The Greatest Advice on How to Accept a Challenge

You must Be There.

If your goal is to have an amazing career, an incredible relationship, or quite frankly to live a happy, successful, and fulfilling life you must first be willing to accept that challenge of that goal, career or relationship.

But in order to accept that challenge you must first be able to see it, right?

So why is it some people can see it and some can’t?

Well, I’ve spent a lifetime researching this one under the banner of

“WHY THEM - NOT ME” and this is what I’ve found.

In order to see, you must Be There,

and in order to Be There, you must….

1. SHOW UP

2. DO WHAT YOU ARE DOING

3. OPEN UP YOUR SENSES (this one is magical)

Okay! Let’s check them out.

1. SHOW UP

It all starts with physically being there.

If you’re working on your health, you must physically get to the gym or to the grocery store to buy healthy ingredients. If you’re a plumber, you must physically show up to work on the pipes. And, if you’re a student you must physically put your body in the classroom to get the information from the teacher. It seems simple.

But what if you are physically there, but you are not mentally there, are you really there? Daydreaming and zoning out while you’re supposed to be studying, performing, or working is not Showing Up. It’s actually “Not Being There.”

How do you think that girl got the promotion or that band got signed or that guy got the girl? They physically showed up AND they were really there - 100%. This is no small thing. The people doing the hiring and signing and marrying know when they see the real deal and part of that real deal is some one or a group that can Be There. Being There is not just about the ability to see an opportunity, it is also a willingness to be seen.

I just want you to know, I see you.

We'll go into all of these in more detail in later posts, but today I want to lay out how Showing Up both physically and mentally sets us up to be able to accomplish the next aspect of Being There. So here we go.

2. DO WHAT YOU ARE DOING

I seem to have an exercise theme going today!

Okay. What’s this about? Well, here we take on multitasking.

In a word, STOP IT!

Okay, that’s two words, but you get the point. I know we’ve been led to believe that multitasking makes us more valuable and we pride ourselves on how great we are at multitasking but in the end, we can’t possibly Be There if our attention is scattered and dispersed and are exhausted from holding so many things in the air at one time.

More often than not, master painters paint while they are painting. Great moms focus on their kids when they are momming. Teachers teach while they are teaching. You get it. Do what you are doing. Sometimes happiness is just a job well done which leads to success...you get where this is going.

I do have to say that once I stopped all that multitasking, I started enjoying my life even more because I could truly enjoy a great conversation with family and friends, let the ideas for my blog flow uninterrupted, and enjoy reading an article from beginning to end. Life became less hectic and disjointed. I became calmer (definitely became a better mom) and felt much more in control of my life. I was happier. Yay!

But in actuality, I think I had gotten so accustomed to multitasking that I had forgotten that showing the greatest amount of respect to something or someone was giving them my full attention.

Now, this brings us to the final stage of Being There. This is the one that no one tells us about. This is the one that opens up life to opportunities we just know we have been missing. This is the one we cannot accomplish unless we have done the first two. Let’s get to it!

3. OPEN UP YOUR SENSES

Another fitness photo to stay in our theme.

The final stage of Being There is having the ability to open up your senses to experience what is going on around you while you are doing what you are doing. This is not multi tasking. No, this means keeping your senses (not your attention) out around you while your attention is locked in on what you’re doing. We all do it. We just never realized how valuable it is.

Let’s Take a Look:

How do others (successful organizers and teachers) use this concept in their work? Well, a successful organizer has their attention on your kitchen pantry but their senses are wide open to textures, space, nuances of color, and lighting. A teacher is focused on a lesson she is teaching. She can sense attention, attitude, and understanding by just being there. Although focused on the lesson, she may see and accept a challenge of helping a struggling child. By doing so, she could create a new solution that opens the door to helping other teachers and students. Her opportunity to educate beyond the syllabus can change the landscape of teaching.

Being There is really about responsibility. When you choose to Be There, you are acknowledging that your interactions with the world have an impact on the success, happiness, and fulfillment you achieve. It also indicates that you are aware that your actions may also affect the happiness, success and fulfillment of those around you.

Wow! Incredible isn’t it! I love this!

Now, back to the overall journey of being an ARTIST. Creating a life we always knew we could live and seeing the world through our own eyes.

Let’s think of Being There as putting our car into drive and heading toward those challenges that will invite amazing adventures and lead us toward happiness, success, and fulfillment.

So, today I challenge you to Be There.

Get that car in gear!

Make sure to check out our new OBSERVATION DECK where Decker grabs real moments in time and shares how life inspires living.

And be sure to check out next week's blog, The Greatest Advice on How to Accept a Challenge.

With Great Love,

Annie