‘What do I really want?’ Part II (Owning your narrative)

One of the things I’ve learned through challenges in my life and career is that life is not a continuum. It's a series of phases, and it’s useful to have a personal vision to inform how you address and shape them. 

Most of my clients have done plans for businesses and work projects. When I get them to develop a vision for themselves, their challenge is to take ownership of it.

An experience that continues to ring true for me - and it’s uncanny - is that when I write or vocalise a conscious commitment, it translates into reality. 

Annoyingly, on the flip side, I’m just as good at realising an unconscious commitment - the curious tension between my conscious and unconscious intentions.

You might have a conscious intention to go and do a marathon. Of course, just because you say it ‘I'm going to do a marathon’, it doesn’t mean that you manifest it. 

The conscious invitation is to be all in: ’I am a marathon runner’, ‘I can see it, and feel it now’. An invitation to be present with the intention.

When not present to the intention, you might notice the tension between the the things you’re unconsciously committed to… a little voice saying, ‘I don’t have time to commit to the required training.’ 

‘Am I being unrealistic? What happens if can’t complete the marathon?’

It's about getting what I call ‘clean’: radically owning your intentions, including any of the negative talk or biases you pull yourself back with (possibly safe and comfortable patterns from the past).

I’ll provide a classic example of how unconscious commitments impacted me, and how I got clean, in my next post.