Years ago, when I began my personal development journey, I was really stuck. Stuck in my life; stuck in my work. One of my good friends, Shelly, kept telling me to talk to a coach. I was in complete denial that I needed help. I would say things like, “I can handle this,” “I am just being dramatic,” “I have a great life, it is just a moment in time, it will pass.”
Except it didn’t “just pass.” Months later I was still miserable. Fortunately, I finally took her advice and made the call, which has led me to this wonderful life I am creating to this day.
What I have learned is that this is a crucial stage in our evolution. It holds the key to profound growth. It’s called Unconscious Incompetence, or We Don’t Know What We Don’t Know. That’s where I was, I didn’t know that I could create something different in my life and work. I just knew I was miserable and stuck. To add to my misery, my son was in the military and preparing to be deployed. That was the final straw. I was riddled in fear, confusion, and unhappiness. I was stuck in life, paralyzed by fear of the unknown.
I now understand this is a critical point in the journey towards mastering the next level of empowerment, excellence, and success. The same was true when I made the decision to move from an employee to starting a business and purchasing a franchise. I literally was at ‘I didn’t know what I didn’t know.’ Was I scared? You bet! Fortunately, I had enough personal growth and understanding of Unconscious Incompetence to know if I surrounded myself with the right people and invested in myself, I would be successful. Was it easy? That is a definite, “NO!” Was it worth it? Absolutely. I would do it all over again.
In business, it might look something like not knowing there is another way; to accomplish a task or handle employees or even grow business to the next level. The problem is we are blinded by our one-sided perception. So, we keep doing the same things over and over again and expecting different results; also known as the definition of insanity.
What happens is that we reach a boundary point of our current experience and we keep bouncing back instead of through the boundary. This understanding is critical because all we know is our comfort zone. It is what is familiar; it is habits and patterns that have gotten us this far in our life or our work. We have survived thus far!
Besides, we don’t know what is like out of our comfort zone; we have never experienced it before. It is the fear of the unknown. Many are willing to stay in confusion and unhappiness because fear rules the day. If we dare to step outside of our comfort zone it is uncomfortable and scary, all we know is where we are in this moment and who knows what is outside of our comfort zone. It requires we learn new skills and a new level of competence. And yet, it is where you all must start if you truly want to move forward and grow yourself or your professional life. When you get tired of hitting that boundary and bouncing back repeatedly and want something different, you will move to a level of awareness (that’s my next blog).
In the meantime, it is important that you understand a couple of things: you cannot be part of the solution if you are part of the problem, you do the best
you can with the tools you have, and showing yourself compassion is important to your overall success in life.
When you are part of the problem, you are walking around with blinders on. You are only capable of seeing through your own model of the world and that is limited. It reminds me of a horse at the racetrack with those blinders on so that the horse can only see what is in front of him. It keeps him in his lane so to speak. As a human race, that leads to complacency and lack of growth. Aren’t we here for growth, evolution, and purpose? It is hard to live your true purpose if you are not evolving. And make no mistake about it, you cannot do it alone. I know because I tried that for years, only to repeat the cycle of
insanity.
The reason people hire a coach or take a training is to help them see other viewpoints, understand their current situation, and learn new skills so they can shift some ways of thinking and gain a new skill to take their life and/or professional life to the next level of success.
We also do the best we can with the tools we have. There is so much grace in adopting this mindset. They question then becomes, “Do I want more tools, or do I prefer to stay in my comfort zone and continue the insanity circle?”
Compassion is essential in our personal growth. If we continue to allow that itty-bitty-shitty committee to run our life, then we can never embrace the lessons and learnings and move forward. It is just not possible.
By the way, the itty-bitty-shitty committee is that voice in your head that just said, “what voice in my head, I don’t have a voice in my head.” Yeah, that one.
Next month, I am going to talk about the next state of learning, Conscious Incompetence. Stay tuned.
It is my goal to make the world a better place while I am blessed to be here. What I know with 100% certainty, is that I had to begin with myself. I needed to become a better version of me. Until my last breath, I am a work in
progress. It is my gift to you, to share how this is truly possible, if only we get out of our own way.
Until next time,
Always forward,
Derlene
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