March 6, 2014 Day 6 Slice of Life Challenge

Whenever I am about to face something new or take on a big challenge it seems the first voice I hear is the one that doubts.  The one that says, “You can’t do that.”  I begin to look for all the evidence to support that voice.  And I find all the reasons and evidence for why I can’t, thanks to that voice.

Luckily, if I stop, look around and listen, there is someone there pushing me along, saying, “Yes you can.  Of course you can.”  And this someone, if I listen and believe what it is telling me, has the power to move me forward.  Each time I have been in this situation, and I have listened to the someone pushing me along, I come to find out that in fact, I can.  When I did not listen to that someone, it just had a way of not working out.  I do have to consider some reasons why these things did not work out.  While it is possible it was not really what I wanted, or it just was not meant to be – I have to wonder. I t also could have been that I listened to that voice instead of the someone who was there, I did not stop and listen to that someone pushing me along, I listened to that voice.  I did not believe what that someone was saying, I did not believe.

Or perhaps I did not take on the superhero pose.  I have watched Amy Cuddy’s TEDTalk on body language and last year we made the recommendation to our students to take on a power stance because research showed that if you took on this power stance for just 5 minutes it would impact your chance of success.  As I watched Grey’s Anatomy tonight, Amelia was about to embark on a never done before brain surgery.  She prepared for her surgery with some self talk in the mirror, and then just before the surgery she stood in what she called a superhero pose.  Even as she was operating, she began to hear that voice and asked someone to call her brother in from D.C. to help her.  Until her someone joined the operating room and he talked her through her self-questioning, he pushed her along and helped her to get through that self-doubt that came from that voice.  We all need that person, that someone who can help us push ourselves along on the paths that we were meant to take in order to grow and be successful in any challenges we face.

As I reflect now over so many situations I have been in and as I search to find the one thing that made a success different from a non-success I come to realize that there is not one thing.  It is similar to the idea of a “perfect storm” when everything comes together just so.  Taking a power pose, asserting your body in a form that looks like a super hero that is the place to start.  Then do not listen to that voice, that voice is not there to help you, it is there to make sure that you are ready to work hard at work that is worth doing.  It is there to make sure you are strong enough not to listen to it.  It is there so that you believe it when your someone is there encouraging you along, not listening to that voice, but listening and more importantly believing in what your someone is telling you when that someone says, “Of course you can!”