EP 12 - Podcast - 2019 Badass Challenge - Looking for Badass Heroes Backfires

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A Chosen Challenge Can Still Hurt

Last Week’s Tools:

• Let’s get some badass idols to inspire us. Getting all involved in badasserie, I learn about new badasses every day, it seems like.​​

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Everything went exceedingly well this week until I really engaged in seeking out some more badass heroes. Total crisis ensued. These people achieved phenomenal accomplishments by twenty, thirty, forty years of age. I’m sixty-one, soon to be sixty-two and what have I got to show for?!

Instead of being inspired, reading about these magnificent individuals made me feel like an abject loser! I mean, some of these people had the time to do amazing things and die young! I was processing so heavily, at one point, I walked out of a grocery store with my phone and keys left on the counter. I forgot a location for a meeting fifteen minutes after getting off the phone. Reading up on these amazing people, I compared my life to theirs (though I know better) and became utterly discombobulated trying to come to terms with the gap between my life ambitions and my actual accomplishments. And it’s getting late in the day, so to speak. I asked myself, What is realistic now? Do I have to adjust just how far I can go in becoming a badass? Will I ever be one? Steven reminded me, “If you didn’t have to face the shadow side of things, there wouldn’t be much of a “challenge” in the 2019 Badass Challenge.” Urch! So true. I think of all of us. We each faces different things. For me, it’s how much, or little I’ve accomplished compared to what I’d envisioned for my life.

What are your challenges?

Have you forgotten (or dismissed) what you once dreamed of? Do you feel you need to be “practical?”

In my tarot readings this past Sunday, four out of my ten clients had that exact issue.

It looked like this: “I don’t know what my purpose is.” Some cried as they said this. Some stared stoically down onto the tarot cards laid out before them.

Thankfully, I’m trained as a life coach and my specialty is self-empowerment. In less than 30 minutes, each of them discovered that what happened is that they had already eliminated from the list of choices what they wanted to do with their lives. Meaning that among what was left, no matter how long the list was, nothing held meaning. That’s only right because the one thing that was meaningful was no longer on the list.
Each of them had to face they took their dream off the list because it either didn’t promise financial security unless they made something extraordinary happen with it (like writing a best-seller), or because it could possibly make them look like a fool (involving metaphysics), or it would go against family wishes, or require changing their major to train for in what they really wanted to do in life (to illustrate, something like switching from finance to psychology). For each, the issue wasn’t that they couldn’t find their purpose. The issue was that they had denied their calling. What they needed was to become more badass, so they could tackle their obstacles and believe they could make their dream come true.
 
As I did this week’s homework, each person I picked as a hero did that. Whereas, I didn’t. I identified my dream to teach (specifically personal growth) in 2006. I zeroed in on a larger dream—to facilitate people’s self-empowerment— two years ago. And last year, I recognized the overarching dream within which these two smaller ones are embedded as the passion to help heal the separation in the world. When I assess where I am today, it’s self-evident that I have not stepped up.

That’s why I need the Badass Challenge. I say 2019 is my “do or die” year, my “make it or break” it year. The pressure I am putting myself under is huge. I could not do it without this podcast. I would simply black out. In other words, I’d go unconscious, get distracted and forget about what I’m trying to do.

​Maybe things are not as extreme for you. If not, then by taking up the challenge, you’re getting a head-start. I’m so proud of you!!

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This coming week’s work in bullets:

That this week hurt so much makes me all the more determined to succeed. So, this week’s actionable steps are:

• Identify the cost of becoming a bad ass, of stepping into your power so fully that you can create the life you want to live.
• Identify three items that are important steps in the right direction.​​ ​
• And practice self-care, self-care, self-care. 

Remember to turn to your internal best friend
Shower yourself with gold stars
Disrupt regrets (of that's a good one right now :)
Disrupt cynicism
Disrupt assumptions
Turn to your body and listen to what it needs
Put faith in yourself and trust yourself as the pilot of your life. (Yup, another good reminder right now.)

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Thank you so much for reading. I love you. No matter how challenged I feel, I remember that you and I are whole and wise and divine, perfect as we are, right now, and as we are not, right now. Bye for now.

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