If you can bend you won't break in so many circumstances. It's tough to become pliable and stay that way. The ego is often rigid and overconfident, and if you give into it too much then you will lose the opportunities of working within a group, to work with different types of people being present for new ideas, to learn how to think and wonder. It's tough to be bendable, liquid in your opinion, opening our self made doors to let anything new in especially a new way of thinking. Letting go of our old shell we've long outgrew.
I often wonder why we cling so much to our persona years and years passing by the opportunity to change, evolve, grow further, more temperance, more edge, more life.
I think that it is a false sense of the fountain of youth. If we only listen to a certain decade of music we will be young as we sing along. It is our because we were limitless in our perception of our possibilities? Is it because we are bold and decisive. We wore just about any new style and could pull it off with confidence. We were fit without even having to think about it. Now we've regressed into finding our favorite pair of shoes only, or that one coat that fits. It is the feeling of feeling different that is the can opener to reveal vulnerabilities. We question our own abilities to create something new. We keep the door shut to any new thought trusting outdated methods maybe too religiously. Doing well but not great.
Being pliable keeps out mobility in action both physically and mentally and it is only worked when we work out and feel pain. When the pain subsides, we will be stronger and more flexible and pliable. We will be more willing to accept new options, new ideas. Sedentary will only box you in and make everything tight around you. Need proof? Put on your best jacket and if it feels tight and doesn't slip in with ease, then you are fixated in your ways. The very action it makes you feel boxed into that article of clothing which has transformed into a straight jacket stealing your confidence and ease; your own stubbornness not to control your actions, your habits, your lack of routine. Our lack of balance is simply and socially accepted.
So a simple exercise to take a good hard look in the mirror or stepping on the virtual scale, is to take away one thing you love. Not anything life-changing. In fact the smaller it is, the more it reveals how pliable you are or not. It can be that afternoon cup of coffee, your favorite socks, starting your car to warm it up before you get in. All these routines of comfort that we cling to with a vengeance that we can do without. We don't trust ourselves our decisions after life has kicked around a few bad decisions so we curl up and tattoo our daily routines in our mind. These happy little seemingly harmless addictions have a holding power over more than your daily comfort. Give one of them up for a day and see if you can make it through the week. You will get the shakes and be a bit cranky but it's a test, a reflection in the store window that does not compensate like your mirror at home. You can fall off the wagon but for your own sake get back on because in trying you break the hold and you become painfully pliable in one small portion of your life. Now what else can you do?
Once you do it once you can do it again. Now you are on your way to getting yourself back. The one with the new ideas, good or bad, let's whirl this one out and take a chance. The character to handle the good result, the strength and grace to handle and correct the bad result. Either way the great feeling of new oxygen in your lungs and subsequently new ideas in your view. You are on your way to take inventory of the current state of affairs, then put in the time to work a new idea. Even if that initial idea is a bust, it strengthens your resolve to change and leads you to another idea. The possibilities no longer float over your head but rather move directly in your lane. Put your foot on the accelerator. This is good. This is change. This is you. The time is right. No time to waste.
"It's a great thing when you realize you still have the ability to surprise yourself. Makes you wonder what else you can do that you've forgotten about." -American Beauty
Sharon Sullivan - CEO of First Step Resources
Originally posted on LinkedIn on Feb 15, 2016