March Into Action, Part III: Know You’re Power
Posted on May 04, 2020 by Gina DeRosa, One of Thousands of Life Coaches on Noomii.
Power is the not-so-secret sauce behind your ability to keep moving forward toward success, but you might not be leveraging it to your advantage.
(Original blog post from 3/15/2020. See all posts on Sixth Gear Series’ site.)
“The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.” – Alice Walker
My husband is from northeastern Pennsylvania and even though he has lived in New England for more than half of his life, the “you can take the boy out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the boy” saying still rings true. (For example, sometimes our one-car garage is called ‘the barn.’ It makes this Massholette chuckle.) One of my favorite expressions he’s used is in reference to people who have “farm-boy strength,” meaning that by looking at the person you’d think they were woefully out of shape (and you wouldn’t be totally wrong!), but when faced with a situation where they need a significant amount of brawn, they shock you when they conquer the object with their hidden Atlas-like strength.
I must pause for a moment to acknowledge the range of challenges that people all over the world are experiencing at this time due to the Coronavirus pandemic and its resulting effects – I genuinely extend to everyone in the world my empathy and condolences as well as my hope and encouragement. This post is generally applicable to any of life’s curveballs – whether short-term or long-term, minor or catastrophic – and it doesn’t intend to ignore or minimize the impact of the pandemic; rather, it furthers my chief responsibility to serve you through personalized education and inspiration, so that you may endure and succeed through any of the trying times that you encounter in your life.
The theme of this month’s posts is ACTION – making forward progress toward whatever goal you have set for yourself. There is always a strategy or a plan behind a goal, even if you didn’t sit down to write out every step from beginning to end before starting your journey. Some people need and want that structure, others just get an idea in their head and start moving with or without intention to organize the plan before achieving the goal. Regardless of your approach and how well it serves you, the common thread between your approach and the other approach is:
POWER.
Think about this concept for a minute. That little five-letter word is the unsung hero behind all of our life’s achievements, yet we treat it like our conscious brain approaches the capacity to breathe: We tend to take it for granted until we are forced to pay attention to it (like when we’re trapped in an enclosed area with an infant’s silent-but-deadly expression of their last meal or when the doctor puts a cold piece of metal on our back and tests our ability to follow instructions while outfitted in an oversized and mysteriously loud piece of paper).
Maybe the word “power” doesn’t resonate with you as much as any of its synonyms, such as STRENGTH, CONTROL, ABILITY, ENERGY, DETERMINATION, FAITH, WILL, etc.
Whatever you want to call it, THAT is the not-so-secret sauce behind your ability to take action.
So, the question I have for you is:
What do YOU do when your plan of action is thwarted in some way?
No matter where you are today with respect to your goal, whether you are 10 weeks into it, getting ready to start, or somewhere in between, think about how you can apply the following guidance to your current and future goals (/life in general):
KNOW YOU’RE POWER.
Yes, you ARE power (strength, control, ability, energy, determination, faith, will, etc.). You don’t just have it – you embody it. Everything you need to accomplish your goals is already within you, somewhere between your head where the ideas live and your feet that take you across the finish lines.
USE IT OR LOSE IT.
Use your power or lose to the situation. You have the choice to use your strength however, wherever, and whenever you want – this includes situations that are objectively outside of your control (e.g. worldwide pandemic), for which you can leverage your experience from all previous situations that were objectively within your control and that you succeeded to overcome (e.g. family hardship).
STRETCH & FLEX.
Muscles get strong with use and they need different types of use to stay strong and adapt to whatever you need them to do. Similarly, stretching your mind allows it to be open to new ideas and to expand your comfort zone, and it allows you to increase your flexibility and resilience to handle anything between the curveballs and the boulders that life throws your way.
There will always be a lot of “noise” that [intentionally or unintentionally] throws you off the path to your goal, whether it comes from a change-fearing friend or family member, a news article announcing a reversal of a previous admonishment (#eatbaconjustkidding), or your own self-doubt. You are the ultimate filter of all of this noise so instead of allowing yourself to experience these as challenges, consider what it would be like to perceive them as opportunities. Knowing you’re power is the key to accelerating your success with whatever you’re determined to accomplish.
