[Dutch Lock Down Day Two Hundred Fifty Five]
The Leadership Project is one of four sections within the Farmer Project and I did this whacky thing the other day, see, cause I finished it.
Mostly.
I still have a few ongoing goals and I’d love to become a Distinguished Toastmaster, but otherwise, I finished.
What do I do now?
Good question.
But first the news:
- Mayor urges nationwide approach after crowds lead to store closures
- Celebrating Christmas in a group is a major worry, infection chief says
- Covid cases down 6.7% vs. last week, Rutte: “not the figures we want to be seeing”
I finished it weeks ago, actually, but had a BUNCH of things to distract me like hormones and civil suits and, well, all kinds of adventures, but decided to put my foot down and focus this week with my kickass life coach, Rachael.
And so we did.
There are ultimately three puzzles going on right now which I’d like to turn my attention to but don’t, IMHO, warrant their own independent projects.
Sort of.
And, as always, I’m being a bit meta.
Cause one of the puzzles is what am I going to do with the Leadership Project? Does it go away? Does it evolve as a leadership project to include other milestones? Does something replace it entirely?
The second puzzle is one I spoke about briefly yesterday – navigating / exploring / figuring out the intersection between self-compassion and self-improvement. Or, if I’m breathing into the new words, exploring the dynamic between compassion and expansion.
And the third puzzle is one that doesn’t even have a well defined question yet. Which makes it the hardest to explore, eh? Ultimately, what is going on when I make five steps forward and then three steps back? Am I scared of success? Is this a form of psychological resistance? Am I rejecting happiness?
I have no idea.
I don’t know if I’m doing anything conscience or mindfully because it COULD just be a pattern that’s repeated itself over and over again and I’m just now noticing. It may be that there is no pattern and that this moment – over the past four months – is the first time I’ve ever done so much conscious work and now that I’m paying attention, I see the ‘good’ as well as the ‘bad’.
So we’ll see?
Right now I’m in the research phase.
As I also mentioned ‘yesterday’, I just read The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks and am reading There Is Nothing Wrong With You by Cheri Huber, but I also have a few other books lined up as well. This is not an endorsement as much as a I’m-About-To-Read-These, but if you’ve read them, I’d love to hear your thoughts.
If you’ve heard of others along these lines that you highly recommend, I’d love to hear it.
Let’s start the adventure!
The War of Art
“In this powerful, straight-from-the-hip examination of the internal obstacles to success, bestselling author Steven Pressfield shows readers how to identify, defeat, and unlock the inner barriers to creativity.”
Turning Pro
“What we get when we turn pro is we find out power. We find our will and our voice and we find our self-respect. We become who we always were but had, until then, been afraid to embrace and to live out.”
Do The Work
“Picking up where The War of Art and Turning Pro left off, Do The Work takes the reader from the start to the finish of any long form project. Do the Work identifies the predictable Resistance Points along the way and walks you through each of them. No, you are not crazy. No, you are not alone. No, you are not the first person to “hit the wall’ in Act Two.”
There Is Nothing Wrong With You
“If you are satisfied with what you have been taught about how life works, and if you are content with what society has given you, please put this book down. It would be a waste of money to buy it and a waste of time to read it.”
Radical Compassion
“Tara Brach is an in-the-trenches teacher whose work counters today’s ever-increasing onslaught of news, conflict, demands, and anxieties–stresses that leave us rushing around on auto-pilot and cut off from the presence and creativity that give our lives meaning.
In this heartfelt and deeply practical book, she offers an antidote: an easy-to-learn four-step meditation that quickly loosens the grip of difficult emotions and limiting beliefs. Each step in the meditation practice (Recognize, Allow, Investigate, Nurture) is brought to life by memorable stories shared by Tara and her students as they deal with feelings of overwhelm, loss, and self-aversion, with painful relationships, and past trauma–and as they discover step-by-step the sources of love, forgiveness, compassion, and deep wisdom alive within all of us.”
The Compassion Book
“In The Compassion Book, Pema Chödrön introduces a powerful, transformative method to nurture these qualities using a practice called lojong, which has been a primary focus of her teachings and personal practice for many years.”
Success Is An Inside Job
“Describes how the mind can create an outer life that reflects one’s inner values, and how exploration of the inner-self can resolve conflicts that counteract positive thinking.”