Most of my life the message that seemed to be repeated over and over and over again was, “does not live up to potential“. It showed up in my conduct reports during school, it showed up in various personality assessment tests, it even showed up in my handwriting (verified by a certified graphoanalyst). Evidently when life handed me apples instead of taking them and creating apple pie, apple juice, and all the glorious concoctions that I was quite capable of creating, in many cases, I chose to let the apples roll to the side of the basket and rot.

So what does it mean to see an opportunity and be willing to “show up" for it?

There’s a great quote by Woody Allen that says, “80% of success is showing up“. I attended a boarding school that was mandatory military for the boys. During my junior year there was a beauty contest to select the various company and corps of cadets’ sweethearts. I participated in the contest and was not selected for any of the positions which was absolutely devastating to me. Fast forward a couple of months, one of the company sweetheart’s went AWOL and so the alternate “sweetheart“ was to be announced during passing revue that day in front of the entire school. My friend Kim and I almost “skipped“ this event so that we could get to the cafeteria first before all the other kids and then Kim said, “Lynn, what if one of us is chosen“? Believing that could be possible for Kim, we hung around in the back of the stands waiting for the announcement. Imagine my surprise when my name was called out. I was petrified and my right leg shook uncontrollably when the Company D Commander put the sash around my shoulders. I was there, just barely, but I had shown up.

What I have had to fight with most of my life is the ego part of me that doesn't believe that I have what it takes to accomplish great things. I wonder how many opportunities that, what I call “spirit“, has offered me and I have ignored, run away from and not believed possible because I did not trust what was being offered to me.

This past Spring I left a cushy job of the past ten years to strike out on my own as a Professional Life Coach. Right now I am in the midst of forming a company with several Coaches so that we can help people find success through the discovery of their strengths. I have been willing to step out of my comfort zone and ask friends with connections for referrals (into their companies). Two of these referrals have resulted in face-to-face meetings with high level people within their organizations to discuss how we can help them with their hiring and retention, etc. Oftentimes my natural knee-jerk reaction to opportunities like these is to RUN!!

I don’t want to fail; I don’t want to feel the all consuming fear. Yet I know that when I am willing to trust in “spirit“ and believe that all the paths I have chosen in my life have led me to these opportunities, then I can show up and see where my next step may be.

Now ask yourself, where are opportunities knocking in your life? How can you show up for what is right before you? What qualities and talents do you possess that life is asking you to use right now? Where can you show up?

Coach Lynn Kindler
http://www.sacredpathcoaching.com