I’ve been thinking about confidence these last few days. Where does it come from and how do we get it? What makes one person full of confidence and another consumed by timidity?

I’m sure there are many answers to these questions. These are not the sort of questions that have one simple answer. That said, the ‘answer’ that I’ve found myself keeping coming back to has been that of self-awareness.

The more fully we know ourselves – our strengths, our weaknesses, our passions, our motivations – the more we find confidence permeating our beings. The more comfortable we are within our own skin – rather than trying to be like someone else – the more confidence we have.

So perhaps a question for those of us who are struggling with a lack of confidence is to ask ourselves whether we have taken enough time to know ourselves.

Change. It’s that thing we all seem to have a love / hate relationship with. Most of us recognise that things need to change and yet, at the same time, almost everyone has one part of us who is at least a little bit resistant to it.

Something that I’ve discovered though is that the less change happens, the harder it is to embrace it.

If an organisation changes nothing for five years and then, suddenly, out of the blue announces a whole series of changes, then there is going to be opposition. Everyone has become comfortable with the ways things are.

And perhaps ‘comfort’ is the key word here. If we allow things to become too comfortable then inevitably people will react more fiercely to change. Why? Because it breaks them out of the their comfort zone.

I am of the school of thought that change for changes sake is a good thing. Now, of course, if there are good reasons for changing something then that is much better than having no reason. But even if there isn’t, I’m convinced that it is still necessary to make changes.

My reasoning behind this is simple. For people to more readily embrace change, change needs to be part of the organisations culture. People need to be accustomed to things changing regularly. And then, when bigger, more necessary changes need to be implemented, it will be easier to push through because you have a change expectant organisation.

What do you need to change?

Today’s post is by regular guest author Dale Swinburne. (Catch up on parts 1, 2, 3)

Each of us has incredible potential. We have been created to live a full life according to Chip Anderson. We’ve been walking through his Aliveness Theory as he charts for us the stark comparison we could experience in our lives as opposed to the lives we settle for.

As we allow the negative voices in our lives (see previous post) to dictate to us who we will become we begin to sink into, what Chip called, deadness. At first we start changing who we are. We try to become what they want us to be so that we will be worthy to receive their acceptance and love. As this pattern of living continues our pandering to their desires becomes perfected. We identify more with the mask we present to the world around us than we do our shrinking selves.

But as the descent to deadness continues a desire to control instead of being controlled continuously grows. Soon the desire to control the world around you is what drives you. You live behind a wall of denial driven by addictions to power and prestige. We have sunk into a level of living that denies the truth about ourselves. We deny our emptiness and our loneliness by treating the world around us as if we were God. We make demands of our context that they recognize our supremacy. When they don’t, we lash out in retribution and when they do we take it as evidence that we are God. Believing our own deity deception we then convince ourselves that if we are God then we are alive.

But we aren’t alive. We are walking dead. When we’ve gotten this low our defenses against the truth about ourselves are so thick it is only the fortunate that will see the truth that they are dead and empty inside except for the loneliness, the rage, the self contempt, and the pain.

It is a very bleak picture. A picture that is self perpetuating. But Chip Anderson’s theory isn’t the “Deadness Theory” it is the “Aliveness Theory” and it is what captivated him in his life work. It was exhilarating for him to watch somebody go from deadness to life.

So how does this process get turned around? Chip called the pivotal moment, where the momentum in someone’s life started flowing towards life and away from deadness, a “Big Arrow Experience”. A Big Arrow experience is an experience that provides a context that doesn’t require facades or addictions in order for you to feel accepted.

Chip poured his life into introducing Gallup’s StrengthsFinder into the lives of thousands of people, introducing it to over 100 universities and colleges. The StrengthsFinder assessment lets us know the 5 areas we are most talented in. It is usually a very affirming moment. You are told in which five areas you can achieve real excellence. As Chip participated in this moment over and over he saw the Aliveness Theory taking effect. The assessment was a Big Arrow experience. It told people that regardless of your defenses, your pain, your isolation, your deadness, you are unique and gifted. At this affirming moment it was as if an arrow pierced all of their defenses and all of their control and embedded itself right into the core of the person and said “You are valuable – no conditions.” For many it is a statement they haven’t heard in many, many years and it birthed a renewal of life inside of them.

