The thing you’re good at is valuable and needed by your family and community. Don’t belittle what you’re good at. Own it and use it to your benefit and the benefit of the world around you.* Gabe Anderson
I’ve come to recognise that changing the story, dismantling the stories that trap us, finding stories adequate to our realities, are foundational to finding our powers and possibilities.** Rebecca Solnit
We can’t say this too often: What you’re good at doesn’t have to be huge.
It doesn’t need to be adored by thousands, but it must matter to you; If it does then it’s likely to be valuable to someone else, too.
This is a story shift– Not from reality to fantasy– If you’re good at something and telling yourself it’s nothing then that’s the fantasy.
Ditch the story you’re telling yourself– Find a better narrative that allows you to use what you’re good at.
(What are you good at, what’s the story you’re telling yourself?– Try writing these out – do they match up?)
Manage your weaknesses with boundaries and support while you focus on your strengths.* Katherine Morgan Scafler
Keep this thought handy when you feel a fit of rage coming on – it isn’t manly to be enraged. Rather, gentleness and civility are more human, and therefore manlier…The nearer a man comes to a calm mind, the closer he is to strength.** Marcus Aurelius
There are two kinds of strengths and weaknesses.
There are strengths and weaknesses of talent and ability: Identify what you are good at and develop these– You have already invested tens of thousands of hours for them to be so strong.
Perhaps counterintuitively, You need to identify what you are bad at because these will rob you of your time, energy, and joy– Unless you can find a passion for these and are willing to invest years of practise, they are never going to be a strength.
If you can, stop doing these things, If you cannot, explore how can you manage them through your strengths?
There are strengths and weaknesses of character: We need to work on all of these, Selflessness, generosity, and wisdom being our goals– Each orientated towards others, not ourselves.
Humility, gratitude, and faithfulness are always helpful places to begin.
(Life isn’t simple. What will you add to your plan to further grow in who you are and what you can do?)
THE NOTES (behind the reflection) Significance is one of Strengthsfinder‘s 34 talent themes. Its emphasis is not only on a personal desire to be recognised for one’s unique strengths, but to raise the belief and the play of those around. I had been dreamwhispering with someone with this talent cum strength, and they were delighted to see how it included this emphasis on helping others to bring their best. We all get the opportunity to be significant, though– perhaps not in the same way as people who excel in this talent, but nevertheless, when we have identified our own talents, when we have moved into our enriching environments, and when we are moving forward to the call of our values, then we will not only sense that this is important, but others will, too. But it’s not about numbers; it may be for only one person, yet their life would be different if you or I did not step forward. This is looking at life differently, growing into interdependence after independence. If you have identified talents, enriching environments, and values, you can more trust your imagination and intuition, which have unfolded from the former.
That’s what our art requires of us. We show up and do it anyway, not because someone asked us to but because our persistent heart tells us we must.* Bernadette Jiwa
The act of change-making is to help people decide that changing their action is exactly what they want to do. Not because it’s important to us, but because it’s important to them.** Seth Godin
There’s that important word again: Must, not should.
A must carries you into a day, through difficulties and obstacles, into an adventure.
A should from someone else may get you started but lacks your persistent heart.
If we want to see change, There’s no better place to begin than helping people to ignore the shoulds and connect to their heart-must.
(Art is the similar but different way you do something that fulfils you, helps others, and makes the world better in some way or other. What’s yours?)
THE NOTES (behind the reflection) I first came across the power of MUST back in 2004 when I asked AleXander McManus what would move an organisation into the future: evolution or revolution. In what I discovered to be Alex’s inimitable way, he replied, “It will come through those who must.” Must is not only something that pushes you, but pulls you, too, being embodied in your talents cum strengths, energies, and values. I come across it again in Elle Luna’s wonderful essay and book: The Crossroads of Should and Must. A Should comes from outside, it is what another speaks to us: You should do this, You should do that, but even the most well-meaning person doesn’t know how this fits with who we are and what we want to do in the same way we know ourselves. A Must comes from within, our response to a need and our desire to make a difference. A Should will sometimes get us started, and even keep us in a game, but only a Must will keep its going when the going gets tough without breaking anything inside us. Change does not come quickly, but takes time – the kind of time that needs us to live and work from our Must. We are all artists in the sense that there is something imaginative and creative we each can bring into the world. This can look like what someone else does, but if you get closer you’ll see it’s super-nuanced, emanating from within rather than being copied from without. A Must will make you better and also those around you – that’s how we know what it is. It’s not magic, but of we turn up, again and again, we can make something magical for someone. This is always for someone else– the remarkable and wonderful thing is, we have a whale of a life in pursuit.
