Have you ever been asked the
question, “Where do you see yourself XYZ number of years from now?”
Most people who ask this
question ask it in an attempt to assess your ability for goal setting.
However, no one bothers to
realize the truth is that no matter what your answer is, or how many goals you
set – wherever you are in say five or ten years, is not always something within
your control.
Whether you are pro-active or
passive, sometimes there are major life events, which change the course of your
life. Sometimes you do not foresee a
certain set-back, or detour; sometimes you don’t expect to have a car accident
or have an illness or have a death in the family.
Sometimes, you may not have
expected to change your college major or your career or have children or
_________(fill in the blank).
The only constant is change.
The only real answer to the
question “Where do you see yourself in XYZ years from now?” is – “Well I hope
(XYZ) –but it is not an exact plan and there is room for the unexpected to
change that plan.”
This would be the TRUTHFUL
answer.
You may have heard the
saying, “I am a work in progress” far too often.
The reality is that
construction and reconstruction is part of LIFE.
Nothing stays the same
forever.
We all change whether or not
we choose to grow up or try to defy age or time.
With that process in
progress, we shift our mindset and perspective to adapt and become flexible
within the parameters of these said changes.
On a daily basis, we
experience events which affect our LIFE LINKS – and we are never the same after
these LINKS are affected.
This is the process of
transformation CONSTRUCTION WORK. Sometimes transformation
is in the movement of a millimeter; sometimes in monumental proportion –
depending on the event and the openness to allow the change to enter.
Some people can view it
negatively.
Some can view it positively.
Others may be indifferent,
but remain open to new ideas about what the change has done and adopt it as something
they want to keep or discard.
When animals mark things,
they have a way of owning what they like along the way. People are no different, when they decide a
particular behavior, lifestyle change, material object or thought process suits
them.
Suddenly, this becomes a new “This
is me” adaptation of ownership and becomes part of who you are.
As children, we learn this
from our parents and family. From our
traditions, customs, rituals and preferences, we observe and adopt ways of
doing things.
From how you wash your car to
how you celebrate holidays to how you develop your daily habits when you wake
up to when you go to bed – much of these behavioral practice is adopted and
then later adapted to your liking as you go along in life.
But what happens when these
LIFE LINKS are something you suddenly disagree with, or no longer resonate with
who you are as an adult person? Maybe
you adapted some new ways of doing things by the circle of friends you keep or
through a romantic relationship or maybe your neighbors or co-workers create
new methods or processes.
This is part of the
RECONSTRUCTIVE LINKS chain and ONLY YOU get to decide which part is back under
construction vs. what remains intact.
During this process, many
people in your life may not “understand” what you are doing or think they don’t
really ‘know you’ anymore.
This is true in one aspect –
you are changing, you are evolving, you are becoming and growing into someone
new.
This is false in another
realm – as you are always going to be YOURSELF and the core of who you are does
not change, even if you decide to put some of your links under construction to
make a particular life shift, which is more in tune with your authentic self
being realized.
What can you do during this
time to cope with the transformation?
STAY THE COURSE. This is not a time to allow or give
permission for others to try to make you “stay stunted.” You
have to understand the root of where they are coming from – and that is that
they are coming from a place of fear.
Read that again. FEAR. They
are fearing that they are losing you.
In essence, they are. They are losing the old you and they may
resent the fact that you are making the choice for your own life to ‘not stay
the same.’ But this has NOTHING to do
with YOU… this has more to do with who they are and what their fear is in
losing their identity to THE OLD YOU.
If they truly accept you and
all that you are, you will see acceptance and find authentic support. You may even inspire them to look inside
themselves to do some reconstruction on their own links, which no longer
provide a purposeful existence.
Change is not always
easy. But it takes a lot of courage to
not only take the leap to reconstruct, but to stand firmly and allow everything
else to fall away in the process.
Sometimes this is painful and
yes, it is natural to become nostalgic or melancholy about your past. However, the past is not all that you are and
does not define all that you are. It can
shape and mold who you are today from whatever you learned; but it does not
restrict your growth unless you allow it.
Reconstructing your links
means taking the time to examine and revisit behaviors and processes, which don’t
work for you in order to redefine and open yourself up to learning so that you
can move forward into your NEW LINKS.
Patience with yourself along
your journey provides you with the ability to make better, smarter and positive
changes for yourself to continue growing into the direction you aspire to dance
within.
So where you see yourself is
more about how you adapt, adjust, accept and flow into what you choose to do as
much as it has to do with what you didn’t choose, but choose to learn from in
order to create CONSTRUCTIVE LINKS.
It is within this
construction process, we acquire the building blocks of life in order to
rebuild our life into what it is we wish to co-create along with how life
unfolds in the unexpected.
CONSTRUCTIVE LINKS are taking
our strengths from both the good and challenging experiences and become the
architect of building something we did not foresee into something even more
beautiful than we planned or imagine.
In the process of combining
these elements, we then evolve and transform in the reconstructive phase to
construct something exceptional within our own being and experiences, which
make us all individually unique exactly as we are.
Namaste.
www.twitter.com/linkronicity
