Out to Lunch

What do you do when you get that feeling you've somehow lost your way? That things aren't going the way you hoped they would, and you don't know what your next move should be?

Life brings us these moments, always and inevitably. You can't always be going at a hundred miles an hour! The trouble is, these moments of doubt and/or confusion are not optional. Regardless of how clear your vision is, or how motivated you are to achieve it, you'll come to a halt at some point.

Perhaps you have been going at a hundred miles an hour recently, and you've suddenly realised you've driven into a dense, dark forest where you can't see the wood for the trees. Perhaps you find yourself at a crossroads with no signs to tell you whether to turn left, turn right, or go straight on. Perhaps you've come to a grinding halt, wondering what the point of it all is.

What do I do when I find myself in one of those moments?

Well, I'm in one now, so of course (I do what I do because I am who I am) I first of all reflect on it and then I sit down to write about it.

I find writing allows me to focus on where I'm up to and get a bit of clarity about what I'm doing here and where I want to go next.

Right now I feel a bit stuck and a bit frustrated because I have a few projects on the go and none of them seem to be getting any traction. I know that I can be of great service to people who are feeling stuck, stressed and anxious, or who find themselves needing to lead others but without any clear ideas about how to do that. But, I'm just not finding ways to engage with the people I want to help.

One thing I have learned is that there's no point carrying on regardless. "Full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes" just gets me further into the mire. I need to stop: stop work, stop thinking about work, stop thinking about possible strategies, stop faffing around with web pages and video reels and all the rest of it, and get some space where I can breathe and listen to the silence behind all the noise.

Reflecting on where I'm at today, I had an aha! moment.

I've been so focused on doing stuff that I've neglected being.

In my work - if you've read any of my books you'll know this - I ask one very fundamental question: who are you?

This, I say, is Life's Hardest Question number one (it's the first of three) and discovering your own answer to it underpins everything you go on to do, and to be, in your life.

I would not insist on asking other people this question if I hadn't spent so much time and energy asking it of myself.

When I coach someone, we always arrive at an answer to this question. We put it in terms of that person's core values, because that's one of the best ways we have, given the limitations of our language and vocabulary, to describe the essence of the person. What I don't tell them at this early stage in their personal development is that this answer, expressed in their Heart Statement, is not the end of the matter.

"I am a man of strength, courage and integrity. I am joyful, loving, authentic and free."

All true.

But, there is more to me than that.

This statement describes me as I want to show up in the world: the physical world in which I do my thing and interact with other people.

It implies that I am somehow separate from the world.

Which of course is not true. It's an illusion that our minds create in order to help us make sense of things.

The real answer to Life's Hardest Question number 1 goes way deeper, and cannot be expressed in words.

When I forget that, and I allow myself to be completely immersed in the physical, material world, I get so busy doing that I lose touch with the essential truth of my being.

Little wonder, then, that I start to feel disconnected, that something's missing.

So now, if I want to get rid of that disconnection and fill the gap so that I can start moving forward again, I must stop, remove myself from the distractions of the physical world for a while, and reconnect with myself at a deep, spiritual level.

I must do this. It isn't optional for me now.

I can't simply drop everything I'm doing - after all, I have responsibilities that I will not shirk. But I can make a plan to take a spiritual retreat, and then block out the time in my calendar so that I'll actually do it. In fact, I've locked in the date. As I write, It's about a week from now.

Until then, don't expect to get much sense out of me. I'm out to a metaphorical, metaphysical lunch.

But don't worry. As Arnold Schwarzenegger's "Terminator" famously said, "I'll be back."