What’s Your TO?
“First, tell yourself what you want to be, then act your part accordingly.”
- Epictetus
“Let us prepare our minds as if we’d come to the very end of life. Let us postpone nothing. Let us balance life’s books each day. The one who puts the finishing touches on their life each day is never short of time.” —Seneca
We spend too much time running away FROM things – the past, our circumstances, people, baseless assumptions. Our “froms” become the justification for not pursuing our “tos” wholeheartedly. We are very comfortable and familiar with what we are running “from.” Get your blood pumping and start running toward your chosen future with enthusiasm, focus and rigor.
We all have desires and dreams that we ignore because they are not “practical” or we are not ready yet or we won’t make money doing it. Passion and purpose don’t have to pay the bills to be pursued and they are not reserved for youth alone.
“All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”― Blaise Pascal
Discovering your “to” starts with stillness. Get quiet daily and listen with intent to gain clarity, to uncover the blindingly obvious that’s already within you. It just needs stillness long enough to rise above the noise and distractions.
After you’ve committed to the daily practice of stillness, write down what you hear, even if it doesn’t make sense in the moment. Julia Cameron’s method of three morning pages is a fruitful exercise that will help uncover insights, ideas and inspiration that will lead you to your “to.” No editing, no stopping, no judgment – just free flow writing allowing your thoughts to fill the blank page emptying your mind and soul to make space for meaning and depth. Journaling allows patterns and connections to emerge and take shape.
“Keep a notebook. Travel with it, eat with it, sleep with it. Slap into it every thought that flutters up into your brain,” advises Jack London.
Bestselling author Ryan Holiday’s new book Stillness is the Key articulates “Stillness is what aims the archer’s arrow. It inspires new ideas. It sharpens perspective and illuminates connections. It slows the ball down so that we might hit it. It generates a vision, helps us resist the passions of the mob, makes space for gratitude and wonder. Stillness allows us to persevere. To succeed. It is the key that unlocks insights of genius, and allows us regular folks to understand them.” His Daily Stoic website and podcast offer ancient wisdom from great philosophers including Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, and Epictetus.
Start with 15 minutes in the morning and weave stillness in throughout the day to stay on course. Turn off the busyness autopilot, ignore distractions and dig in, one shovel at a time. The act of starting alone illuminates the path forward one simple step at a time, then the next and keep going.
Gratitude, play, solitude and reflection lead to clarity, insight, discipline and joy. Our ability to focus amidst distractions moves us from merely responding to active participation in our lives. Circumstances may or may not change. People don’t change unless they want to. You can only change yourself, so stop trying to change that which is not yours to change. Get to work on you.
Glenda Eoyang, Human System Dynamics Institute offers a compelling framework to lead in an age of uncertainty: “Increasing demand and decreasing resources. As these constraints increase, tension accumulates over time. At some point the situation becomes untenable. A new paradigm emerges to changes not just HOW MUCH can be done, but HOW to do it,” she articulates.
Look for patterns, ask questions, allow seasons their due, be open to emergence, understand context and embrace an adaptive mindset. Release the need for controlling the uncontrollable, allowing fluidity and ease to buoy you in uncertainty.
Resistance and fear will always exist when we are pursuing something that’s important. Starting overcomes resistance. Do it afraid. And then start again and again.
“Are you paralyzed with fear? That’s a good sign. Fear is good. Like self-doubt, fear is an indicator. Fear tells us what we have to do. Remember one rule of thumb: the more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it, Steven Pressfield, The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks & Win Your Inner Creative Battles He continues, “Our job in this life is not to shape ourselves into some ideal we imagine we ought to be, but to find out who we already are and become it.”
TOday is the day to start moving enthusiastically to your “to” and stop running “from” things. Your “from” is done, your “to” is waiting to be pursued, savored and embraced each step of the way.
“Begin - to begin is half the work, let half still remain; again begin this, and thou wilt have finished.” – Marcus Aurelius