Opportunities to Realize Your Dreams are Evolving and Popping up All the Time

Opportunities to realize your dreams are evolving and popping up all the time, all around you.  The challenge is to not be so hampered by your mental models that you fail to identify these opportunities when they bump up against you.

So what is a mental model?  A mental model is how you see the world (and your corresponding expectations relative to this view of the world).  It is premised on habit, preconditioned mind sets, and pattern knowledge, and pattern recognition.  Professor Srikumar S. Rao frames mental models best in his book, Are you Ready to Succeed.  He goes on to say about mental models, "these are our fixed ideas of how the world works and how things should or shouldn't be done.  We accept these models so completely that we live our lives according to them.  We have different models for different situations - for work, for love, for our families.  We have dozens of them that we use, and some of them may actually be in direct conflict with others and we may not even know it."

Mental models serve us by helping us to put order to our current circumstance without having to constantly reinvent the wheel.  Through pattern recognition and preconditioned response we can move through our current circumstances with a measure of understanding and certainty.  The problem with mental models is that they can, inadvertently, limit us to specific pathways, so much so that growth and learning can become inhibited or prevented altogether.  So what does this mean?  For one, no matter how set your circumstance may seem to you, it is in your best interest to make a commitment to flexing your capacity to adjust and/or change your mental model - equate it to working out regularly in the arena of the possible.

Secondly, nothing is cast in concrete, so experimentation is OK, as is backtracking.  The primary goal here isn't about success or failure, it's about learning and better identifying and moving towards your highest good: fully investing and reaping the benefits of your gifts and talents, while keeping your mental model current.

Mental models aren't a bad thing.  We need them to survive.  They are not cast in concrete and they can and should be updated or disposed of, if need be.  In today's world it is an imperative to surviving and thriving.

Sometimes Life Just Happens

Sometimes Life just happens. Call it the perfect storm, write it off to bad luck, blame it on others...we all have our ways of coping with it, but sometimes "shit happens". After 60 years of living, here's how I see it. Life is like a river and we are, each of us, some of the myriad of things that comprise that river. Life, like the river keeps on flowing, changing...predictable sometimes...unpredictable other times. That's Life. As we travel along, are moved by, are shaped by this river called Life, things can and will happen. We'll smack into unforeseen objects, we'll come up against barriers; we'll get shaped, worn, cradled, caressed, and carried. That's Life. The river that is Life is a given. OUR CHOICE is how we engage with this amazing river, this Life. We have the capacity to react, embrace, reject, swim against the current or with it, join with others on our journey, cling to, drag, down, lift up, help or not, enjoy, suffer, praise or rail against this river - this Life. We can choose to find a side eddy to spend our days away from the main flow, we can anchor ourselves to the bottom refusing to be pulled anywhere or do anything (until that unforeseen 100 year flood tears our anchor away).

As I have traveled this river I have seen more ways of dealing with the river of Life than you can imagine. That's Life. What I have learned about this river is that it consistently flows, changes, mutates from calm waters to turbulent rapids from shallow sandbars to profoundly deep channels; that each coping skill that I develop to navigate this amazing and wonderful world requires me to become skilled, and yet adaptable; capable of holding on, and knowing when to let go; accepting of the challenges, and welcoming of the blessings; and ultimately understanding that the river of Life is not about me, and, at the same time, is all about me. Someday, like all elements of this river, this Life, I will cease to exist as I am today. I will become something else in this river, this ceaseless flowing and shaping and changing world. Nothing is lost to this river of Life. What amazes me is that even as I am so small in the scheme of things, I can impact this world, often times in ways I will never know, and that is true of all of us. For myself, I choose love, a kind word, a thoughtful deed, a caring gesture, choosing forgiveness...my way of navigating this river, this Life.

Inspired Engagement

I don't know about you, but I love, Love, LOVE when I am all fired up and head-over-heels involved in a project.  Those are some of the times when I truly feel alive.  Those are the times when I am truly 150% in the game.  I have boundless energy, and I find it hard to sleep.  I am so excited about what I am doing every day.  Some real "tells" that I am in that sweet spot?  I am excited and eager.  I talk to everyone and anyone about what I am working on.  The project becomes a theme that is woven into my analogies and thoughts.  I find it hard to put this project that I am passionate about down, and I find myself drawn back to it again and again and again.

I also love, Love, LOVE when others are in this space as well.  I find that I can vicariously experience the exact same feelings and energy through sharing in someone else's immersion in what they are passionate about.  I ride the excitement of the wave they create through emoting and sharing.  I find myself anticipating spending time with them around what they are working on.  I am willing to help, encourage, and support as I thrill at their progress, and learnings.  It's like Dr Seuss said, "You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams."

I love, Love, LOVE when reality is better than my dreams!

Collaboration, learning, problem solving, creative solutions, out of the box thinking, contemplative time, investigating parallel worlds and comparative approaches; identifying patterns, trends and indicators - all come into play FULLY engaging my mind, body, and spirit.  Sometimes break-throughs come from logical progression; sometimes break-throughs come from making new connections between previously disassociated ideas; sometimes break-throughs seem to appear like manna from heaven.  It is a wonderfully dynamic and magical process - a melding and molding of givens and discoveries into hew patterns and understandings.  It is brilliantly transformational.