real truth is a person. So what is really true in a situation is by definition a situational truth. When you are in Christ and Christ is in you, then you have access to truth in your circumstance, but it’s seldom something you could write in stone and apply at all times.
Why am I going on about truth in a post titled, “Rest?”
Well, rest is one of those things that depends on your circumstances. There is a great line in the movie Conan the Barbarian, “success can try a man’s metal harder than failure.” If you had nothing but vacation it could be restful to get back to doing something.
A good definition for rest would be, “cease doing what you have recently done too much of.”
“Def: Rest is a change of pace from what’s been exhausting you. Sometimes you just need to break up the monotony.”
Mike Galeotti
Most of us are chronically exhausted. The idea that we’ve been on vacation for months and would get recharged by working sounds counter intuitive, BUT the reality is that we’ve been trying to work harder and faster for months, and without results we crave a change.
It would be restful to work less and gain more, but that sounds pretty pie in the sky, right? It leaves us focused on results, which we can’t control, so we work harder and harder trying to reach a plateau that never seems to arrive.
We find ourselves stuck in a cycle of work and get tired, then rest and get even more tired.
So what we’re really craving is leverage.
Another interesting principle is that we often need to work our bodies to recharge our brains and work our brains to rest our bodies. It can be a balancing act, not one of monotony but of attaining an average balance by intentionally seeking to work this season what we rested last season.
I grew up in a religion that put an emphasis on taking the seventh day off to rest. Except that by doing it religiously they turned into something that wasn’t very restful. Saturday’s have been some of my favorite days, but I seldom experienced that until after I left that religion. The focus was always on what you couldn’t do. It’s like when someone says, “don’t picture an elephant.” Suddenly all you can think about is an elephant.
Religion always creates weariness because it’s by nature routine, and duty/obligation.
God is the God of abundance. He’s trying to fill your life with good things. However, “good” can depend on circumstances. We can’t assume that someone who works all week would find a day of doing nothing to be restful. Making it a religious tenant for everyone guarantees that most of the people are experiencing something not at all restful.
God worked for five days, then made man on the sixth day, then rested on the seventh. God wasn’t tired from working, and man just got created. Adam wasn’t tired. Resting with God has to be something more than taking a break from labor. Something like prioritizing relationship for a day.
I’ve given a lot of information in this post and I don’t have a nice piece of advice I can put a bow on for you. This is one you might need to meditate on with God. (Don’t be surprised if it ends up being the most restful thing you’ve done in months.)
Going back to the idea that what we’re craving is traction/leverage. What if prioritizing peace and connection with God is the key to rest. What if its possible to reverse the work/tired then rest/more tired? I’ve had times in the Kingdom when I worked from a place of rest and ended my day energized and excited to start again tomorrow.
What if the key is staying in a state of flow? What if we need to doing everything you do in a state of relationship is the secret to leaving the treadmill that’s had you exhausted?
Like most good nonfiction books Atomic Habits (2018) blends scientific proofs with real life examples.
Approach:
This week we’re reviewing Atomic Habits by James Clear.
Book Goal:
Provide a proven framework for changing and creating habits.
Target Audience:
People who want achieve more by harnessing the power of incremental change.
What makes the Book Unique/Good?
There are a lot of books that cover habits and several that cover the same proven techniques. In a way their isn’t a ton of new items in this book, if you’ve read some of the other books I’ll be recommending in this feature of my blog. However, you can’t take a friend to coffee without someone recommending this book, and there is a reason it has gotten so popular.
Clear has a simple and direct writing style that appeals to busy professionals looking to improve life without taking a weeklong spiritual retreat. This is also the first book I’ve come across that puts all the training about habits in one place and devotes the entire book to it. Everyone else is trying to make another point and the latest training habit improvement is just one of the tools in their system. Clear leaves it up to you what habits you want to make or shed. It’s worth reading.
Key Points:
Habits are automated behaviors we picked up experientially.
Small habits have a big impact on your life for good or bad. To leverage this, the author recommends creating habits that are so small you almost can’t do them. A famous example of this would be flossing one tooth. Clearly once you do one tooth you’ll probably finish the job, but by declaring it a victory to do just one tooth you feel a little silly if you fail to do that.
The cornerstone of making habits are hard to miss cues and a plan of action.
People are motivated by anticipating reward so motivate yourself to adopt the new habit by making the habit attractive.
