Category: personal purpose

Why You Need to Accept Yourself First to be Able to Change

“The Curious Paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can Change” – Carl Rogers in the book ‘On Becoming a Person‘. Carl Rogers is a famous psychologist that is one of the founders of the coaching approach to change. His book is highly recommended if you are interested in personal change and growth.

The Curious Paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can ChangeThis is a very deep statement. Because of often we think that we should force ourselves to change, with the result that we create resistance and frustration… with poor results.

Carl Rogers’s opinion, forged after decades of giving therapy and counselling, is that deep-seated change is actually possible only when one accepts himself fully, including his emotions and feelings that often tend to be repressed. This deep preparatory work might take months and years before we might be ready for change.

It is interesting that in some respect the same might hold for change in organizations: self-awareness is a necessary pre-requisite.

It might be a good idea to focus first on a deep acceptance of yourself, of your feelings and other psychological and physiological reactions, before venturing down the path of change. A worthwhile investment indeed that will repay multiple times as after, change will become easy and self-sustaining.

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How To Start a Business: Understand Who You Are

I find the following quote quite interesting: “My answer to the question “how do I start up a business?” is “with a thorough understanding and acceptance of who you are.”” – Sue Vizard in an article about coaching businesses.

walk-in-your-shoesOf course, the quote might be even more applicable to coaching businesses where the coach must be well grounded to help its clients, still, I believe this quote is very worthwhile to consider for all kinds of businesses, when it comes to entrepreneurial ventures. It requires so much dedication which needs to be backed by so much energy that it needs to be respond to a deep understanding of what makes the entrepreneur passionate.

Sue Vizard continues: “Take time to acknowledge what makes you tick, how you ended up where you are and who you want to be for the rest of your life. Yes, your business will provide an income, hopefully, but it’s also an opportunity for fun and fulfillment.”

Should not we reverse the proposition – if it’s an opportunity for fun and fulfilment, then we’ll find a way to make it provide an income?

Finally, Sue adds: “check how comfortably your business fits in to your dream. And if it does not, then adjust your business, not your dream.” You have been warned!

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Why Giving Up Does Not Mean You Are Weak – It Means Go Find Another Way!

There is a quote around the internet: “Giving up doesn’t always mean you are weak; Sometimes it means that you are strong enough to let go” – Unknown.

Giving-upThat’s of course not just an excuse for giving up. Sometimes it is really important and healthy to stop trying to force the natural evolution of the universe. And it has dawned on me over the years that what is destined to happen will happen somewhat easily; and that it is sometimes inadequate to try to tweak destiny.

Still this does not mean that we should not make a sizable effort to deliver what we think we can bring to the world. It just means that sometimes we need to figure out a different way. Or let time do its work. Losing a battle but not the war.

I would thus like to tweak slightly the quote: “Giving up doesn’t always mean you are weak; Sometimes it means that you are strong enough to let go and find another way.“

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Why Clarity Comes From Doing, Not Thinking

“Clarity comes from engagement, not thought”. I am not quite sure whom to attribute that quote but it has become very much used on the internet (Marie Forleo seems to be a possible contender).

clarity_engagementAnyway, that is just a way to re-iterate that instead of over-thinking and over-intellectualizing it is quite more effective to go into action and find clarity there, in the midst of action and doing. That might require to survive to many iterations, to overcome dead-ends, and to survive to fundamental re-inventions of oneself. It’ll be tough but at least you’ll make significant progress towards clarity.

There is no better effective recipe than diving into action to gain clarity.

And that is very much applicable to one’s personal purpose. You won’t find it reading books and theorizing while surfing on the internet. You’ll discovering through creating stuff, interacting with people.

It is also applicable to entrepreneurs when it comes to the business model of their ventures. It is only through trial and error that they will find what the market actually wants.

Stop over-thinking right now! Go and DO something!

Hat tip to Ishita Gupta for raising my awareness of the quote and her great explanation of the concept in one of her regular emails.

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How Success Can’t Happen Without Both Will And Luck

As the saying says, success is due to talent in some part, and also to luck. And great success is just a bit more of talent, and a great chunk of additional luck. We need to recognize that luck is a key ingredient to what we become.

SuccessTalentLuckIt is tough to accept that our destiny is shaped in a large part by luck. We would like to think that it is just our talent and our efforts – our will. The role of luck stems directly from the complexity of the world around us – and its unpredictability.

And indeed there is a large part of modern auto-determination thinking that suggests that you can shape your destiny the way you want. In a certain way, Coaching relies on this assumption by enabling people to act in the direction they choose. Thus, will can shape your destiny, to a certain point.

And will and luck are not independent. On the luck side, there also ways to attract more of it, like for example maintaining a healthy and diverse network that will expose you to more opportunities – something that you do consciously.

The balance between will and luck, how they fight and synergize, is not easy to define. If either ingredient is missing, we won’t reach our expectations. The balance is difficult to find and might depend on the circumstances. In any case, make sure part of your will is devoted to increase your luck!

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How Our Energy Goes Where Our Intention Goes

I had lately a great Tai Chi introductory session, where I had a live experience that where our intention goes, so goes your energy.

