Gap Crossing
“Your problem is to bridge the gap which exists between where you are now and the goal you intend to reach.”
-Earl Nightingale
There’s where we are now. There’s where we want to be. There’s a gap.
The first inclination is to be diminished by the gap. Just like when you first realize something about yourself that was in a blind spot, and then use that insight to beat yourself up.
However, learning to positively “mind” the gap — applying mind techniques of which we’re all capable — allows us to be empowered vs. disempowered by the gap.
For example, one of my gaps is social media. I have ignored the gap. I have lamented my seeming inability to traverse the gap. I have tried to pawn off my gap to someone else. For sure, I have not been “empowered” by the gap.
However, if I incorporate the principles of The Back Forty – and practice what we preach (!) – I can entertain the idea that nothing from my first half of life (including social media) poses any limitations on what’s possible in my second half. “Remember Darrell: You’re continuing to GROW, not become settled in your ways and beliefs about yourself and life!”
That’s the bugaboo: if, as we say in The Back Forty, “you have yet to do what you came here to do”, then it’s going to require an attitude of continuous play, trying things out, and learning…the way 20yr olds do when they just don’t know any better. If ignorance is bliss, perhaps ignorance of our perceived abilities is what the doctor is ordering.
Here’s 3 Back Forty techniques for “MIND”ing the Gap. See where you might apply them to your own area of expansion.
First, Acknowledgement. Celebrating the mere fact that we’re ambitious enough to have recognized a gap gives the journey a forward-moving energy and vibration. “Woohoo! Look at where you want to be! Aren’t you the bomb for realizing that?”
Second, Visioning. Taking attention away from the pity-party of this side of the traverse and putting it on the other side, picturing and feeling the “what it will be like when”, initiates magnetic forces which pull out new ways and means for getting there.
Third, Pro-active Matching. Constant comparisons of results achieved with results desired from a “Where’s Waldo” perspective, finding every near hit vs. near miss, creates tailwind vs. headwind.
As I continue moving forward to incorporate into my life some necessary skills for communicating powerfully in today’s world, I enjoy the idea that I’m doing my part to turn around the societal mindset that says “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks”.
Perhaps the only real gap to traverse is the cultural one that says age has any limit on freedom, innovation, creativity, ideation, and capacity for growth.
What inspired gap of your own can you wrap your mind around this week?
“What I really want and what I’ve been thinking. That’s it folks! That’s all the work there is in closing the gap.”
-Abraham-Hicks
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Discovering Darrell’s New Year with The Quiz of The Year
A fellow blogger asked us to participate in this quiz (see Saddles to Shorelines for her answers)…so I’d better get my answers out before I get too much into this New Year!
I’ll share my thoughts from the Darrell side of the Founders of The Back Forty Fliers…and leave Alexandra to share hers.
What were your highlights of 2016?
Several main events stand out, though it was overall a year of massive transition and elevation. First, there were big opportunities presented this year which broke me outside the limits of the games I’m capable of playing. Some of those big brass rings of opportunity were grasped, others weren’t. Either way, it was a great stretching process to simply begin to think on the terms of many of these possibilities. One that was grasped was the incorporation of a full-time support team member who has proven, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that growth results from being blessed to find great people and letting them be great. Another great stretch was the buildout of our message and programs, all while Alexandra maintained a full-time corporate role and I maintained my standard coaching offerings. A really big accomplishment was to add in, in a substantial way, new areas of PlayGame and Back Forty coaching which are expanding so much as to take over as the main pillars of our work. OH, and we became PCC certified coaches through the ICF…though both of us have been coaching for decades. We just decided to get that “seal of approval.” Lastly, we bought our first home together. A foundation has now been set for the bigger growth ahead!
Name one thing you are likely to remember about 2016 if asked in five years time?
We established our own Back Forty roots from which to grow like weeds by purchasing our first home together.
Sum up 2016 in one word.
Stretching.
Name one pearl of wisdom from 2016 that you will carry into 2017.
Trust the process beyond what I know how to figure out or do…and just allow BEing happy.
Do you have any new year resolutions?
I don’t do resolutions. Here are a few blogs, however, that give a good sense of how I treat the New Year design ritual:
I will say my “theme” for the New Year involves a lot of gratitude, joy, and BEing happy!
How did you ring in the new year?
We actually did a little guided-intuition New Years Eve! We were so busy the week before and during the holidays, continuing to get settled into our place, that we never made plans for New Year’s Eve. We even ran around doing errands to multiple stores on Saturday afternoon, ending up only showering and being ready to do “something” around 9 pm! So, trusting our intuition to get us somewhere good, we thought we might brave going out into Downtown Long Beach and were only going to drop a bottle of wine off at some new neighbors who had purported to have a little open house early in the afternoon. Turns out, they still had friends over, they still had food and drink, and they invited us to hang…so we did! The most unplanned and yet fun, friendly and intimate New Year I’ve ever rung in.