An attractive habit is immediately rewarding, not delayed gratification.
Tracking habits increases your success. So does a contract with yourself that you make know to others.
The author recommends what he calls habit stacking. This concept is about associating a new habit with a well established habit. For example I once added five push-ups after each time I brushed my teeth. It worked well and I was able to do an extra 10 to 15 pushups a day.
Synopsys:
I’d recommend this book. In my own Adventure Consulting Business creating habits is a one of two components of life change. If we want to have the life we desire then we’re going to have to build skills like effective life change.
The two ways human beings establish lasting change are:
Taking Journeys of self discovery, healing, or growth.
Incremental change by designing a lifestyle that moves you slowly toward your goals.
We need both. One method will work for some kinds of change and the other works for the other kinds of change. Some people suck at either method, but most people are good at one or the other. Very few of us have an effective framework for doing both.
Or you could buy and absorb this and all the other books and trainings I’ll be recommending in this blog–a method that could easily run you $25,000. Leveraging my breakthrough will save you time and money. Working with me will target what’s holding you back at this time and create a plan for overcoming that, as well as a set of next steps to move you toward a life of passion and profit with a purpose.
Others are ill prepared to help us Deal with Death and Loss
Academy Award Recovery
Part 2 Preparing for Change: Starting to Recover
Your First Choice: Choosing to Recover
Setting the Guidelines
Identifying Short-Term Energy Relievers
The Loss History Graph
Part 3 Finding The Solution
What is Incompleteness
Introducing the Relationship Graph
Almost Home: Converting the Relationship Graph into Recovery Components
What Now? – Clean up Work
Part 4 More on Choices and Other Losses
What Loss to Work on First
Guidelines for Working on Specific Losses
First Impressions
This book is meant to work like a manual so expect to skip around and to have to reread certain concepts until they really internalize.
Key Concepts
What is Grief
Grief is the normal and natural reaction to significant emotional loss of any kind.
Grief is the conflicting feelings caused by the end of, or change in, a familiar pattern of behavior.
Grief is the feeling of reaching out for someone who has always been there, only to find when you need them again, they are no longer there.
Typical Responses to Grief
Reduced concentration
Changed eating habits
A sense of numbness
Roller coaster of emotional energy
Disrupted sleeping patterns
Some examples include:
Death
Divorce
Moving
Pet loss
Retirement
Empty Nest
Loss of health
Legal Problems
Starting School
End of Addiction
Financial change (increase or decrease in wealth)
Here are some intangible examples of Grief.
Loss of Trust
Loss of Safety
Loss of Control
Loss of Faith
Loss of Fertility
Over 43 losses that are considered Grief in total.
Grief is individual and unique. There are no stages.
Grief cannot be neatly categorized. Elizabeth Kubler Ross’s work was on Death and Dying, not Grief. She is very specific about this distinction in her books and yet the media and universities have attached her work to Grief. This common misinformation has confused and hurt many grievers throughout the years.
There are no absolutes in Grief.
There are no reactions so universal that all, or even most, people will experience them.
Grief is normal and natural.
It is not a pathological condition or a personality disorder.
Grief is often misdiagnosed
Mislabeled as ADHD, Depression, PTSD, and many other pathological conditions.
If you misdiagnose, you will mistreat. These mislabeled Grievers are then incorrectly put on various medications, which will get in the way of recovering from loss.
How do I know if I, or someone I know, is incomplete with a loss?
If you are unwilling to think about or talk about someone who has died, or express feelings about any other losses.
If fond memories turn painful, you may be experiencing unresolved Grief.
If you want to talk only about the positive aspects of the relationship, you may be incomplete.
Wanting to talk about only the negative aspects of the relationship, might be unresolved Grief.
Unresolved Grief may be at the root of any fear associated with thoughts or feelings about a relationship.
The impact of unresolved Grief in society
The following statistics are heartbreaking and could be avoided in many cases.
13 million Grievers annually due to death. There are 2.6 million deaths per year in the United States with an average of five Grievers per death. (According to US Census Bureau)
2.5 million Grievers per year due to divorce. This does not include the children grieving this significant loss. (A compilation of US statistical agencies)
15.6 million Grievers per year due to a romantic breakup.
A study of 95,647 persons who lost a spouse found that the overall death rate for the surviving spouse doubled in the first week following the loss.
