From Here to Next, What Gets in the Way?
(Video version here. Scroll down for written version)
(Written version)
This month, we focus on what moves us from where we are to the next steps: from identifying what gets in the way, to what it means to grow through our growth at every step, and extracting the lessons along the way.
We get started with the seed of it all, a word you hear me talk about a lot: awareness. In this case, I want to highlight awareness of what gets in the way for us to take the next step.
Whether we are tackling our dissertation writing or job searching, we always encounter hurdles that we have to address and overcome as part of our process. Some we can foresee and prepare for, and some come up without us calling for them. A very natural response in most cases is to fight against them even existing. We often get hung up on wishing them away, fighting with why they even exist in the first place. When things are not what they used to be, or what we feel they should be, we fall in the trap of spending most of our time and energy in that headspace that makes us feel frustrated and stuck.
Accepting what is is one of the hardest things for us to do, and sometimes no matter how much we have thought about it and intellectualized it, there is still an emotional side to it that is hard to tackle. When you are in that headspace, ask yourself:
What things am I fighting about where I am at?
What things am I trying to preserve?
How am I trying to protect myself?
The type of barrier that we encounter also shapes the type of approach to explore it, and eventually overcome it. Here is what I mean:
- External barriers (things like the state of the market or industry, or our immigration status) are things out of our control that we tend to fight a lot with. In these cases, acceptance needs to be paired up with creativity: How do I work with what is at this time?
- Internal barriers (things like our beliefs about who we are, what we have to offer, or what we are capable of) are things we have agency over. In this case, meeting them with acceptance of what is can be followed by curiosity to better understand them: When and why does this barrier come up? What is it asking from me to make it less powerful or disruptive?
I hope these questions and reflections bring some additional awareness as you tackle your own external and internal barriers. Next week, we will move forward in making progress by addressing one particularly powerful barrier… More on that later.
See you at our next Community Coffee Hour!
PS: If you know anyone who can benefit from this reflection, please share our newsletter with them.
