Over lunch during the holidays my adult children were discussing some philosopher’s perspective on options. I was too busy chasing around a 15-month-old to hear all the details but evidently there is a philosopher who has posited that limited choices are better for us than feeling like we can do anything we want just because we will it.
Pros and cons were bantered about but I think the philosopher was onto something. At the precontemplation and contemplation stages of change the sky is kind of the limit. Daydreaming is encouraged. Pursue all options! But once we move into the stage of determination, choices must be made in order to move forward into the action stage of change.
A couple times a week I attend an hour long killer fitness camp where my favorite instructor in all the world demands, in a nice tone of voice, that I do things that I am pretty sure will kill me. It turns out she is better at assessing my abilities than I am. I’ve worked hard to be consistent in attendance, but I also have a life and that means I am not there 100% of the time.
But if I am going to survive, even thrive, in my training – I have to *&%(^%$ show up! Neither my trainer, nor my training team…no one can do the one thing that I must do: show up. I do not have to show up with enthusiasm or happy thoughts. I can show up sore and tired and cranky but show up I must. I am blessed with an instructor who does not shame us when we show up 80% of the time, because she understands how change works and shame is NEVER part of good change theory.
However, she has taught us that showing up consistently is kind of a requirement if we want the best of her. In other words, as good as she is, she cannot give us her best if we are not showing up to receive what she has to offer.
Here are some points I hope we can remember about change in this snippet:
Show up, when we work on a team
our presence counts not only for ourselves but others,
some things are ours to do,
when we don’t do what is ours to do
it might mean that someone else doesn’t get to do their thing to do.
Show up. Practice showing up. See what happens.
