Happy New Year! As Trevor Noah says, 2021 was the best year of the last two years. Whew!
'Tis is the season for New Year's resolutions. If you follow my work, you know that I'm not a fan of these resolutions. Why? In short, our intentions are good, but the results are usually bad. New Year's resolutions are often framed as self-improvement projects. Self-improvement projects are born from a sense of self-deficiency. And the struggles you often experience when trying to fulfill them tend to reinforce your sense of deficiency. Commonly, this leads to the conclusion that you don't have what it takes.
In 20 years of coaching, the most common result I've seen from New Year's resolutions is the reinforcement of the belief that you don't have enough self-discipline. What are you to do if you don't have what it takes? Give up, of course. Not helpful! I call this "self-improvement quicksand." The more you try to fight your way out of self-deficiency, the more you are convinced of it.
The alternative to self-improvement I teach is self-unfoldment. You can spot a self-unfoldment project because it is always born from innate sufficiency. Instead of asking yourself "What is missing?" try asking "What if nothing is missing?" Yes, this is a provocative question because it flies in the face of common sense. But common sense is not always good sense.
Unfoldment is always the unfoldment of innate wholeness into a greater expression of wholeness. The silly (yet serious) example I always give is the unfoldment of an acorn into an oak tree. You don't look at the acorn as a deficient oak tree with no roots, no trunk, no branches, and no leaves. Instead, you hold this tiny miracle of an acorn in your hand and wonder at how a grand oak tree can grow from this. And an oak tree will indeed grow … if the conditions are right.
What if you are already a whole and complete human being, just like the acorn? Well, you are. And you have been so from the beginning. Just like an acorn, you are unfolding. You have been growing and changing and transforming, expressing your innate wholeness in so many wonderful ways throughout your life. And you can unfold in many more ways that can change and transform your body, your health, your relationships, your work, and anything else in your life … if the conditions are right.
Creating the very conditions necessary for unimpeded unfoldment is an art form that you, as an Aletheia Coach, can learn, master, and offer to your coaching clients. The know-how to foster these conditions is really the 'secret sauce' of powerful coaching.
Here are the first few steps.
Step 1: Paradoxically, to foster these conditions you have to stop trying to improve yourself. Instead, allow yourself to be exactly where you are and who you are already. Shift your attention from a future-oriented goal or a vision of what might be to who and what is already here now. Let yourself be, let yourself unfold. What are you feeling emotionally? What are you sensing in your body? What are you observing right here, right now? This shift helps to mindfully re-center you in Presence where your innate wholeness comes into view. As long as you are focused elsewhere, you are blind to your innate wholeness (and highly susceptible to the experience and belief that you are somehow deficient).
Step 2: Trust that the life you want to live can and will unfold from where you are now. Trust that who you want to be can and will unfold from who you are now. How could it be otherwise? Initially, especially if you are still in the grip of self-deficiency, this might feel like a leap of faith. As you become more conscious of the natural process of unfoldment, your trust in it will deepen in profound ways.
Step 3: Accept, love, and value yourself exactly as you are. Oddly, this is the most profoundly effective strategy for self-improvement (really, self-unfoldment) that I have ever found. Doing so doesn't mean that you won't change and transform. Instead, accepting, loving, and valuing yourself, exactly as you are, relaxes inner blockages that impede and thwart your deeper unfoldment. When you completely accept, love, and value yourself in this way, your innate wholeness and sufficiency comes into view and starts to play its role as the catalyst for profound transformation and deepening self-development.
Instead of declaring a new self-improvement goal this New Year’s, what if you declare that you completely accept, love, and value yourself exactly as you are? Any new efforts that you make (e.g., a new diet, more exercise, better self-care, etc.) are expressions of the deep acceptance, love, and appreciate you have for yourself and your loved ones. Any struggles that you face offer fresh opportunities to practice self-acceptance, self-love, and self-worth.
May your life unfold in wondrous ways in 2022!
With love,
-Steve