Like Activate, Navigate moves you forward…
I finished a different class last week with over 60 coaches from all across the globe. It has been confusing for my wife as I have been mixing the 2 together in our daily walks through mountains and finally put it together: “One is about what happens 5 years from now, and the other is about what happens 5 seconds from now”. The Designing Your Life material helps you think about where you are going, and is that taking you where you want to be? Overwhelmingly lately, the answer has been “not so much”… as 100% of the people I talk with are realizing that they have been on autopilot. It reminds me a lot of what happened in 2008 after the financial meltdown… when I decided to start a business for the first time… in a financial crisis like my grandparents went through…
… if you have the energy from renewal
… technically this should have been before Activate/execute… but it fits better with the theme of renew. This Sage voice Navigate helps you sort through many different paths forward – based on a strong consistent internal compass. The points on that compass are your values and what gives your life “meaning and purpose”, with the promise that if you stay true to those as you move forward, your life will add up to something that will be fulfilling. It helps you find fulfillment as those values play out in your daily decision-making, interactions, results, and deliverables. You connect with it best by Flashing Forward – like yesterday’s use of visualization, but instead, standing in the future and looking back at your life and where the compass has directed you.
I have once again gotten to the last day for Eric Clapton, and haven’t even touched his immense catalog. There is his reconnecting deeply with his idol BB King, the ability to honor his mentor JJ Cale, the work he has done lately on “just blues”… and those will come up again – soon I hope. For now, the song to cap these 2 weeks comes from an album from the middle 80’s when synth rock was starting to take off, and the guitar was being pushed to the back. Even my favorite group Rush had fallen victim to the fad, including drum machines, and completely synthetic bands like Kraftwerk and Depeche Mode. Yet, Eric stayed true to his compass and released Journeyman – which, while sounding negative, was actually what he wanted to be seen as…
Navigate also helps you see the real path…
It is interesting that this is where the classes come together… if you have a strong set of internal values, the DYL materials help you reconnect them to your path forward. So many of us have allowed other points on the compass to drive us… which come from the Saboteurs. The Judge puts Guilt and Obligation as true north, while the Avoider puts down the compass and bids “wander”, and Restless spins the dial every second. All those competing points lead many to simply drown them out with Hyper Achievement or Hyper Rationality, or worse numb them with drugs and alcohol as Eric tried. And as when you are in the forest and lost, looking down at the trail often doesn’t help – you have to look up … and out… down the trail the compass becomes a better gentle guide. In 2008, and again in this crisis, my compass was tested, and eventually by Unplugging from those voices, and the world’s clamor, I started to gently find the way forward from the fear and into the light that the Sage/renew and my faith foundation provided.
… which often requires and renews real faith.
I write often about “all music comes from resonance” – the frequency that is “natural” for this length of guitar wire, this diameter of organ pipe, this setting of valves on a sax. The note you hear is generated from that “tuning”. As we worked through what are called “Odyssey Plans” – different potential paths forward taken out 5 years, it was fascinating what would happen with every person…. every time. I watched as each person I talked with would naturally “resonate”… when their inner compass finally was pointing in coherence with this “wild” plan… the one that the Saboteurs are laughing at. And yet, turning up the volume on the Sage, and down on those dissonant notes… that is the trick… for 5 seconds … or 5 years… Find your own compass, Navigate towards those points. From his Grammy performance that changed the world and good advice to renew – Unplug… and start Running on Faith.
