#82 - an easier manifesto - part 1
Thriving is easier than you think
If you’re following the latest articles you’ll know that I’m currently all about exploring what makes us great.
A first example of that has been the piece published a few weeks ago, called The Origins of Wonderful (including the launch of our most ambitious project yet). You can read it again here, see what new insights you may get this time:
No Way #81 as well, named Realizing Greatness, is a journey through an insight that lead to the little manifesto in three parts I’ll be sharing with you over the next weeks.
You can go back and check why these two words can make all the difference in your life:
Let’s get to today’s piece. An easier manifesto is a collection of 15 points (and one video) that sum up what truly matters when it comes to thriving and high-performance. I’ll go as far as saying that it includes everything you’ll ever need to express yourself fully and achieve wonderful things in your life. It is the ultimate resource.
However…
As with anything, the information by itself is completely useless. All that matters is what you will see as you explore each point. Anything that will go from “oh yeah, this is a cool idea” to something that you understand so profoundly that it’s now part of your reality, is what will shift your ground and allow you to thrive and perform more effortlessly and at higher levels.
In other words: you gotta have an insight. Without an insight (a new thought from within), the information will be unusable. This is why I decided to split the manifesto in three parts. To give you the opportunity to spend an entire day with each point. Savor it, don’t rush. Do the exercises suggested, go on your own explorations. Then inevitably you will see something new, and your world will change before your eyes.
Start from the video here below and then go have fun with the first 5 points!
1. there are no special ones
[greatness is ordinary]
It doesn’t take anything special to be at your best.
The possibility to be great is always available for everyone in every moment. In fact, that’s your default. You’re told that you need to add something to yourself in order to be great, but this only fuels insecurity (“you’re not enough”).
High-performance, however, is not an additive game but a subtractive one (performance = potential – interference). Your best moments are not the results of you adding something special, but glimpses of what your normal looks like. That’s why there are no reliable answers to the question “what did you do to perform so well?”: it’s not what you did, but what you didn’t do (ie. getting in the way of your greatness) that allowed you to shine.
Exercise: what shifts in you as you consider your best moments as examples of your normal, rather than the result of something special you added?
2. it’s not about you
[greatness is impersonal]
Self-consciousness is the enemy of greatness.
Taking things personally causes discouragement and discouragement is the biggest interference between you and the natural expression of your potential. Getting over yourself is what gets you back in the game. It looks like self-consciousness is a response to what’s happening outside, but you’re creating it by paying too much attention to your own thoughts about yourself. This is good news, because there’s nothing that anyone can say or do to make us feel self-conscious, unless we think it.
Exercise: take a torch light and enter a dark room; point the light in front of you, and see how helpful it is to see things clearly; now point the light straight at your eyes and notice how uncomfortable and unhelpful that is; it’s the same with our attention.
For the rest of the day, notice when you’re paying attention to your self-conscious thoughts and making something about you. How does it feel?
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