Your dream? Or your bills?
Do you feel stuck?
Do you feel like you need to make a choice between your dreams and paying your bills?
Do you feel like you get blocked whenever you try to pursue your dreams? Does it feel like dreams are for others who are brave, who are special, who don’t have responsibilities, who don’t have bills to pay?
Does your work exhaust you? Do you spend your time away from work just recovering from your job? And then you do it again, and again?
You may have the peace of mind that comes from being able to pay your bills, but you may also be paying another price .
You're not doing it wrong.
If you’re someone who has stuck it out, who has built a good life, who can be counted on, then you are truly are an unsung hero. You’ve figured it out. You did it. You should be very proud of yourself. I admire you because I have an idea of what you’ve done and what you’ve sacrificed.
Just so you know, I’m not the kind of coach who will say “Do what you love and the money will follow.” Or, “Follow your bliss.” To be clear, I don’t think there is anything wrong with those sayings, but to me they’re only part of the story.
I think money is important. I think paying bills is awesome. To me, it all goes back to Psych 101 where we learned about Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs. You need to take care of the bottom of the pyramid before you can get to the top.
But, are you doing it right?
Has the idea that you need to pay your bills forced you to give up on your dreams? Have you come to think that dreams are for others and you need to buckle down and do the right thing? Do you think you need to sacrifice your needs for others? Do you think you’re too old to make a change?
There may be factors that really matter. You may be the primary bill payer in your family. You may be very close to retiring and you need to stick it out. You may be very specialized and if you change careers, you have to start at the bottom. These are real considerations.
My question for you is … are these (following your dream/giving up your dream to pay the bills) truly only the two choices? Is it really either/or? Is it possible that this binary kind of thinking keeping you stuck, depressed, overwhelmed, stressed, resentful, angry?
Is there a way out of this trap?
Others have figured it out.
And yet, there are people in the world, using themselves fully to make a difference in the world. They have purpose and meaning and money. How did they get there? Why do they get to live their dreams? They must be special, or geniuses, or come from a wealthy background.
Maybe. Or, maybe they were once in the same spot you’re in, but they figured out how to make a big leap in their lives. Maybe you can too.
The Big Leap
In Gay Hendricks book, The Big Leap, he talks about the Zone of Genius. It’s a term that’s become popular, but what does it mean?
He says this: “You know deep inside you that you will never be fully satisfied until you have anchored your self in your Zone of Genius. To do less would be to hold back, and long ago you made a handshake deal with the universe that you wouldn’t do that. The seductive comforts of success though, can lull us into accepting the status quo. In that state of comfort, it’s easy to forget the deal you made with the universe to use yourself fully.”
I bet you can figure it out too.
But, it it were that straightforward, wouldn’t you have done it by now? Wouldn’t all those pithy memes have propelled you into your dream life if knowledge were the key?
Something else is holding you back, and my bet is that it’s your limiting beliefs, your ways of thinking that developed when you were very young, that have become part of your operating system. They are invisible to you because they are so much a part of you.
If you bring them to the surface, you can break through the limits that have been holding you back.
The Zones we live in.
The Big Leap says the ways we operate in the world can be categorized into four zones:
The Zone of Incompetence
This zone is made up of all the things we’re not good at. Others can do them better. We waste away if we spend time and energy in this zone.
The Zone of Competence
You’re competent at activities here, but so are others. You’re doing ok, but you’re bored, depressed, or you’re afraid of someone taking your place.
The Zone of Excellence
Here you do extremely well. You make a good living because you are successful by society’s standards. Everyone is happy with you because you’re playing by the rules. You wish you could be happy here, but often you are not. There’s a deep, sacred part of you that wants something else.
The Zone of Genius
Living here means living a fulfilled life. You are doing things that you are uniquely designed to do. You draw upon gifts and strengths. This is where we are all naturally headed, but we get off course, or we settle, or we are too worried about money to explore this zone.
What do you think?
When you read about The Zone of Genius, what were you thinking? No, really. What thoughts did you have? This is the starting place for you to see your own limiting beliefs.
Anything is Possible.
I love thinking the thought that anything is possible. Every time I think of it, a little voice inside me says incredulously, “Really? Anything?”
I love thinking it because it opens me up to possibility, instead of the either/or, binary thinking that is everyone’s natural default.
If you’re thinking that you can’t have your dream come true because there’s no way that you’re going to quit your job and start a business walking dogs because there’s no money in that, then you’re in binary thinking mode. There are more than two possibilities. I don’t know what they are yet, but I do know there are more than two.
That’s what we call a problem to solve and any problem has a strategic solution.
Your Zone of Genius
If you don’t know what your own zone of genius is, start by asking these questions:
1) How do you want the world to be different because you lived in it?
2) How do you want to be different because you lived in the world?
Ponder those two questions. Did anything spontaneously come into your mind? Perhaps write it down. I’ll make you a deal. You don’t have to do a thing with those ideas. You don’t have to quit your day job and follow them. In fact, please don’t. Next week, we’ll look at some ways to build on this.
Until then, try thinking the thought, “Anything is possible.” Enjoy how it feels!
