Take the Step!

“Who do you need to write to?”  It’s a simple question.  In this case it was addressed to my good friend by an international author.  This author had just written the Queen of England as part of his research for his next book.  It worked.  Though my friend had reached out to this author for support…

he got challenge instead.

That author’s point was simple: there is a next step, you are just not taking it.  Why?  Why are we not taking the next step when we can?  Right question.  The layers under that answer are what we are really after.  This question turns up the obvious: that it is not the process keeping us back, it is us!

We are the enemy.  We are the one holding ourselves back.  We are the one who doesn’t believe.  It is far more convenient to blame “them,” but it is not accurate.  We CAN move the mountain.  Any mountain.  The power of belief is there.  IF… we want it?

But first, it takes naming the thing.  What is it that really is holding us back?  If we start the answer with “if only’s” then we have missed the boat.  It is not outside resources.  It is always internal ones first.  There is something inside us that must we dealt with: our mountains.   

What are the internal mountains holding us back?

As we begin to name them into reality, with clarity, we gain power over them.  For an invisible, nameless enemy is always more powerful.  We can’t move something we don’t know.  As we begin to name it, to understand it, to recognize it, we get power.  Real power.

A bridge starts to emerge, only not over but through our mountains.  The point of moving the mountain is our movement, to move around the obstacle.  To get it out of our path.  Movement is the goal.  In telling the mountain to move, we remind ourselves to do the same.

The real point in moving a mountain is to see.  So we can see the mountain in front of us more clearly and even more importantly that we see beyond it more clearly.  We have to know where we are going.  That is vision.  Visions are compelling.  They drive us to incredible lengths.

Visions are not plans, they are the deep aspirations from our unique hopes and dreams.     

And when we dial life around our vision, beautiful things start to happen.  The wind blows in our sails.  The road opens up for us.  We begin to see, to really see.  Our identity becomes more clear.  Our unique vision for life crystalizes.  And we cross the bridge of doubt.    

That may sound like a one and done occasion.  It is not.  The truth is there are many bridges.  And some of the bridges are quite long and require many crossing events.  Some bridges we may even have to re-cross.  But there is always power in every crossing we make.

Literally our brain mirrors the physicality of crossing into something or somewhere new.  A new connection is made in the brain.  Brand new.  And unique to us.  We quite literally are rewarded with more wiring when we take these risks.  The brain functions more robustly.

And with more wiring comes quicker access and more connections points.  Similar to a complex public transport system, our brains are integrated.  People who stay in one corner may have the luxury of certainty, but they are only seeing one small part of the whole circuit.

Though we can only access one point at a time, we know there are hundreds and even thousands of points of intersection.  When we take our next step across the bridge we give our brains an incredible opportunity to connect the dots.  To make new synapses.

Cross that bridge. Take the step. Watch the many and various strands come together into a beautiful whole!