Showing up

We make promises. We make plans. We want to make a difference.

All of these requires that you show up.

You show up for your promises, for your plans and for making changes.

Someone said: success is 90% showing up + 10% effort.

I am not totally sure that is the exactly number or percentage for everyone. But it certainly tells the truth – success needs constant working towards your goals, your intentions and making an effort.

You need showing up when you don’t feel like so, when you are exhausted, when you encounter failures, when you feel you are not ready…

Whether you are ready or not, step up, show up, and go, go, go!

What is in it for me?

What’s in it for me?

To answer this question may be one of the strongest drives for us to do things, or not to do things.

However, the question is a neutral one.

The negative notion raised by this question may reflect our selfish side. The positive side may include that it can remind us about our intention, purpose, basically to what end we do what we do?

More often we may even not clearly know what’s in it for me. We follow our intuition to make decisions, or choices. Therefore, knowing our what’s in it for me will help us to reflect, redirect, recharge, or discharge…

Do you follow rules to live your life?

Many of us live life by defaults – follow norms, rules surrounded us.

  • We do what our parents tell us to do.
  • We do these because we are told by our teachers to do so.
  • We do these because of our peers do.
  • We do these because of our society says so.

If we break rules, we are criticized; are punished; are not accepted.

Then how do you move forward by certain rules that are not applicable to you?

Someone said:

“If you can’t win, change the rules. If you can’t change the rules, ignore them.”

Check if you follow rules that do not apply to you. If you do have those rules, break them, or ignore them.

Move on with your life.

Make others happy

When was last time someone made your day?

What did she do made you happy? What did she say? How did she do it? What were you happy about? In what occasion did this happen? Who else was there? …

Here comes the big questions: If you were her, in her shoes, could you make you happy in that situation?

Think other situations someone made your day. Could you be in her shoes to make her happy?

Making other people is a generous act, it’s kindness, it shows your empathy, it requires selfish-less.

I tried to make someone less unhappy to start with. I found this awareness and action required labor work – emotional labor. I had to work towards it. However, the outcome was liberating. I felt lighter. I felt I have stretched more room for myself. I made someone happier when I was leaving than the time I met her. And amazingly at the same time, I felt happier as well.

Go and make others happy.

Changing is uncomfortable, may be a little bit?

We want to change, then we embrace it. We spearhead forward with energy and purpose. We are all good.

We know we will have muscle pains, we will have detours, we will focus on our targets and move, go, go go.

This is a perfect picture.

The little uncomfortableness comes up when we loose our purpose, when we loose our intention, when we victimize ourselves, when we let our ego kidnapped…

There may be some small talks within ourselves, such as blaming others for not doing a good job, or thinking ourselves much more superior. These are the stories or lies we are telling ourselves from time to time. These self talks do not serve us. If we can catch these self dialogues and turn the conversation towards to our true intention, we can release these internal struggles, set us free.

This is the journey for changing. We need to practice it every day, every moment.

Changing happens all the time. It’s permanent

When we feel a little bit uncomfortable, it’s actually a very good thing. Because we know for sure we are on the right track for changing. We are doing something new, grow something new.

People have achieved a lot in their lives saying that if today what they did put them on an edge, it would be a good day. They knew they have explored a little bit more. That uncomfortableness becomes their indicator of progress. accumulated progress makes the difference.

Service mind and generosity

Being successful has been over emphasized. It has been mistaken as the self achievement to a large degree. It has been labeled as being rich or famous, or even being interpreted as permanent.

Success like everything in life is impermanent.

Those got you success will not guarantee your success once you move to a new role. As we all know: those got you here will not bring you there.

However, there is one permanent element that can bring you joy and fulfillment to your life. This element is being generous.

When you give your generosity by being show up and being empathetic to serve others, you live your real self. You are successful in your own way.

Being generous requires courage, especially when you do not feel doing so. When you are wrongly accused; when you are set up for failure; when you are tired; when your vulnerability is exposed… these are the occasions calling for your leadership and requiring your courage.

Also during these tough occasions you need to come back to your sense of self. You need raise your awareness by meditation, reflection and getting your self together. You know deep down to the heart that you want to do more, express more, serve more. You might just need a break, a quiet place, a hug to your self, a talk to your self.

Then make time and space to do these.

Recharge yourself.

Let your service mind comes back to you.

1+1 > 2

We strive for excellence. We want to success. We want to produce more and give more to the world. In one word: we want to create values.

The value we create by our selves is limited. The value can be amplified by a few ways: we can work hard and deliver the value by ourselves, or we can make an impact to others, therefore the values are bigger.

Make it 1+1 > 2; 2+2 > 4; 4+4 > 8 …

Only we become generous, empathetic, and deliver our labor, we can achieve the amplification.

Start with one step at a time.

Practice, practice, practice…

It is never enough to emphasize the importance of practice, no matter what you do.

A knife left for no use for a long long time becomes rusty.

A speech contest Champion did not give speech for a long long time becomes rusty.

You become rusty speaking Chinese because you haven’t used for a long long time…

Don’t take granted for the skills you have. Practice more before you use it again. Practice makes perfect.

Wear your hat

When we wear our hat, sometimes and may be lots of times that we forgot we are wearing the hat, because we become so comfortable with wearing the same hat.

If we are doing the same thing every day without improvement, without innovation, without awareness of our purpose doing it, we become so comfortable or may be bored that we forget why we do what we do.

One way to remind ourselves that we do wear a hat is to give a new sensation each time to start wear the hat by changing the position of the hat, or may be add something new to the hat, or change a new hat.

This applies to our daily work. Do something new each day that will contribute to your mission, vision, show your values and have some fun: talk to a colleague you don’t interact often about your ideas, share your thinking with a stranger and ask her a question with curiosity, wear a loud outfit you never tried before… you get the idea.

Get uncomfortable is the way to increase awareness, to learn, to grow new muscles.

When you wear that hat, find new ways to wear it and have fun.