“Ask yourself at every moment, ‘Is this necessary?’” – Marcus Aurelius
Start3Things is not a magic formula to be more efficient, to find shortcuts to longcut work or to do more with less. Rather, it’s a prompt, an invitation, your permission slip to wake up, to challenge old stories, to stop busy work, to start new things with no concern for perfection, to improve with practice, to go deeper rather than wider and to focus on daily actions that move you closer to your purpose.
When we realize acutely that our days are numbered and the number is unknown, our perspective shifts, attention hones and efforts focus on what is truly necessary. Minor irritations, inconveniences and excuses are replaced with intention, consistency and rigor of practice.
The past four years has been a long season of passing of family and friends, a relentless one. Amidst and within the loss, lies an abundance of blessings and beauty that remain, demanding to be seen, accounted for and appreciated at a level deeper. Empathy replaces judgment. Old rules lose their meaning and hold. Resentment and unforgiveness melt away. The urgency of fueling ego and seeking position fade to urgency of purpose and new meaning beyond the busy pursuit.
Memento Mori – “remember death” – is the ancient practice of reflection on mortality that goes back to Socrates. “The Stoics used Memento Mori to invigorate life, and to create priority and meaning. They treated each day as a gift, and reminded themselves constantly to not waste any time in the day on the trivial and vain. It is reminders like this one that we desperately need in our own lives—a thought or an idea that we’d rather ignore, do everything to avoid and pretend is not true. Most often, our ego runs away from anything that reminds us of the reality that sits at odds with the comfortable narrative we have built for ourselves. Or, we are simply petrified to look at life’s facts as they are. And there is one simple fact that most of us are utterly scared to meditate, reflect on and face head on: We are going to die. Everyone around us is going to die,” – states Ryan Holiday, Daily Stoic.
Knowing this, really knowing this deep down, pushes us to big leaps and actions that move us into our best self, our reason for being.
According to Gay Henricks, Henricks Institute, big leaps allow you to find your genius, which is that activity or way of being that you are uniquely suited to do, combining your innate gifts and practiced strengths. It feels effortless, creative and natural. In The Big Leap, he defines four zones of work – incompetence, competence, excellence and genius. We spend a lot of time in the zone of competence and occasionally wander into the zone of excellence. The genius zone moments are more rare and where joy and flow reside. We don’t take the “big leap” because we impose limits to our happiness, succumbing to fear and self-sabotage which prevent us from getting to the zone of genius.
In his follow up book, The Joy of Genius, he describes the “genius moment” as an opening, an invitation to bring forth our highest potential. The Genius Move is a meta-tool that helps end negative thinking and increases the flow of authentic creativity.
“The Genius Moment begins when you notice you feel unhappy in some way and go in search of what you are trying to control that’s actually uncontrollable. For example, the Genius Moment is when you notice your shoulders are tense and realize that you are working hard trying to change someone who does not want to change. The Genius Move is when you let go of your effort to control the uncontrollable and feel the new space of creative aliveness open up inside you,” states Hendricks “Your mind can conceive of a magnificent positive future for you, but your heart is what will make it real. When you get your heart’s energy behind a positive goal your mind has chosen, you are virtually unstoppable,” he continues.
When you notice a moment when you are feeling unhappy, ask yourself, “What am I trying to control that’s actually uncontrollable?” Declare it out loud or in your mind that it uncontrollable then let it go and stop trying to control it. The final step is to look for a positive action to take immediately that fills the space.
Like the “find and replace” command in Microsoft® Word, we can find our negative self-defeating thoughts and need to control the uncontrollable and immediate replace them with positive thoughts and actions that fuel confidence and big leaps into our zone of genius.
The most uncontrollable thing that we all face is our mortality, so remember death and get on with living. Commit with your heart and your actions will follow in suit to lead you to your genius zone. Seize the day, one single step at a time. Memento Mori.