She Who Dares… Wins…

I have a colleague who has indeed ‘dared’ and I do believe she is winning. She has taken redundancy, left her ‘home’ city and taken off for a year to find how best she can ‘make a difference’? both in her own life and in a larger movement. To choose the best way to make a contribution in work and in the world. 
She is walking and working and volunteering and getting bogged down when she goes off piste. She is conversing with strangers in random places and questioning and being curious and doing exactly what she told everyone she was going to do… She is travelling.
The interesting metric she shared with me was that in doing it this way, tent on her back, with no ‘safety net’, whist 80% of it was proving really challenging, 15% was ok, and 5% was ‘magnificent’. 
She has even confessed to having, in the darkest and wettest bits of her journey, really strong ‘motor home envy’. This individual is not a motor home kind of woman, so these must indeed have been challenging times….
Conversely what she also acknowledged was that had she been dry and comfortable in a vehicle, not only would she have been protected from the elements whilst they were at their worst… But she might also have been protected from the elements when the moments were at their best…. That ‘The 5%’ might not have been so magnificent had their been that bubble of safety around her….
That after 4 solid days of camping and walking in dire rainy conditions, she might have here less open to true impact of a suddenly sun-drenched lock in the mountains and the wild swimming and joy it elicited.
Now believe it or not, this colleague is actually in search of the next her career path. She is seeking to know in what way and with whom to next work. Some people see a career coach, some actually need to walk their way through this journey in order to process the question. In my (not so?), humble opinion, I believe people must do whatever works best for them. We do know our solutions if we make the space to hear them…
But there is an underlying truth here, whichever way we choose tackle the question. What I see is that be it an actual risk, or a metaphorical one, nevertheless, the more courage we show the bigger the reward. If we can hear ourselves and honour our desires by action-Ing them, there will be gain. 
It need not be ‘I’m taking off to travel for a year’, it might be that quiet voice that says ‘I could do that better’ when you see someone in a better paid role, or it might be the fleeting thought of ‘I think office work might actually be making me unwell’, but if it remains in your mind then no benefit will come from it. Often we hear our truth whispered, then move right along on the same old path and in the same old way. If however we were to catch those thoughts, to hold them lightly, to examine and explore them, we might find we want to do something with them. When we do something with them we take a huge risk, we have no idea how it will work out, the transition will, inevitably be challenging, but, might this all be worth it for 5% of your very own magnificence? Risk and reward. Are you ready? 

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