But this is just the beginning of the process back to Aliveness. Chip taught about the process of feeling the Big Arrow awaken your true self but also the keys becoming a Big Arrow yourself.

The title I’ve given this post is simply a sentence that I read this morning that really resonated with me. It ties in nicely with the previous post where I talked about the importance of dreaming.

It is very easy to focus on what we do not have. We become consumed by our needs, whether they be physical, material, emotional, or spiritual. And they end up constraining our imagination.

Too many us end up having our futures limited because we have allowed our circumstances to overwhelm our imaginations. You see, if we cannot imagine something, then we have no chance of ever seeing it come to pass. We end up becoming the things that we think about. We gravitate towards the things that consume our minds. If all that we think about is our problems, situations, and circumstances, then we have no way out into a brighter future.

Give yourself permission to look up, look ahead, and unleash your imagination. If you cannot conceive it in your mind then there is little to no chance of it ever coming to pass.

Imagine.

It’s very easy when circumstances close in on us to lose any sense of the future. We find ourselves becoming overwhelmed with what is right in front of us.

And, if there are problems that need to be resolved, it is of course right to focus on the now. There are things that need to be addressed. But what we must never allow ourselves to do is to stop dreaming.

Our present may feel oppressive and all consuming but we must keep our eyes up; we must keep looking ahead, we must keep our imaginations alive.

What we focus on we inevitably gravitate towards. If we only focus on the now – our problems, our circumstances, our obstacles – then we will find ourselves totally wrapped up and swallowed by those issues. Instead we need to allow ourselves to focus ahead so that we have something to gravitate towards that is away from all that encompasses right now.

Keep dreaming. It may just save your life.

No matter who you are or what you do, there are always going to be times when things are tough. Really tough. Right now is one of those times for me personally. I hesitate as to how much I should say though for several reasons. Firstly, I don’t want to give the impression that my tough times come even close to other people in both my own country and around the world who are facing far, far tougher challenges than I am. Secondly, part of me is reluctant to admit that I don’t have everything all together. (Yes, pride, pure and simple.)

All that said, based on several people’s comments, I can’t help but feel that sharing about a struggle whilst it is happening (rather then afterwards when everything has sorted itself out) would be a big encouragement to many people.

So, all that said, here goes: My name’s Sam Radford and my life’s really tough right now!

As some of you who follow this site regularly will know, my IT role with the company I’ve been with for the last nine years was recently made redundant. And, in case you hadn’t noticed, it’s not the greatest time to be out of work right now. The economy seems to be slowly turning round but the job market is still in decline with unemployment figures still rising (here in the UK at least).

It’s amazing how stable life can seem when you have a steady job with a steady income. Everything seems ok. You plan all your spending around an income you feel very secure about. But what happens when that income is no more? And how about when your spouse’s income is also almost no more due to maternity leave? That’s where we’re at right now. Honestly, it’s tough. I’m not the first person to experience this and I know I won’t be the last, but I certainly have a lot more empathy for those faced with these kinds of challenges.

In the midst of all this, there are definitely three things that I’ve been learning/holding onto:

1) Gratitude. Even in the midst of this really challenging time I am struck still be how much I still have. Both in terms of material things but more so in terms of friends and family. So many people have said they will help us in whatever ways they can. It would be easy to just end up complaining about everything, saying how it’s not fair that I’m having to face this, but the truth is that I have far more to be grateful about that I have to complain about.

2) Perseverance. There are times when I’ve felt totally demotivated. And worse than that, times when I’ve felt like I want to just hide and somehow escape from the reality. There’s definitely a part of me that wants to bury my head in the sand and just hope things will sort themselves out. The truth is that I know I need to persevere, to keep seeking out opportunities, to face up to the realities and not hide from them. No matter how bad things get, there is never a place for giving up.

3) Fun. I know, the first two I can imagine everyone nodding their heads in agreement, ‘yes, very wise…so true’. But not so with this last one. More a case, ‘Hmmm, you what? I thought this guy had lost his job.’ I can’t overestimate how important this is though. When times are tough it is so easy to feel overwhelmed. At times I feel such a heaviness and it can be so draining and wearing. Having fun is a necessary release for my own sanity as much as anything. We need moments of joy and laughter. They bring a healing and a freshness to our souls. For me, our seven month old daughter has helped with this. Playing with her and enjoying making her laugh is so refreshing.