Tai_chiIt was a simple experience of trying to resist a partner bending my arm. Without any particular instruction, that prove possible (with some exertion). With the instruction of focusing on trying at the same time to reach with one’s arm a distant point (intention), it proved impossible for the partner. In this simple experiment, nothing else had changed (in particular, not the strength of the partner).

This simple experience shows the power of our intention on what we can achieve. Where we have a very strong intention on a (not too) distant purpose, we can just be really invincible. Our focus overcomes all efforts to resist. Nothing can bend us anymore.

Let’s be clear on our intention, and with our focus, we won’t be influenced any more by external forces. Our energy will flow towards our intent.

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Watch the video and slides of my May 2014 talk at Lycee Hoche (in French)

Did you miss it? The video and the slides of my speech at the Lycee Hoche in Versailles (France) are now available (in French).

Conference Jeremie AverousThe topic of this speech at my former high school was about my career – and I couldn’t help add something about the Fourth Revolution as well. It is a good introduction to the Fourth Revolution in French.

When is comes to presenting my career, it is an exercise that I don’t do too often and it was kind of funny to see how in hindsight a lot of what I have done and the choices I made, make an awful sense. In particular, my leaning towards project-based environments, and my international career. While these choices were at the time probably mostly driven by curiosity, luck and serendipity, they seem now to wave into a coherent framework. It is also probably because in the process I forgot quite a lot about other stuff that did not work out!

Watch the talk on Youtube here (if you can’t see the video, here is the link)

The segment on the Fourth Revolution starts here.

Happy viewing!

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How Commitment Creates Magic

Commitment creates magic. I love this quote from Goethe which is worthwhile reading in its entirety.

commitment-goethe“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor
all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.” – Goethe

Be bold. Commit and start now! Things will happen which you will not have anticipated!

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Why You Should Focus on Your Life’s ‘Body of Work’

Pamela Slim, the author of Escape From Cubicle Nation, just released an other book, Body of Work: Finding the Thread That Ties Your Story Together.

BODY of WORK by Pamela SlimShe takes an interesting view on the fact that we actually create a Body of Work in our lifetimes, that ties together all our experiences – even if they do not seem connected. In hindsight, the sum of our experiences will make sense. Why not reinforce this meaning voluntarily from now on?

Pamela writes: “Viewing your life as a body of work is not a short-term game. You want to focus on meaning, skill development, professional network development, craft and mastery. There is no one right answer for everyone.”

The book is full of examples of people that change radically their careers and lives and still find a way to bring everything back into their body of work – and expand it further, meaningfully, by opening themselves to new encounters and experiences.

You are in charge of creating your Body of Work. Take this responsibility and create this incredible story you will be able to tie up together in hindsight. Like we already mentioned in this blog, Life is Not about Finding Yourself, Life is about Creating Yourself!

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Where to Find Meaning in Life

According to Viktor Frankl, the author of  ‘Man’s Search for Meaning‘ (ref. our post ‘How We Always Have a Choice, Even in the Worst Situation‘), there are three possible positive sources of Meaning: in Work (doing something significant), in Love (caring for another person), and in Courage during difficult times.

life meaningAs we evolve in life, the source where we seek out meaning might evolve and change. The overall meaning of our life will only make sense at the very end. “We cannot understand the whole film without having first understood each of its components, each of the individual pictures. Isn’t it the same with life? Doesn’t the final meaning of life, too, reveal itself, if at all, only at its end, on the verge of death? And doesn’t this final meaning, too, depend on whether or not the potential meaning of each single situation has been actualized to the best of the respective individual’s knowledge and belief?”

Notwithstanding that it will all make sense at the end and not before, are you doing your best finding meaning in a meaningful work, love for another person or courage facing a difficult situation?

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How to Achieve Success

To achieve success, don’t aim at success!

missed targetThat is essentially what Viktor Frankl (author of  ‘Man’s Search for Meaning‘) advises. Achieve success by not thinking about success but putting in the hard work, dedication and commitment that is necessary to achieve great things.

“Don’t aim at success – the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one’s dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it“.

And it is very true in my personal experience: every time I have been very successful, it was when I was concentrating on doing my best work independently of any thought about success and how people would judge me.

Are you concentrating on doing your best work instead of thinking how to achieve success?

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Why Procrastination is Useful (Sometimes)

In this blog we have written often about the concept of Resistance and how to overcome it. Overcoming resistance is beating procrastination. But maybe procrastination is not such a bad thing, after all, at least sometimes.

Now vs LaterThat’s at least what James Altucher suggests in his book ‘Choose Yourself‘: “Procrastination is your body telling you that you need to back off a bit and think more about what you are doing“.

After reflection, I believe this is true in some instances, in particular when it comes to a creative endeavor. Sometimes we procrastinate because the meaning or the objective of what we intend to do is unclear, and then, in that case, it might be worth thinking twice before undertaking our project. When we are fully motivated, procrastination never appears.

Remains the issue of chores and those things we need to do but are not particularly pleasant. In that case, procrastination is obviously an issue.

It is important to distinguish between chores and creative endeavors. If on a creative endeavor, procrastination appears, ask yourself if what you are doing is the right thing to do!

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