What are your goals for 2017?
Expand awareness of the freedom, fun and frolic encouraged by The Back Forty, bring out a #1 NYT Bestseller of the same name, and enjoy the energy of making huge contributions and being contributed to in creating this second half/best half of life. Please join us on this wild ride by grabbing your “Top Ten Tips for a Radical Second Half” here.
Anyone is welcome to join in, and share your answers to or thoughts about the above questions.
I tagged a few bloggers that I enjoy following and look forward to their answers if they wish to take part. Check out their blogs below:
New Year Self-Change Leadership
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UvIGoYwflc]
“There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.”
-Niccolo Machiavelli
The New Year resolutions/goals/intentions/declarations/ideas/musings have now had over a week to transform our lives!
And by now, many have already been dropped.
The grand plans and visions can often be a drug-producing magical high and yet, when the rubber hits the road, many a beautiful intention ends up in the ditch.
For many, it’s easier when some institution or corporate change-management official determines that things will be done differently and we must comply. We may moan and groan, and yet — with something critical on the line (like our job)– we do or die.
Yet, taking that change-management leadership into our own hands — being both the stalwart of possibility while, at the same time, the comfort-zone addicted rebel — can be a fascinating process to observe.
Here’s a simple 5A Method to help:
Awareness
Simply stay awake to the fact that there’s a new kid in town who said they wanted to play differently!
Because we were the way we were for so long before we chose to make a change, it’s easy to just fall back into the old patterns and routines.
Simple structures like posting your goals and intentions in front of your face, where you practically have to fall over them in order to conduct your day, can serve as a daily “Hello!” to the new kid.
Also, making sure you’ve told plenty of friends, family, associates and co-workers helps ensure that the changes get addressed more often than they will if left in your head. Your inner voice is out for your comfort. Others being aware and engaged can get you out of comfort for your change.
Authenticity
Calling a spade a spade.
Did you actually do what you said you’d do? No judgment here, just being an objective and astute observer of your actions and telling it the way it really is.
There WILL be some form of internal resistance to the change. Otherwise, you’d already be BEing or DOing what it is that you want.
Being honest and dispassionate about what is or isn’t happening and telling it like it is gives you power to implement.
Acceptance
If change were easy, we’d all have exactly the lives we want right now.
If you designed goals and intentions for your new kid in this New Year, you must want something other than what you have.
Accept that change doesn’t happen overnight. It takes a wide radius to turn a big ship around, and your old ways are a big ship that have been heading a particular direction for a long time.
Forgive your Self, and accept the love of your Self that had you bring this new kid into town in the first place.
Absence Analysis
What’s missing, the presence of which would make a difference?
The old ways of the old you had certain structures and patterns in place, keeping you in the old you.
For this new kid to take residence, there will be new structures to be put in place.
What new ways of operating, new systems, new communications, new mindsets are required?
The new kid will need a new look to this home if he/she is going to hang around. Bring in the interior (and exterior) decorator to refurbish the look of the place you call “You”.
Activation
Simply put in what’s missing…over and over and over and over again.
We often realize that we need to keep getting up after we fall down…until we just decide to not get up anymore.
“It’s too hard.” “It’s just not working.” “I guess this just can’t happen after all.”
Not true! An ongoing process of Activation of What’s Missing can only get us closer and closer to the change we seek.
As Winston Churchill said, “Never give up. Never give up. Never give up.”
Engaging in this 5A process on an earnest and regular basis can provide access to keeping those high-minded intentions on the road to real self change vs. landing in the ditch of defeat.
Got self-change leadership?
“Consider that all accomplishment is constituted by a series of resolved breakdowns.”
-Werner Erhard
Generation Gap
“Who you are and how you act in the present is given by the future into which you are living.”
–Werner Erhard
Ever accomplish a goal (or not) and have a big blank space in front of you?
Sometimes there’s even a post-featal downturn in mood, when the juice of the previous activity drive has ceased surging without replacement.
It’s then when our best ingenuity is called for: actually creating what comes next.
To generate and invent a future to live into — and then to be empowered (vs. diminished) by the gap that shows up — is the ultimate creativity.
It’s the games people play that create life and living.
Where can you intentionally generate an empowering gap to live into today?
Got generation gap?
“It’s not only moving that creates new starting points. Sometimes all it takes is a subtle shift in perspective, an opening of the mind, an intentional pause and reset, or a new route to start to see new options and new possibilities.”
—Kristin Armstrong
