You Are Closer Than You Think

I feel that way regarding myself sometimes.  I strive to be the best version of myself, the best me, the best husband, the best dad, the best coach, the best speaker, the best…sometimes it feels so far away.  So unclear.  So useless.

Do you know what I mean?  I wonder if I’ll ever reach the destination of my best self.

When I am struggling the most, I take myself back to the contract I made with myself years ago in a workshop.  If I were to share with you my contract, some of you may laugh.  I know because I shared it with some in my life, and that’s what they did.  It wasn’t a malicious laugh, they weren’t laughing at me, they just thought I was making a joke.

“This is your contract, what you want to hold yourself up to becoming?” they asked.

“Yes,” I said. “It was so hard for me to even own this and when it came time to say the words out loud to the group, I could barely get the first line out.“

“Why?” they would ask.

“Because I don’t see myself like this.  I see myself as wanting to be like this. It’s just to hard to own.”

“Hmmm,” was the most common response.

Now mind you, I was only having this conversation with people I loved and who I knew loved me.  It would have been impossible at the time to share this with casual friends or acquaintances – or perhaps on a blog that goes out to well over a 1,000 people.

But here’s where it got interesting.

I struggled so hard with these words.

SO hard with their meaning.

SO hard with the idea of who I wanted to hold myself accountable to be.

It seemed so far away.  So impossible from where I stood because, to put it simply, I’m not any of these things I wrote in my contract.

But when I shared it with my wife and close friends, they understood.  “Hmmmm.  I get it,” they would say. And this would floor me every time–and it happened EVERY time.

“Hmmmm.  I get it. But you know what?” they would continue.  “You already are this person. This is how I see you.  This is who you are. I chuckled because this seems to obvious to me!“

Isn’t that funny?  When I had the courage to share my contract, what I thought was light years away was actually right under my foot. Like so many things, it’s an inward journey more than an outward one.

Would you like to know what I wrote that day?  It may seem trivial to you, and while I have come so far into owning these words, it still surprises me how some days they feel light years away.

My Contract With Myself:

I am a good man.

Genuine

Vulnerable

Grounded in the moment.

I know, simple, right?  It has been such a journey to see myself as a “good man.” To own that.  But this I know.  When I am those four things, I am the very best version of myself, I am the best leader, speaker, coach, father, husband, friend, citizen…

So now, let me challenge you.

Take some time, serious, uninterrupted, inspired time and imagine the person you want to be. Your best self.  Write a short contract with yourself to hold you accountable to you.  Notice the tense: it’s present, not future, “I am,” not “I will be…“

You don’t have to share it.  It’s not for anyone else’s benefit but your own.

Now take a moment and ask a few people close in your life, people you trust, who you think would take the request seriously and with respect, and ask them:
How do you experience me?

How do you perceive me?

Who do you think I am?

Share what you are doing, if not the actual contract itself, and the challenge and ask how they would answer it for you.

How far off were their answers from the ‘best self‘ you imagined?
If they were very different, might that difference be your greatest obstacle and your real work?  If so, how might you overcome it?

If they were the very similar, what is keeping you from seeing yourself as you obviously are? My inability to accept that I am a good man prevented me from seeing the progress I’d already made and trusting my worthiness. What’s shielding your eyes?

Let me know if I can be of any assistance.