Ask Who Not How....

So I was in a coaching session yesterday (my own, not a client’s…yes, I too have a coach!) and my coach said something to me that really shook up my thinking.  He said, “when we ask how we get totally in our heads.  It becomes completely mechanical thinking. But it’s not our head that moves us to action. It’s our heart.”

Dang! Preach it, Brotha!

Then I started to analyze my thinking this last few weeks.  In my journey to create this women’s retreat ministry, what has my main focus been?  It’s been HOW!

How do I get it started? How do I market it? How much do I charge? How much is it worth? How do I set it up? How, How, How….But too much HOW sucks the like out of life. It’s too mechanical. It’s all in our heads. It’s too much about the plan, the schedule, the process and not enough about the experience, the joy, the passion in the journey.  It also leads to overwhelm, stress, procrastination, and in my case, mental and physical exhaustion.

See if you’re brain is like a computer (and it is), spending all your time in the HOW sucks up RAM (random access memory….aka desktop space) at an unbelievable rate, and the end result is paralysis, the inability to do ANYTHING! Believe me, sitting on a dream, especially one that is God-given, is a very uncomfortable place to be. Not doing anything is NOT an option!

So what’s a highly motivated, process-oriented girl who’s plagued by procrastination to do? She has to stop asking HOW so much and start asking WHO.  Ok…I say to Brook, uh, “what exactly does that mean?”  “You have to start asking who do I need to be today?” Who needs to show up to achieve this goal? WHO brings us back to the heart, and the heart produces action, motivation, and passion. Wow….so how does this tie into my 30 day mission? Well…follow me on this one….

If we become what we focus on and we are ALWAYS focused on How to do stuff, we become mechanical, obsessive and overwhelmed. That’s not to say a little bit of how isn’t a good thing…a little bit is necessary to get things done. But if we continually focus on how we do two things:

1)      We take our focus off of God to provide direction.  This is bad, people…This leads to wondering around in the wilderness. We have to stay open to where God wants us to go and that means taking our hands off the wheel and letting him drive. Only shifting our focus from how to who can we accomplish this.

2)      We get totally stuck in the details and begin to worry about success/failure.  This is the trap that most people will fall into.  It is when we only focus on How that we begin to worry about failure.  Laser vision on WHO we need to be will allow us to be unattached to the outcome and embrace success…because WE control who we are going to be….it is the only thing we control.

So thanks to my coach for reminding me about all this wisdom that I possess. Ask me about him, I would be happy to share his info with you.  But more than that, thanks to God for putting people and thoughts in my path to confirm and guide me in the direction that I need to go!