| Make Choices Based on Clear Intention, Not Fear |
|
I was standing in my living room in January of 2008 staring at two different versions of a letter I had written to my employer. One was a resignation; the other a request for a 6-month Leave of Absence. The truth which had been revealed to me after taking Personal Best Level 1 was that I no longer wished to be a teacher. I wanted to write! I had stumbled into Personal Best thinking I just didn’t like my job, and left realizing that my career was just the tip of the iceberg. Turns out, I was already a writer, but I was writing stories of victimization that limited my success. To my horror, I discovered that I had been navigating through my life using someone else’s roadmap! I was living someone else’s dream life, not my own. That was the easy part. The scary, risk-taking, leap-off-a-cliff part came in the follow-through, in the actual quitting of my job. What was I going to do? I stood and stared at both letters, read them to myself and pictured in my mind what it would look and feel like to hand them in. Which was the better choice? I weighed the pros and cons. I was struggling with the decision. Suddenly, the voice of the Truth Revealed facilitator came leaping into my head, booming: “It doesn’t matter what choice you make, it’s how you make the choice.” I had been trying to wrap my head around the meaning of this elusive little nugget for the better part of 6 weeks, never really understanding its significance. Sure, it sounded good…but what did it mean and how could I actually apply it to my life? Suddenly, the answer was there. In that instant, there was clarity. I finally understood that if I were to opt for a Leave of Absence, it would be a choice made out of fear. I realized that if I was truly going to pursue my newly-discovered dream of becoming a writer, I was going to have to do it without a safety net. And that’s exactly what I did. I marched into my principal’s office the next day, confident in my decision. I think it was the first time in my life that I had made such a clear, conscious and bold choice. And that was just it: it was my choice, not anybody else’s. It felt really, really good. I had no plan for the future; I had no idea *how* I was going to become a writer; I just knew that it was my path and I wasn’t going to let a little thing like fear or…MONEY…get in my way. More surprisingly, I felt confident that everything was going to turn out just fine—a first for me! Six months later, I signed my first book deal. And three months after that, I signed a second one. Now I am the published author of two books, For the Love of Chocolate and For the Love of Coffee. I am also a freelance writer and recently started up my own writing and coaching business, Front Rowe Seat. How did I do it? My biggest lesson from Personal Best Truth Revealed was learning how to harness the power of intention. I had been someone who planned every last detail in my life. I was your typical Type-A perfectionist. In other words, I was miserable. Learning to step out of fear’s way, and freeing myself from all my victim stories allowed me to better focus my energy on the life I had wanted all along. As soon as I decided, the rest fell into place. Just like Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist, I had discovered that ‘when you are on the right path, the Universe rises up to meet you.’ What I had thought was going to be the hardest part, actually ended up being the easiest. And there’s another lesson: Life can be really easy if you choose it to be so. I have since gone on to complete Pure Potential and am currently in Infinite Possibilities (Level 3). I see Personal Best as a way to add tools to my Life Kit. The more tools I have, the better prepared I am. I continue to create the results for my life that I have always wanted, live in gratitude and see the gift in every lesson. It has been worth every fabulous, exhilarating bump in the road. And more importantly, it’s a story that everyone wants to hear. |
By Karen Rowe for