In the same study the heart attack rates more than doubled for male survivors and more than tripled for woman.
The surviving spouse was 93% more likely to get into a fatal auto accident and the suicide rate went up 242%.2
Unresolved Grief is cumulative and cumulatively negative.
Unresolved Grief is everywhere. Thousands of mental health professionals we work with have found that although their clients come to them with some other presenting issue, almost all of them have unresolved Grief as the underlying problem.
An incomplete past may doom the future. We find that many people alter their life choices after a series of unresolved losses. This is done to protect themselves from further heartbreak. Usually this just translates to living a guarded life and a reluctance to participate fully in relationships or new endeavors.
Grief is not clinical depression. A recent study of 8800 clients established that a large percentage of people diagnosed as depressed and placed on antidepressant drugs are not clinically depressed. They are actually just experiencing unresolved Grief due to prior losses in their lives.
Depression and Grief have similar symptoms. Difficulty concentrating, roller coaster of emotions, sense of numbness, disrupted sleeping patterns, altered eating habits and massive loss of energy.
Short term energy relieving behaviors.
Many people in our society use what we call STERBs or “Short term energy relieving behaviors” in an attempt to cover the feelings caused by unresolved Grief. Some examples of these are alcohol, food, shopping, and exercise.
Most common misinformation on the topic of Grief
Time heals. Time does not heal, action within time does. We know people who have waited 10, 20, 30 or even 40 years to feel better.
Grieve alone. Often this advice is subtly implied, “Give your mom her space” or “He just needs a few minutes alone in the other room.” As children, we learn that this means that sad feelings should be hidden or experienced alone.
Be strong. Usually the Griever is asked to be strong for others. “You have to be strong for your [wife]” or “Be strong for your children.”
Don’t feel bad. This is usually followed by an intellectually true statement but is not helpful at all to the Griever, “Don’t feel bad, his suering is over.” or “Don’t feel bad, at least you knew her as long as you did.”
Replace the loss. This is common with pet loss or the end of a romantic relationship. “On Tuesday we’ll get you a new dog” or “There are plenty of fish in the sea. You just have to get out there and date again.” Most likely there has been no action taken to grieve over the loss of the pet or relationship, just an attempt at not feeling the emotions attached to the loss.
Keep busy. “If I just keep busy then I won’t have time to think about the loss.” This one is sad because some people spend their whole lives with this mentality and never get a chance to grieve and complete what was unfinished with the particular loss.
Most things Commonly said to Grievers Aren’t Helpful
A survey asked Grievers to decide which comments were helpful following a loss. Out of 141 comments, they found only 19 helpful.
Here are some of the types of comments that were not helpful:
You’ll be fine in time.
I know how you feel.
You shouldn’t be feeling that way still.
Don’t be angry with God.
It was just a dog, cat, bird etc.
Look on the bright side, at least they’re in a better place.
Don’t feel bad, his suffering is over now.
You’re young; you can still have other children.
Helpful things to say to someone grieving a loss.
(Do listen with your heart, not your head. Allow all emotions to be expressed, without judgment, criticism, or analysis.)
“I can’t imagine how you feel…” or
“I can’t imagine how painful…” – devastating – heartbreaking
“…that must have been for you.”
(Every relationship is unique, therefore, every Griever is unique. You cannot know how they feel so this is always a truthful statement that will never offend the Griever.)
“I can’t imagine how you feel; I know that when I lost my mother I felt…”
Do ask, “What happened?” Most people will avoid this question. However, most often we find that Grievers feel isolated because most people will tend to avoid them as if nothing happened. This can be very isolating for someone who’s grieving.
Follow their words in your head as they are spoken. In other words, stay in the moment while they’re speaking. If you leave the moment for one second, you have just become an unsafe person to talk to about Grief.
Be empathetic. This means that if you tear up during their story, let that be ok. (You are allowed to be human.) Sharing sad emotions is ok with you.
Above Badge Displayed on website indicates GRM Specialist is Certified by the Institute
Dealing with the “G” word. “Guilt.”
Griever: “My son committed suicide, I feel so guilty.”
GRM Specialist: “Did you ever do anything with intent to harm your son?”
Griever: “No.” (This is an almost universal response.)
GRM Specialist: “The dictionary definition of guilt implies intent to harm. Since you had no intent to harm…You are probably devastated enough by the death of your son, you don’t need to add to it by hurting yourself with a word that distorts your feelings.”
