Sometimes You Have To Shed Old Belief Systems If You Want The Rewards

Sitting last week with my pal Amy Schuber at an outside cafe, she mentioned something that has continued to roll around my head.

She mentioned advice she once got from a friend of hers saying that sometimes we have to ‘fire and then aim.’

This goes against the old phrase, “READY-AIM-FIRE” now doesn’t it?

Fire first? Really? Without aiming?

WHAT?

Does this statement not make you think?

Don’t we, as humans. just LOVE to be SURE about things?

We are super duper comfortable making sure we have our ducks lined up in the ‘right’ order first. Surely it’s not ‘safe’ to fire recklessly and then aim our lives in the direction we hone in on afterward? Isn’t this idea very backward from the way most of us are used to living?

I am no exception.

Until recently.

This year has been a big one of doing just what Amy suggested, and as uncomfortable as it continues to be in all honesty, no matter how much I am stretched to the very outer limits of myself, I keep firing first instead of aiming. All I can say is that I very often don’t know exactly where I am going, but it’s better than staying where I am. 🙂

Maybe it’s because I secretly like the thrill of the unknown, although this is completely unnatural to me. Maybe it’s because the little square box I put myself in never worked for me in the first place. Maybe I am scared to end up like the rest of everyone who plays it safe and gets just as burned, so either way why does it even matter?

We like to imagine that if we take that gigantic leap and leave the soul sucking career we find ourselves trapped in, we will SURELY land among continued supplies of money and opportunities just throwing themselves at our feet for being so brave to even pull the trigger in the first place.

Most often, this is NOT the case.

But how do we stay in jobs we HATE?

How much do we all just LOVE to be CERTAIN that our beliefs are one hundred and ten percent infallible. Sure that WE won’t be the one who gets chronic sickness or a devastating diagnosis, problems conceiving, run out of money, move in with our parents, lose a loved one, fall flat on our face in following our dreams, that all the puzzle pieces will fit just perfectly in the end.

I am learning daily that although I would love to have guarantees in life just like everyone else, sometimes it’s true-you just have to fire first, then pick a direction.

This is horribly uncomfortable. So much so that it can become what feels like paralyzing, causing us to not fire at all! The only way to go through this process and learn to trust it, is to continue to do things that frighten the hell out of us, by just going for it, no matter if everything is lined up perfectly or not!!!

Might I/we fail in the eyes of those around us? In some regards, most probably yes. Might we be scared to do it again and again when we see no pay off? Why would we DO this?

Well, because the pain of staying the same far outweighs the risk of daring to imagine that things can be different.

I am finding this process to take a decade, and I feel I have only just begun to really get it.

So, I will continue to fire and then somehow point my arrow in the direction of the dream on it’s decent back to the earth, hoping it lands upon a soft and loving soil. If it does not, I will try and try again…

FEEL GOOD MOMENT OF THE DAY: Smiling SO big while watching my dreams play out in my mind today, to the point of my face actually hurting…holding onto my dream is keeping me going!