To some extent this is about what Leo Babauta from Zen Habits is doing in Radical Transparency, but it’s more than that. In some way or another, all of us hold some of this internal dialogue, self talk that beats us down and tells us that we are hypocritical or not authentic. My mentor calls this the “monkey-chatter” that totally absorbs our minds and keeps us from actually taking the steps that will create change in our lives.

So what’s the challenge? Well, one of the greatest ways of inspiration is to see not only the progress that others make in their journey of self renovation, but also the struggle. We are on this journey together, we are the same species. Let’s run it together!

The Challenge:

Minimalism?  Blog about it, and include a picture of your living room, your bedroom.

Financial guru? What kind of debts are you dealing with? Has your income improved since you began your financial journey? Share the information.

Self Employment? What has changed in your life since you started working for yourself? Publish the contrast.

Is it about health for you? Tell us about the progress you’ve made – give us the contrast of the before and the after. Let us know what you are still struggling with.

This challenge is about:

1. State your Lifestyle Design Focus.
2. Show your current state.

For me, this will look something like this: (in summary form)

My LifeStyle design focus is becoming healthy and proud of it.

My current state is:

1. I have been working out for the past 3 weeks.
2. I have begun to eat healthier.
3. I have not lost the weight that I would like to lose.

My cardio exercise has suffered at the hands of my weight training.

Now this is just a summary of what the Lifestyle Design Challenge post will look like, but I think you get the point.

If you decide to take this challenge, post a comment here so that we can share together! I will be following this post very soon with my Lifestyle Design Challenge post on Health.

Just to review, I spent nearly a third of my life *reading* about how to live a full life instead of actually experiencing it. I was successful in my career but nowhere else – including my relationships, family, health or happiness, and I lacked an overall sense of well-being.

I’m reminded of a story that I recently heard about a wealthy family man. This man was so plagued by a desire to better know his creator that he abandoned his family and worldly goods in search for the house where God lived.

For years he searched the world, asking everyone, “Where is the house in which God lives?” Yet, he never met a soul who seemed to have any clue where God lived.

Finally, his journey took him to Tibet where he happened upon a monk tilling a field. He called to the monk, “I have been on this quest for years. Do you know where the house is in which God lives?” The monk answered pointing towards the horizon, “Everyone knows that the house of God is right over that hill.”

The man was elated! He thanked the monk and ran off quickly. As he crested the hill, he could see that, indeed, the house in which God lived was in plain view. His journey was complete. He took one look, and nodded satisfactorily, turned on his heel, and left.

Now, as my intelligent readers, you already know that the house is really your heart and the journey is your “self development”. And the point is, a lot like me, this man lost himself in his journey. He identified himself as a seeker, and not a finder. Like him, I had forgotten that the point was not self development, but self realization.

The purpose of self development is to create a life experience of yourself. Other than that, the stuff you are reading is just information. We want to experience a certain way of life and not just information and the only way to experience something is to do it. We’ve all seen the “Bucket List” there is a reason it wasn’t called “The bucket of information list.”

People call the process: self development. However, it would be better described as self renovation. The very qualities we possess at birth are the very qualities we are seeking in death. That is to say, that the authenticity, joy, openness, and faith, these are all innate to a newborn, and now, as adults we realize, hey, I’m gonna die! So we rush to reclaim what’s essentially already ours.

The only way to experience something we are missing is to do it. If you want to experience being confident, then you have to do something that’s going to scare the bejeezus out of you. If you want to experience adventure, then you might have to cut in line at the post office.

It’s not about losing 30 lbs, starting your own business, writing that novel, or reading those 10 books a year. It’s just about that one split second where you actually decide to take the next step and then doing it. Remember, writing a novel doesn’t start with writing a chapter – it starts with writing a word. Apply that to your life. The simple, succinct law of action.

On the subject of how children already have this figured out, check out this post from Upgrade Reality.

   Have you ever encountered, like I have, being faced with a crisis in which you realized that you had some inner thoughts about something that you wanted to do but chose not to? I’ve often been struck by the pure gold of that revelation in times of turmoil, which I have been really adept at creating in my life.

What kinds of things stop you from doing what you wanted?

How can you create the victories that you deserve in your life?

   In Self-Reliance, Ralph Waldo Emerson addressed this subject pointedly. He said, “To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men, — that is genius. Speak your latent conviction, and it shall be the universal sense; for the inmost in due time becomes the outmost…” That is to say, truly believing that you have all that you need for your success and then executing upon that will empower you to live from authenticity.

   What steps can you take to live from this space?

• Choose your inner wisdom
     Knowing that the only risk of choosing your own thought is a possible risk of failure, you empower yourself to be in charge of what you learn. That is, being in causality rathern than effect.
• Embrace the stretch
     As you step into choosing a new path for yourself, you will feel the discomfort of change in your mind, emotions and body. It’s like being a child in the school play. When the child stands on the stage, he/she experiences the butterflies in their stomach and wobbly knees. But with each successive performance, the wonder of performing changes their perception of the exciting feelings that race through their body. No longer does the beating heart elicit fear but a sense of excitement and increased alertness!
• Celebrate yourself
     Whether your greatest stretch, moment by moment, ends in the achievement of your goal or a disaster; rest in the knowledge that your authenticity gives you the ability to stand proud in the face of whatever comes because you chose to actively follow your private heart.

   The best part of it all is that as you choose your private heart, you will begin to learn what your own innate wisdom sounds like. The wisdom that has always been there will now be yours for the taking!

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Triple Your Rate of Failure and You Might Succeed – Illuminated Mind

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