Griever: “Really? I never thought of it that way.”
GRM Specialist: “Are there some things that you wish had been different, better, or more?”
Griever: “Oh, yes.”
The Grief Recovery Method
Recovery from loss is achieved by a series of small and correct choices made by the Griever.
Sadly, most of us have not been given the necessary information with which to make correct choices in response to a loss.
Recovery means feeling better.
Recovery is finding new meaning for living, without the fear of being hurt again.
Recovery is being able to enjoy fond memories without having them turn painful.
Recovery is acknowledging that it is perfectly all right to feel sad from time to time and to talk about those feelings no matter how those around you react.
Recovery means acquiring the skills we should have been taught as a child.
These skills allow us to deal with loss directly.
Recovering from a significant emotional loss is not an easy task.
Taking the actions that lead to recovery will require your attention, open-mindedness, willingness, and courage.
REFERENCES
James, John W. and Friedman, Russell P. The Grief Recovery Handbook, 20th Anniversary Expanded Edition. New York: Harper-Collins, 2009.
Kaprio, Jaako, MD; Koskenvuo, Markku, MD; and Rita, Helo, MPolSc. “Mortality after Bereavement: A Prospective Study of 95,647 Widowed Persons.” American Journal of Public Health 77.3 (1987): 283-287.
Wakefield, Jerome C., PhD, DSW; Schmitz, Mark F., PhD; First, Michael B. MD; Horwitz, Allan V., PhD. “Extending the Bereavement Exclusion for Major Depression to Other Losses: Evidence from the National Comorbidity Survey.” Arch Gen Psychiatry 64.4 (2007):433-440.
Reflections
This is a groundbreaking and original approach to something that almost no one is even talking about. The cost of not dealing with grief is costing businesses millions of dollars a year in sick time, and accidents, and taking a toll on citizens that can’t be calculated.
That said, the hallmark of The Grief Recovery Method is that it’s not profound. It doesn’t completely wow you. It stands out among all the other books and programs I review, which typically has one or two items that ring in your bones when you read or hear them.
(Note: I read and audit tons of self-help/time management/success books/programs/workshops/etc.)
To be fair, the Grief Recovery Method is very impactful, its just super subtle. A week or so after you complete the method, especially if you use with a certified GRM specialist, you realize that you have a new level of peace and things that used to trigger you don’t anymore.
I strongly recommend the Grief Recovery Method. I was so impressed I got certified as a specialist personally. I don’t typically add modalities to my core Life Adventure Consulting but this method covered an area that I wasn’t addressing and in an evidence based way.
There’s never been a better time to reconnect to your motivation. Let’s face it, even if the last two years didn’t completely derail you, it probably rerouted you. Most of the people I talk to describe it as a kind of malaise. Your forward momentum was likely stalled. You probably have new habits to unlearn, whether these were bad habits or just ways of working around things necessitated by covid lockdowns that aren’t as effective as ways you could be doing things.
We hear a lot about finding your motivation. Some people say you need to connect to your, “why.” Others say you need a vision for your life. Still others say, no you need a purpose or a mission. I think this is another instance of people being wired a little different from each other. Each of these terms describes what I call a motivator, a product at the end of an approach to self examination. (ie a mission/vision/purpose statement, or life’s message.) I’d include in this list a Core Value Index (CVI) which accomplishes a similar goal in a very applicable format.
It’s probably worth defining each of these terms and outlining there approach. but that’s a meaty enough bite to warrant it’s own post. In this post lets focus on the 3 pillars you need to have if your efforts are going to move you toward prosperity with a purpose. Then cover 9 motivations, at least some of which are wired into your nature. Recognizing how you’re wired will let you work with not against yourself, and it will show you reasons you may have been tripped up in past attempts to succeed in life.
3 things we need to have Joy at Work: (John Garfield)
I’m not sure you said it first but I first heard it from John Garfield. To feel fulfilled we…
a Cause
a Contribution
a Community
A Cause
To be satisfying, a cause must be larger than yourself. It must be noble. Like someone in AA coming to the conclusion that if their addiction controls them, than something out there must be bigger and more powerful than the substance–a higher power they can call upon for rescue from problems instead of numbing themselves. Ultimately we need to process the wounds that leave us feeling the need to numb out, but a great start is believing that I’m not my own God. I’ve never met a person who could claim to be happy living for themselves. We get energy and excitement being a part of something larger than life.