What about you? What lessons have you learnt or are you learning during tough times in your life?

Every few weeks I host an evening called ‘Passages’. Each time we look at a different passage from the biblical Scriptures to discuss, reflect upon, interpret, and – hopefully – apply. So far we’ve been very simply looking at the various parables of Jesus and discussing what they might mean for us living in the 21st century. We’ve also considered what these parables might be like today if Jesus was around now telling stories to us in our current cultural context.

Inspired by this, a friend of mine has actually written the below parable that I want to share with us today. Awaken isn’t a religious blog and I simply share this modern parable because it inspires us all to think about looking out for the person in need around us. What I love about the person of Jesus is that he himself manages to transcend religion and speak to humanity, even if many of his followers have tried to contain him inside Christianity.

Anyway, this is already far too long of an introduction. Let me get straight to sharing the parable my friend has written:

A 45 year old Albanian man recently attempted to smuggle himself into the UK with his 22 year old daughter on board a shipping freight container. They had planned to reconnect with his younger son; who several years earlier had managed to illegally enter the UK. The son had since found a low paying job that paid cash in hand, and lived in rented accommodation. However, on arrival at port at night, the men they had paid to help smuggle them into the UK double-crossed them. The father was held down, while his terrified daughter was brutally raped in front of him, in spite of his pleas for mercy. He was then beaten unconscious, their remaining money and passports stolen, and left for dead. The men took the daughter and “sold” her on to other associates they knew were involved in the sex trade, to maximise their profit.

After some time however, the concussed and bleeding father regained consciousness and managed to drag himself to a nearby payphone beside a pub, and contact his son with the few coins he’d been left. As he nursed his injuries, and huddled on the pavement against the pub wall waiting for his son, several police arrived to deal with a nearby disturbance. One of the policewoman present noticed him while she and her colleague were separating a group of intoxicated teenagers; and she presumed him to be one of the stag party members who were celebrating at the same pub. She queried him briefly, but his mumbled and incoherent response in broken English made no sense to the policewomen. As it was a Friday night and she had dealt with many calls already, she left his ‘friends’ at the pub to look after him before being called away shortly to help her colleagues elsewhere. Before the had police left, the Albanian’s son arrived, but assuming that the police were involved he panicked and ran away. He had not seen his father in many years, and had no intention of giving up the life he had made for himself in the UK. He rationalised to himself that after his father had been deported they could get in touch again, to plan another attempt.

As the night drew on, and it began to get colder, the father realised his son wasn’t coming. With only a rudimentary understanding of English, he tried to mumble for help through his swollen lips to the people that were spilling out of the pub. The first person to notice him was a young school teacher celebrating one of her colleagues’ birthday. She however shrank back from the outstretched hand of this “drunk” as she passed him, in case he soiled her favourite dress, or vomited on her shoes. She dropped a couple of coins near him instead, and then walked on to catch a cab home. The next person to pass was a middle aged business man on the way to Premier Inn. As he had just endured a horrendous late night budget airline flight and was busy hunting for his previously booked room, he gave little thought to the broken and hurting Albanian as he tried to gesture for help. The business man avoided eye contact, and walked briskly past him on to his destination.

An hour later, as the Albanian began to lapse in and out of consciousness, a homeless man started to wheel his trolley past him. At first the homeless man growled at him to move over so he could pass by him, but he quickly noticed the Albanian was hurt, and that he wouldn’t survive the night on the pavement. He helped the Albanian onto his trolley and pushed him to the nearest hospital to get help. There, the Albanian’s broken bones, concussion, blood loss, and exposure were quickly tended to, and in due time while he began to heal, the authorities were contacted and informed of his traumatic story.

Question to ponder: which character in this story would you be?

Today’s post is by regular guest columnist Hermann du Plessis, founder of Therapeia, a coaching practice based in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Is my calling sure?

What a question to ask! I was reading the opinion of two Harvard Business School Professors who researched career guidance, counselling and coaching. They studied the concept we all have become accustomed to, the concept of: “calling”. The word calling is taken from the Latin word “Vocatio” which translates as “Vocation” into English. It literally means a specific voice calling you to a destination.

