With everything that’s going on in the past week: hurricane devastation across many states, ongoing wars abroad, election uncertainty– this seems both an important reminder and yet insufficient, but I sent this out to my email list last week and wanted to share it here.
If you are interested in my weekly emails: sign up here.
I’d love to hear about your superpowers… and your kryptonite. We all have both.
Check out last week’s email/ post here if you missed it.
For many of us, we view our kryptonite as an obstacle… one to desperately avoid, which brings me to my next read: The Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday.
Its ties to coaching are clear.
“…As for us, we face things that are not nearly as intimidating, and then we promptly decide we’re screwed. This is how obstacles become obstacles. In other words, through our perception of events, we are complicit in the creation—as well as the destruction—of every one of our obstacles. There is no good or bad without us, there is only perception. There is the event itself and the story we tell ourselves about what it means. That’s a thought that changes everything, doesn’t it?… Welcome to the power of perception. Applicable in each and every situation, impossible to obstruct. It can only be relinquished. And that is your decision.”
I’ll be the first to acknowledged there are layers to this and nuances that 1:1 coaching (and especially when trauma is involved, therapy) can help dig in further… but for so many life circumstances, this just applies.
How we see the events in our lives and the meaning we add to these events sets us up (or back) for what comes next…
It’s the difference of it happened to me or for me.
And I’m not going to say we need to like or be positive about or grateful for all the bad stuff in our lives… but because it happened, we are who we are and we are on this exact path.
Choosing our next path is up to us.
So, if life has been happening to you lately… perhaps it’s time to pause and ask:
What if this is happening for you?
What is life trying to teach you?
Are you listening?
Sometimes grit (last week’s discussion: passion plus perseverance) can get in the way of seeing life’s lessons. Sometimes grit can be the obstacle. Sometimes, gritting through isn’t the answer. But sometimes it is the way.
I’m not a particularly religious person (but did grow up in the Catholic church if that tells you anything); the serenity prayer has an important reminder for me:
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change
The courage to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference.
The wisdom to know the difference: how incredibly important.
Holiday makes this important point:
“So what if you focused on what you can change? That’s where you can make a difference. Behind the Serenity Prayer is a two-thousand-year-old Stoic phrase: “ta eph’hemin, ta out eph’hemin.” What is up to us, what is not up to us.
And what is up to us?
Our emotions
Our judgements
Our creativity
Our attitude
Our perspective
Our desires
Our decisions
Our determination
This is our playing field, so to speak. Everything there is fair game.
What is not up to us?
Well, you know, everything else. The weather, the economy, circumstances, other people’s emotions or judgments, trends, disasters, et cetera.”
“In its own way, the most harmful dragon we chase is the one that makes us think we can change things that are simply not ours to change… Focusing exclusively on what is in our power magnifies and enhances our power. But every ounce of energy directed at things we can’t actually influence is wasted—self-indulgent and self-destructive. So much power—ours, and other people’s—is frittered away in this manner.
To see an obstacle as a challenge, to make the best of it anyway, that is also a choice—a choice that is up to us.”
Holiday goes on to give great advice:
Live in the present moment.
Think differently.
Find the opportunity.
Prepare to act.
In action, meet obstacles with energy, persistence, a coherent and deliberate process, iteration and resilience, pragmatism, strategic vision, craftiness and savvy, and an eye for opportunity and pivotal moments.
I could have saved myself a lot of heartache if I had known the serenity prayer and embodied it when I was doing administrative work as a medical director in the ER.
Let me be clear. I knew the serenity prayer… but I didn’t know it.
That’s why Ryan Holiday’s words “the most harmful dragon we chase is the one that makes us think we can change things that are simply not ours to change” probably hit me so hard.
There was much that simply wasn’t mine to change. I can see that now. But I really wanted better for my patients, my nurses, techs and docs… but what I realize now, it wasn’t mine to change.
It took me awhile, but there’s certainly serenity in that realization.
So, my challenge to my clients (current and future): where do you currently need coaching?
Accepting the things you cannot change
OR
The courage to change the things you can…
Drop the harmful dragon when it’s not yours to slay. Use your superpower and don’t let it turn to kryptonite. You and your people (however you define that: friends, family, coworkers, colleagues) will thank you…
And if you need perspective (which is one of the highlights of coaching with me!):