Our cause doesn’t have to be entirely philanthropic. It’s totally okay to need energy or money in exchange for what you’re pouring out, but the key is impact. We need to have a unique impact see below.
A Contribution
Our contribution is our part of the larger thing. It must be unique. There is something innately offensive about someone who tries to put you in a box. We sense their need to reduce us to a few simple descriptors. I’m much larger than just a few attributes, no matter how true those attributes are, or how well they describe me in a given circumstance.
I’ve been through ups and downs in life. I’ve got scars and I’m proud of them. I’ve done hard things and I’ve had breakthrough. I’m uniquely qualified to help at least some people through at least some difficult times. I call this my Unique Value Add. I have a unique toolkit of strengths, aptitudes, character traits and experience to address circumstances that plague others. I come alive heling others, but only when I’m heling them toward something I believe in and doing it in a way that is unique to me.
A Community
It stands to reason then, that I need people to help. If I need dishes put on the top shelf I can get a stool, but if I have a tall friend standing right there why not hand them for help. We need to learn to lean on each other’s strengths. Together we can get more done, in less time, and have more fun doing it.
Community comes in three forms–people I help, people who help me, and people I work with to help others. I call people I help my Audience. People who help me mentors, and people who help me help others my team.
There is a fourth group of people–my tribe. We benefit greatly from associating with others who have a similar calling. We can share tragedies and triumphs. We can share strategies. The people we’re told are our competition are actually part of our success, but only if we embrace the uniqueness factor. When we realize that our contribution is unique and our audience is unique we realize that we aren’t really in competition with others who may be doing roughly the same thing we do.
13 Core Motivations – Marisa Murgatroyd
Altruism Autonomy Financial Gain Intellectual Challenge Lifestyle Managing People Positioning (for future) Power/Influence Prestige Recognition Security Variety
Specifically these motivations are career related–what moves you at work or to start a business. I encourage you to look these words up and don’t assume you know what they mean, because some of them might turn you off at first, but then when you read the definition it’s actually something you’d be very motivated by. For example, you may not feel like power and influence is a very healthy reason to be motivated, however, if you’ve ever had a great idea how to solve a problem at work and had no authority to implement it you may have empathy for someone who is motivated for power.
Notice also that a lot of these motivations work in reverse, to keep you stuck. You may decide to skip an opportunity to make a lot more more that was 100% commission because working without a net was scarier than the potential to make more money.
Understanding your motives can be a great tool for letting yourself off the hook when you’ve made career choices. Don’t agonize over decisions you made. You might be honoring your baked-in nature. Now that said, you may need to take more chances than you currently are. Sometimes you can’t get the new thing you deeply desire without leaving the safety of your current place. We tend to get stuck in zones of comfort and while we need to enter zone of challenge to feel like we’re making progress the real danger of getting stuck in comfort is that you may not be equipped to recover when your comfort zone is more temporary than you thought it was. Never forget, you feel safe in the familiar, but that doesn’t mean what you’re familiar with is safe or beneficial.
Hopefully this gives you some great thinking points. I don’t have all the answers so I welcome your feedback. You can comment here or join my FB community and post there.
About this Blog:
Welcome to the Cleric Blog Series on Sirbunch.com. I’m Andy Bunch, and I’m a Life Adventure Consultant. I help Creative Entrepreneurs find Prosperity with a Purpose by removing constraints to success. I’ve been seeking wisdom for 50 years and I’ve distilled what I’ve learned into a framework that has lead me to more fulfilling and abundant life.
This blog will outline that framework for free for the rare person out there who can read, learn, and implement things. Most of us need more to really make wisdom usable so I’m inviting you to my Facebook community where you can workshop what you’ve read and learn of opportunities to go deeper with me.
Another feature of this blog is the book reviews. I’ll be reading dozens of non-fiction books each year and reviewing them here. I’ll explain the main facts and grade them for effectiveness, then speak to how they potentially fit into the framework I’m outlining. I say potentially fit in because I believe no two paths to success are the same. Like every student of better living you’ll have to find what works for you. The smart approach is to leverage the lessons of others because you won’t live long enough to make all the mistakes yourself. Welcome to this blog, and God bless you.
“Stop living the life you’re supposed to and start living the life you’re meant to.”
Sir Bunch 