Taking the Leap Towards Personal Growth
I’ve felt an urge to write for months, but it’s taken a long time to actually pick up the (metaphorical) pen and start putting my thoughts down on paper. I’ve spent this time trying to decide why I had this urge to write. But even more than that, I’ve been busy attempting to talk myself out of it.
Sound familiar?
You have an idea. A dream. Something that gets you excited.
Your imagination kicks in. “What if I did…..(insert your dream here)?” “What would that look like?” “Where might it go?” “How would it change my life?”
These are life changing questions.
When you start asking them, you’ve arrived at what I call a precipice moment.
The Precipice Moment
I’m not a big winter sports guy (the Midwest is pretty flat), but I tried snowboarding when I was in college. There’s a ritual that occurs when you’re preparing to snowboard — you gear up, strap into your board, hop on the ski lift and wait to get to the top of the mountain. When you’re a first-time snowboarder, that ride up the mountain is filled with growing nervousness and excitement.
Once you arrive, you hop (or fall…) off the ski lift, head to the edge and get ready to hit the slope.
That’s the precipice moment.
That moment you’ve been working towards.
That moment you’ve been waiting for.
That moment that terrifies you.
Seeing the Possibilities
“Each man should frame life so that at some future hour fact and his dreaming meet.” — Victor Hugo
Your imagination is incredibly powerful.
Whether it’s your first time snowboarding or you’re dreaming up a new idea with the potential to change your life, your imagination is a key shaper of your future.
On the mountain that day, I’d been imagining what it would be like to hit the slope. I’d seen plenty of others do it, and man, did it look awesome. I was PUMPED.
My friends were with me, I had all the right gear, and I’d been successful on the bunny hill a couple times. The whole ride up the ski lift was filled with telling myself, “You’ve got this. You’re ready.”
All signs pointed to go, but it wasn’t until that specific precipice moment, standing at the top of the slope, that everything came to a head. All of the excitement, all of the desire, and all of the fear.
Maybe something has come to mind right now — an idea you’ve been toying with for a long time. You’ve gone to the mountaintop in your head.
You’ve been dreaming of asking her out.
You’ve been waiting for the right moment to have that conversation with your boss about working remotely.
You’ve been reading articles and watching videos about getting into shape.
In your head, you know what you want. You’ve got a clear picture of the benefits making this change would generate in your life.
All of this may be true, but you’re still sitting there on the precipice.
Why haven’t you moved?
Don’t Make Yourself at Home on the Precipice
The truth is that the precipice is an exciting place to be.
You’ve got a whole new world in front of you and the possibilities are endless. Who wouldn’t want to be in that spot?
During that snowboarding trip, I wish I could have bottled up the feeling I had before my first descent and taken it with me. It was thrilling. I was finally there. The precipice was awesome.
Yes, the precipice is a great place to be, but the precipice is not a great place to live.
It’s easy to confuse the two.
You find something you like — like this feeling of excitement and anticipation— and you want more of it. But as humans, we’re all prone to overindulgence and sabotaging ourselves.
Put another way, as Benjamin P. Hardy says in this article, “We humans have a bad habit of talking ourselves out of greatness.”
Say you decide to camp out on the precipice because you like the view. For a while you enjoy it. Anything can happen! The sky’s the limit!
But what tends to happen after you’ve been there for a while?
- Disillusionment — When you’re anticipating something great and it doesn’t appear, it’s natural to start losing hope. There’s an old proverb that says, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick…” and it’s true. Living in a place of constant dreaming and anticipation, but never taking any tangible steps to make those dreams a reality, causes your hope to begin to die out.
- Cynicism — Cynicism and disillusionment are old friends. When you are disappointed and have lost hope, it’s a short jump to cynicism. Cynics are characterized by a distrust of others. It renders you unable to connect with people and to trust that their intentions may be good and upright.
