Face the Truth and Choose
We have to let go of our plans if we are to become the person we are meant to be.
Joseph Campbell
A battle plan doesn’t survive contact with the enemy.
A fight strategy doesn’t survive contact with a jaw.
A business plan doesn’t survive contact with the market.
Success as a field general, as a fighter, and as an entrepreneur all require the ability to adjust to changing circumstances.
The same is true with our careers and with our lives in general.
We make plans, and then everything changes.
To survive in our rapidly changing world, we must be able to adjust to those changes.
Our great-grandparents worked in the same industry most of their adult lives, perhaps even at the same company.
Our grandchildren may change careers before they even finish their education.
We find ourselves living in situations that we never anticipated, but we still try to follow the “life plan” that we put together before our brains were fully developed.
We can live with frustration, anger, and regret, or we can follow the hero’s journey.
On the hero’s journey, we find ourselves in a world where something is terribly wrong.
We have to face challenges, obstacles, and self-doubt.
We soon discover that the real challenges are not in our environment, but in ourselves.
To become the person we were meant to be, we must not only let go of our plans, but we must also make difficult changes in how we think and in what we do.
Heroes don’t fulfill their destinies in spite of the difficulties.
Rather, the difficulties prod heroes to make changes they are reluctant to make — or unaware they need to make.
Heroes don’t exist in utopias.
What challenges are you facing that seem overwhelming?
What changes will you have to make within yourself to overcome those challenges?
Who are potential mentors that can help you make those changes and help you face your self-doubt?
Who are the ones who desperately need you to follow your hero’s journey and liberate them from an unkind fate?
As Yoda said, “To be Jedi is to face the truth, and choose.”
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