Center in Your Own Wisdom
January 31, 2024
Connect to Thrive
February 14, 2024
Using Your Resilience Skills to Thrive. Part 3 of 7: Act with Courage.
Thrive – to pursue joy and meaning in your life. In this 7-part blog series we are exploring how your resilience skills can help you thrive. Each blog will focus on a constellation of skills that can be used to pursue the life you want.
To really know what brings you joy and meaning you need to do stuff. Try it out. Experiment. Play. Perhaps you have a friend who makes pottery bowls that are then sold at a charity event to raise money for food pantries. They love to play with clay; this brings them joy. Working together with other artists to raise money for hunger relief is meaningful. But will this work for you? Clay is heavy, messy, and time consuming. Perhaps organizing an event sounds like a horror show. You just want to write a check. The good news is that you get to find your own way. What resilience skills can you use to act on your ideas?
Act with Courage
Not sure where to start? Give yourself permission to do it wrong. To do the wrong thing. To be an amateur. Take time to experiment. Taste, touch, gaze, smell. Go to new places – far away or just down the street. If something seems promising check it out. No matter how old you are there will always be areas where you are a beginner. You don’t know what will bring you joy until you try it.
Perhaps you have a very good idea of what will allow you to thrive, and you need to clear space for it. This requires a different focus for courage. The courage to say no to other things, to funnel time and resources toward that one thing. Courage to stop doing the thing that once brought you joy and now feels heavy or meaningless, to rearrange your life so that your time reflects your desire.
Talk Back to Your Inner Critic
As long as I am having fun and it doesn’t hurt anyone who cares? That inner voice cares. Pay attention to that voice and talk back as needed.
At your age! Yes – at my age. You aren’t good at this. Excuse me – I didn’t ask. I am having fun. You look stupid. I’m learning! Everyone else knows what they are doing – Super! Maybe they can give me some help. Anxiety is meant to be a guide to keep you safe, not a bully who makes you stay small.
Now, if skiing is your jam and you are choosing a chair lift after decades of not skiing, let anxiety guide you to the bunny hill, not the black diamond. But once you have your legs back under you, and anxiety is nagging you about your “form” tell it to take a hike. You may not be the most graceful one on the slope; that’s not the goal. The goal is fun, joy, amazing views, and as a bonus – one heck of a workout. (Besides every other skier needs to be focused on their own joy and actual safety, not your style.)
And if there is an actual human in your life who is singing anxiety’s song, thank them for their concern and move on about your business. If that isn’t enough, read next week’s blog.
Be You
Even people who like the same thing may like it for different reasons. That’s ok. I crochet as a form of fidgeting and will pull things out after I make them so I can use the yarn again. Others crochet to create warm things, to make amigurumi animals, or to celebrate a new baby in the family. Some use inexpensive durable yarn. Others use the finest of yarns to make items of delicate beauty. Some knit.
The point is there are millions of ways to feel joy and to pursue meaning on this planet. At the granular level what makes you feel happy or allows you to make a difference will change over time. Dig in to your options and pursue them for yourself. Be playful and curious. Create. Start a business or restart an education. Build a model or an Ikea dresser. Pursue a new profession. Garden, rebuild a car. Build a new world in Minecraft. Volunteer for a local non-profit. Doodle in the margins.
Add joy and meaning to your life by doing stuff that is fun and meaningful for you. You can not single-handedly save the planet, or even one other person. You can find ways to lift yourself up and make a difference. This works best when you use your courage to do the things that appeal to you and don’t let your inner critic get in the way. Your ability to thrive is in your hands. Are you sitting on the shore holding a book because reading seaside is fabulous? Or are you sitting on the shore holding a book because you really want to go into the water but feel you will look stupid, might be in danger and don’t want to look dumb. This is your one short life. Do what makes you feel alive.
Peace,
Laura A. Gaines
This is part three in a seven-part series. To get caught up, check out Resilience to Thrive and Center in Your Own Wisdom. The next four weeks will continue to cover specific groups of resilience skills useful in building a life of thriving. Part seven will be our conclusion. You are welcome to comment as we go by sending an email to resilience@learnmodelteach.com or engaging on LinkedIn or Facebook.