What is your calling? Is my calling sure? This question really helps me to focus my energy and actions. Your calling is different from your career. Career is taken from the French word “carere” which literally means: “oval racetrack”. This implies that your career will just get you going around and round in circles, but essentially you will get nowhere.

We should make sure that we do not confuse our calling for our career. Calling is more than career. Calling is eternal. Calling lasts. Calling is personal and compels us to listen to the Voice calling us towards the given destination. That is where it starts, with an acknowledgement that there is a Voice. I have to believe that I am more than a cosmic explosion, which has no purpose and will again end up being nothing! I am alive for a purpose, for my calling.

We have to actively learn more about who we are, so that we move closer to our calling. This is the second part of discovering and living your calling. You have to develop an awareness of your skills, passions, experiences and values.

Are you moving towards your calling? I find that sometimes we need coaching and guidance to discover our calling which will be a big part of our eternal existence.

I meet a lot of people who – whether directly or indirectly – say that their lives are boring and mundane. In fact, these seems to be the prevalent condition for most people. And, truth be told, we all face times when our lives like this. Not only that, they’ll always been some aspects of our lives that will be boring and mundane. We can’t fully escape from this.

That said, our lives shouldn’t be mostly like this. I am convinced that life should be an adventure. It should have twists and turns. It shouldn’t be predictable. There should be mystery and unknowns. This is part of what makes life exciting. It is when everything goes exactly how we think we want it to that life becomes boring. Put another way, life becomes dull when we control it to such an extent that we extinguish any chance of adventure.

I often say that there are two essential ingredients to adventure, and these are risk and uncertainty! It is these elements that create a sense of adventure. But Western culture now is predominantly about steering away from risk and uncertainty. We want – or think we want – safety and comfort and predictability. Is it any wonder life is so boring and mundane for many of us?!

If we want to live a life of adventure we need to give up on trying to control every aspect of lives. We need to stop thinking with only a safety first mindset. We have to stop making comfort and predictability our priority. We have to embrace risk and uncertainty.

There are two types of boats we can be in life. We can be a sailing boat or we can be a cruise liner. Now a cruise liner is an amazing vessel. They are so comfortable. They ooze luxury. And they are so strong and structured that they have effectively mastered the wind and the waves. A cruise liner is in full control. And you know what, that’s not a bad way to live.

The other option is to be a sailing boat. Of course, a sailing boat still has strength and structure, but the goal of a sailing boat is not to master the wind and the waves. The goal is to work with them. It isn’t nearly as comfortable and nor does it come close to the same level of luxury as a cruise liner, but the sailing boat offers something that you can never get with a cruise liner: adventure. When you choose to embrace the unpredictability of the wind and the waves rather then trying to control them, you open up yourself to a life that’ll be full of fun, excitement, risk, uncertainty, and – yes – some hair raising moments!

I know which boat I’d rather be. What about you?

Note: We all have a part of us that wants to choose the cruise liner, this is normal. And, our culture has brought this side of us to the forefront. But this part of us should be listened to but not be allowed to dictate. Have we allowed the safety conscious side of lives be the leader for too long?

For those of you who follow closely you will have noticed that yesterday was the first time I missed one of my daily posts. I’ve been writing since April and, to be honest, I’m surprised it hasn’t happened sooner!

It actually served to highlight something that I’ve been sensing for a while. I don’t want this site to become something where I end up just churning material out that ticks the box but lacks inspiration. I’d rather write less often but them be really good, inspiring posts, than to write every day but them lack the inspiration that is required.

Linked with that I’ve been feeling like I’m drifting towards churning out some of these daily posts and so, for the time being at least, I’m going to reduce my commitment of five posts per week down to three posts per week. I may well end up writing more than three, I am just only promising three. That way everyone knows where things stand.

I’d also like to take this opportunity to ask for feedback. What do you like about the daily posts? What don’t you like? What are some ways I could improve this site? What content would you like me to write more about? Or less about?

I know it is a big ask to go from a reader to a commenter, but I’d really appreciate you all taking two minutes of your time to provide just a little bit of feedback.

Thanks in advance!