Strategy isn’t a map. It’s a compass. Strategy is a better plan.* Seth Godin
Radical engagement involves feeling our way forward to discover, open up, and work with cracks.** Adam Kahane
Before the certainty of a map there is a compass– Trust your insight, shaped by talents and values and energies; These will show you the way through the next-to-nothing before you.
The most exhilarating experiences in your life so far were daring. Your proudest moments were overcoming struggle. The best happiness comes after some pain.^
(Our talents, values, energies, these are honourable, increasing our insight. How might you hone these in the new week?)
THE NOTES (behind the reflection): We follow maps, but maps can’t show us everything. Travelling with a compass and eyes wide open is more valuable. Talents show up because we have taken the time to play with patterns of skills, a lot – we can accurately identify our talents in thirty minutes – it takes a lifetime to grow them, mind. Further developing of talents hone them into strengths. Strengths bring together ability, strong experiences, and passion. On the other hand, a weakness may be a practised talent, but because our heart’s not in it, the experiences haven’t become more nuanced and flowing. Values are not goals, but are hopes that are bigger than our lives; we can never achieve them – as we move towards them, they grow bigger. Energies refer to those activities and spaces and people that send our energy spiking, but we also note when the activities and spaces and people that drain our energy away. These sharp spikes of energy identify what I call enriching environments that not only do we prefer and grow as a result of, but our talents cum strengths enable us to create them. The things that make us feel as if we’ve lost all our energy and will never regain it, identify what I name enervating environments; if we were Superman or Superwoman, this would be our kryptonite. It is super-important to notice these because they sneak up on us– if we cannot escape them, we must learn how to manage them. The best way to manage is to meet them with our strongest self. Of course, one person’s enervating environment may be another person’s enriching environment. All of this – talents, values, and energies – mean that we gain a good feel for where we are and what we must do; we can trust this. Opportunities don’t appear before us as big open doors and bright lights– it’s more likely an itch, a crack, a glitch in the Matrix, and we have to work with this, but if you have noticed the crack, and trust who you are and what you have, then you will be able to do something,
There is an idea that identity is built independently of relationships, not within them.* Leslie Bell
Who will we become? Who will we be of service to: and who will we help others to become** Seth Godin
My becoming has been through encounters with others, Though many develop wary or anxious of such contacts, The world grows richer as we receive and seek to share – It has always been so.
(Perhaps reflect on those moments something important happened in your life, noticing those who were close at that time.)
The stories of gods or heroes descending into the underworld, threading through labyrinths. and fighting with monsters, brought to light the mysterious workings of the psyche, showing people how to cope with their own interior crises.* Karen Armstrong
Mythological images are the images by which consciousness is put in touch with the unconscious. That’s what they are. When you don’t have your mythological images, or when your consciousness rejects them for some reason or other, you are out of touch with your own deepest part.** Joseph Campbell
If I were to tell you my myth, It may first appear as a chronicle of what has happened to me and my understanding and response to the life events I now call home.
My hope is that it might also appear as my modus operandi, the way I will continue to journey— Energy for exploration and transformation, a strategy for regeneration and creativity.
(How do the stories you tell yourself allow you to create both a centring and an adventure?)
The best way to achieve freedom is to take responsibility for the actions you’re taking. And the best way to be clear that you’re taking responsibility is to highlight the externalities and own them.* Seth Godin
Living in accordance with your values is never finished, it is a lifelong journey.** Steven Hayes
More than what we have, freedom is what we make possible for others, including Sister Earth.
Values outlast us, and great values call us into adventures for a lifetime— The freedom of life-in-all-its-fullness.
(Perhaps take a few moment to write out your values, and reflect upon the adventures they make possible for you – and for others. If you haven’t got the time, what might that be saying about your freedom?)
Time does not pass for the infinite player. Each moment of time is a beginning of a period of time. It is the beginning of an event that gives the time within its specific quality.* James Carse
A stable, balanced life is a life losing energy – and so is a stable, balanced city.** Richard Sennett
The finite game has an end, its players move relentlessly towards it— Expending their energy.
The infinite game comprises endless beginnings, its players seeking to be present, surprised, and becoming— Endlessly regenerated.
(We all have our finite games, but knowing what our infinite play is, we can more generously contribute to the former. What is your infinite play?)
THIN|SILENCE 
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