What do you respond when someone asks you “What are you interested in?”

One default answer points in the direction of our careers and what we do for work. But, is that really what you’re interested in? If you’re bored on a weekend, what would you head in to work?

Another default answer is the socially acceptable canned response like,I like travel, I like hanging out with friends, and I like being active. Great, but that doesn’t say anything specific about you.

Let’s dive a layer deeper and think about this question: What interests you? I want you to get as specific as possible.

I want you to come up with 3 things, 3 really, specific, wholeheartedly true things that speak to you today. Put aside what seems to be socially acceptable and tap into your truth. 

After some thought, these are my 3.

I am interested in understanding human behavior and how our evolutionary history, social conditioning, and unique life experience informs our understanding and perspective. I could have simply said psychology.

I am also interested in finding authentic ways to connect with people from different backgrounds in a mutual way, which, for me, often comes through soccer.

And last, I am interested in finding subtle ways to challenge myself, try it, and share with others about it to broaden my perspective and increase my abilities.

That says a whole lot more about me and who I am than the broad responses we usually give. The reason we don’t think about these things is because it’s hard to be vulnerable to yourself and others. On the other side of vulnerability is authentic connection, which is something we all need more of.

"It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop".

So often we choose to see our journey and speed relative to someone else’s, which causes us to get self-conscious or insecure when we compare. However, we know that’s not the full story. Your speed is on your path which is different than everyone else’s, and it’s important to keep that in mind. Guess what happens when we let comparison weigh too heavily? We stop. You cannot stop.

It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop. 

I am of the opinion that a necessary ingredient in progress is consistency, and by continuing onward at all times, even if it’s at a slow pace, you’ll continue to make progress as the days pass.

There’s one important element to this that isn’t listed, but it’s vital. It’s the direction. Where are you going? You can go as fast as you want, but if you’re even one degree off course that miscalculation will grow and bring you somewhere you didn’t intend. So, taking your time you can reroute with ease and make sure you’re still on course, all while being as efficient as possible with the effort you’re putting in. To reiterate, you cannot stop. It’s a persistent pursuit that does not stop and cannot wait!

This is about the dynamics and pressures we feel as being a part of a group.The founder of Lead By Impact Michael Vargas breaks this down for us so we can better understand: 

‍

So, the best thing we can do as a member of a group is actually what we shouldn’t do. We should not attribute right or wrong to a thought, and we should not view another opinion as worse than our own.

I wanted to send forward a lesson that has left an impression on me lately. I learned this through Darren Hardy and it relates to not taking negative action or giving in to negative habits.

There are two ways to go about doing this. You can either avoid, or you can resist. More specifically, avoid the stimulus or resist the urge. I’m just going to tell you up front that you should want to avoid. It all comes back to the habit loop. If you’ve been presented a stimulus and have been prompted to action, then you’ve begun the habit loop and your brain will crave the reward at the end until it receives it. This is very distracting and requires a lot of mental energy, and it is exactly the distinction I am trying to make. 

When you choose to avoid, you prevent the stimulus from happening in the first place. You, therefore, avoid initiating the poor habit, never starting the habit loop and don’t experience the urge to take the action at all. You can do this by keeping your phone away from you or off, closing unnecessary tabs in your web browser, or throw out the unhealthy foods in your pantry.

When you resist, it’s because you were already presented the stimulus. You feel the mental pull to take the action, but you know it’s not what you want to do so you fight against the urge. This requires a lot of energy and no matter how much will power you have, you need to actively use it to resist. This means that you have less cognitive energy to focus on what you are trying to do. This creates poor performance and frustration, which then affirms your brain’s desire for validation and strengthens the craving you’re experiencing.

This is the reason you’re told to keep your phone out of your bedroom at night, delete social media apps, and get rid of your TV. The most effective thing you can do to not take negative action is avoid it altogether.

You want to hear something that doesn’t make any sense, but we do it anyway? We hold ourselves to different expectations than we hold for other people. And the unfortunate side-effect of that is we fail to support ourselves in really important ways. Our favorite dietitian and mindfulness expert Gina B says it best:

Just like Adam Roa say’s, “Treat yourself like someone you love!”

Lets talk about self-development books. Some people love them and feel like their life is changed by them, and they admire the authors and take a special interest in their work. However, some people think it’s a bunch of placebo and new books are just reiterations of the same ideas and information that are presented too broadly to be catered to you.

Whatever you believe I respect, but I find myself to be the former. I’m a believer that if you want to sit in the throne you’ve gotta watch the king. And that’s what these books are for me, they are a synthesized download of the information brilliant minds have processed and tested into an easy to understand format. Sure the information might be redundant, but the perspective is always novel. What I appreciate most about self-development books is how people come to the same conclusion in different ways, which gives me hope that I can arrive their in my own way.

What I’ve found with this so far, is it has presented just the right balance. If you’re feeling motivated and alive on an idea, maybe it’s not always the right time to view it from the lens of practicality or implementation. Many ideas don’t come to life because they aren’t supported initially, and this is our system to indirectly tell each other if we want feedback or if we want objective support.

Of course, that feedback is important and more than welcome, but in the right time and place. Setting the intention to share unrestrained positivity and optimism for an idea might be exactly what is needed to get it off the ground and address the immediate concerns built into the idea.

So, I’d encourage you, if you have an idea and you aren’t looking for feedback yet, to tell whoever you’re sharing the idea with that you want positive thinking only.

I wanted to highlight something that came up in the Discover Your Purpose Digital Summit. It’s the idea of trusting and following your heart. Sarah King, who facilitated the event, called this radical obedience, and obedience is listening to what your heart is telling you. It’s about yielding and surrendering to what you’re pulled to do and whatever is pulling you in that direction.

Another word for this is faith, and a participant, Leo Galofre, put this in the chatbox. "Faith - Fully attainable in the heart".

That just really stood out to me because it’s so comprehensive. First it counteracts the doubt we have within ourselves and other press upon us because it “hasn’t been done before” or it’s “not completely thought out”. This suggests that you don’t necessarily need those pieces in place and if you truly yield and surrender to the process those question marks will be answered by exclamation marks and the solution will naturally present itself in front of you.

When we can shed ourselves of that layer of societal doubt and criticism we recognize so much more is possible than we first thought. And that’s your first sign that you should do it and keep chasing it.

One of my favorite books, The Promise of a Pencil by Adam Braun, has a line in the book that goes as follows, “Go chase the footsteps you want to leave behind”.

This suggests that you are following your path, the path is already there, you just don’t see it yet. But, when you surrender to the process, and believe that it is fully attainable in the heart, the path will light up for you.