💎 Friday Gems #16 (One step at a time, Visualizing Goals, Wonder-Smitten)
Ideas to help you unleash your potential!
I did a crazy thing. I signed up for a 50k trail race which is about 31 miles...with only six weeks to get ready for it; the most I have run is 21 miles 😅. In the previous Friday Gems issue, I shared the idea of fear-based motivation to help us get out of our comfort zone and work towards our goals, so yeah, I’m taking my advice and going for it. This goal scares me because I know the pain I will be going through, but I do know that the fear is working. I have been sticking to my training plan and feeling less fearful each day.
If you’re looking to get out of a rut or a funk, I would recommend this technique, but please use caution and judgment.
Today I’m sharing another goal-setting idea which is to visualize your goals. I’m a big believer in visualizing ideas through sketching, so visualizing our goals is a great way to get the ideas out of our heads and in front of us where we can see them and adjust them.
Let me know if any of the gems resonate with you, and I will report back next week on how I visualize my 50k running goal.
Enjoy this week’s gems!
💎 One Step At A Time
I found this gem in Arnold Schwarzenegger's Pump Club daily newsletter, a daily digest designed to make you healthier in less than 5 minutes. In one of the issues, Arnold highlighted the story of one of the members, Cathy S.
Cathy's parents and a few grandparents had passed away because of cancer, and she herself underwent surgery to remove a tumor, as well as dealing with complications such as tearing the stitches and requiring blood transfusions, and dealing with infections and removing scar tissue. The medication she was taking for cancer also caused a lot of pain in her bones.
All in all, Cathy had 11 cancer-related surgeries!
Imagine going through all those challenges and still having a positive outlook in life. The resilience she developed along the way helped her become stronger and more resolved not to let cancer get the best of her.
I love her message to help us get through the challenges and obstacles in our way.
It doesn’t matter what other people think or are telling you. It doesn’t matter if you screwed up, or someone else hurt you or did you wrong. When things are really hard, and you feel like quitting, shutting all the noise and interference out, and doing the best you can to concentrate on the next small step (rather than the big, scary picture) will eventually get you to the other side of what you’re facing.
Having lost my father to cancer, Cathy’s story gets me emotional and pumped up to make the most of life and not let obstacles keep me down.
This is a wonderful message of hope, resilience, and determination to overcome the pain, fear, and overwhelm we may feel as we move forward on our path to achieve our potential.
I can't find the newsletter online, so I’ll share a screenshot of the full post.
Arnold's newsletter is one of the newsletters I look forward to reading because of the positivity and support he provides in helping us live healthy life.
Source: Arnold’s Pump Club (Sign up page)
💎 Visual Goal-Setting
Goals aren't created in silos.
We don't just sign up for a goal 5k or, um... a 50k race in my case 😅, and narrow our focus to see just the race itself.
Our small goals are connected to other larger goals and vice versa and intertwined with our lives, which is why visualizing our goals is important.
What I love about the technique Kim shared for visualizing our goals, milestones, and the outcomes we want to achieve.
Kim Witten is a coach who helps creatives turn their overthinking into expert thinking. You may remember Kim from our conversation on the Unleash Your Mindset podcast.
Making our ideas and thoughts visible is a powerful way to make sure we achieve our goals instead of losing them in the sea of information in our minds.
Source: Kim Witten
💎 Becoming wonder-smitten with our reality
“We became the universe’s way of looking at itself. We invented telescopes and ice cream, mathematics and music, not one of which had to exist. To me, that is the daily wonder of being alive.”
The sensation of wonder is defined as a feeling of awakening what is possible and unique in the world around us and within us.
We are wonder-smitten at the vastness and the beauty of the universe when we explore the images received from the James Webb telescope.
We are wonder-smitten at music, art, architecture, and sports.
But we don't need to look for rare or massive events as sources of wonder; we can find wonder in the everyday.
We are surrounded by opportunities for awe and wonder if we pause to look closely enough, from looking up at a single cloud in the blue sky to looking down at a single blade of grass bending but not breaking with the wind.
I remember reading Maria Popova's Brain Pickings, now Marginalian newsletter, many years ago as she shared ideas that helped develop my sense of wonder in people and their ideas.
In this video, Maria does it again. She shares the idea of wonder and how it can be found in everyday moments and discusses how moments of wonder demand we shift our habitual focus from ourselves to the external everyday beauty found in noticing the simple things in life.
Source: Creative
Let me know in the comments if any of the gems resonate with you. I always love hearing from you.
Thanks for reading, and have a fantastic weekend!
Rizwan
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