- Anger — Once you realize that your dreams aren’t coming to fruition you have to find someone to blame. This might mean getting angry at yourself: ”Why don’t you just try harder? Why are you so lazy? Why can’t you just take action?” It may also take the form of anger towards others. If someone else seems to be making progress toward their goals when you aren’t, you may blame your circumstances. Maybe it’s your parents’ fault. Maybe it’s your company’s fault for not recognizing what an asset you are. Whomever it is, someone must be the scapegoat.
There are plenty of other reactions to living on the precipice for too long, but these are three of the ones I’ve recognized in my own life and encountered in conversations with friends and coworkers. Each is subtle. They creep in slowly and build up over time.
The good news?
You don’t have to live with them.
Take the Leap
Does this describe you?
- You want more for your life — more fulfillment, more free time, more money, more patience — whatever it may be
- You’ve been dreaming and imagining how to get there
- You’ve been struggling to make tangible progress towards what you desire
If that’s you, know that you’re not alone. Modern marvels like the internet have made the world so much smaller in the past few decades. There are so many options out there it can be paralyzing.
If you’re ready to get off the precipice and begin moving forward toward your dreams, below are three useful steps to get you started.
1. Tell Someone
The precipice exists first and foremost in your mind. Yes, every decision you make will have tangible consequences in your life, but before anything actually happens you have to make the decision to move forward.
An easy way to overcome the temptation to delay is to take the battle out of your mind and bring it into the “real” world. Find someone you can trust — ideally someone who will be honest with you, but who also won’t default to discouraging you in the name of realism — and share your situation with them. Tell them what you’re feeling, what you desire, and what you’re considering.
Name the struggle. Name the hopes.
Remember, this person isn’t supposed to solve your problem or make the decision for you. Getting counsel and advice for big life decisions is great, but the first and primary reason you’re going to this person is to get outside of your head and put things into motion by talking about what you’ve been considering.
2. One Bite at a Time
You’ve heard it before, but I’m going to say it again: How do you eat an elephant?
One bite at a time.
One of the biggest reasons it’s difficult to act and move forward is because of the tendency we humans have to blow things out of proportion in our minds. Evolutionary it makes sense; caution and being risk-averse can be an aid to survival in some circumstances.
But if you let it, caution can suffocate you.
Fear likes to masquerade as caution. While you might never admit to being afraid, it can actually seem respectable to approach everything in your life with caution.
When you let caution/fear have its way, realistic goals become insurmountable challenges.
Self-transformation takes years, and that’s often daunting. But those years begin today, and taking small steps every day is the key to achieving that dream you’ve been stuck on for so long.
-Want to learn to play the harmonica? Don’t spend hours on YouTube watching the greatest harmonica players in the world. Start with buying a harmonica.
-Dreaming of getting into better shape? Stop searching for that magical workout plan that will be your silver bullet. Get out your tennis shoes and go for a walk today. Do it again tomorrow, and again the next day. Start moving forward. Build some momentum and go from there.
3. Celebrate Your Progress
Regardless of how much progress you’ve made on your goals, chances are there will always be someone further ahead. It can be so easy to let envy and discouragement settle in and kill your momentum.
How do you prevent envy and discouragement?
Celebrate your wins at every opportunity.
If you lost your first pound, congratulate yourself. That’s huge!
If you’ve managed to get yourself in check and are performing better at work as a result, great job! That’s a massive step forward in your journey to personal growth.
Learned to play your first song on your instrument of choice? Well done! Even Beethoven started with a first song.
These examples may or may not seem big, depending on where you’re at in your personal journey. But each of these seemingly small achievements is a very clear step forward on the path to growth. They mark an individual who has chosen not to live on the precipice. They are the signs of someone who has looked fear, laziness, and a million other excuses in the eye and said, “Enough! It’s time. I’ve got this!” and plunged forward into an uncharted future that they have the joy of shaping for themselves.
Are you ready to take the leap?
