stepping into leadership

life has been on the high speed lately. rather, it feels like i have a lot to do and yet i do still find space in my schedule for 'fuck off' time. sometimes it seems like i do that too much, other times it feels necessary. i often wonder what i would accomplish if i had less of it.

and wonder no more ...

i think i alluded to a project i am undertaking for the leadership training program. each person in the program committed to a 6 month project that would advance their leadership in some capacity, push their boundaries, challenge that part of them that feels that something is impossible, evoke their values, is outside the realm of what they are naturally good at, and is measurable. basically, there should be a mixture of excitement and "oh shit" when thinking about it - that's a good indication that we are on the right path - something we want and would otherwise likely avoid doing.

my project, in concrete terms, is to design, create and conduct a workshop of some sort. i don't know what it is going to be about yet. which leads me to the much deeper aspect of my project, because in essence, it is not about the workshop.

my project is about trusting myself and believing that I have something of value to offer the world. it is about tapping into that which inspires me, that which fuels me and that which i believe in ... and then offering that to others as something that will help them. it is about helping others, coming from that place that i know i have gifts in healing and where i want to contribute to others living the lives that they want. it may be about carving a niche for myself in the work i want to be doing - and at the very least exploring one path to get a better sense of what i want to do more specifically.

the challenge for me is not in the creation of the workshop so much as it is finding what it will be about. the workshop design will certainly be challenging and a lot of work and i know it will be confronting in a lot of ways. the crux of the project, however, is in getting through whatever barriers i have to seeing what i have to offer that is uniquely mine.

it actually pisses me off quite a bit. it seems so fucking simple in many ways and i can see how, for someone else, this would be ridiculously easy. to some extent i am very in touch with what inspires me and at the same time i haven't yet figured out how and why that would be something that i would create a workshop around - something that would be of value to others. to another extent, i get stuck thinking that whatever i create has to be better than what others have created to be of value. that's a huge hurdle for me. the mental dialogue is something like, "why would anyone chose to participate in a workshop i've created on (x), when that person has a workshop on (x) and they've been doing it for 20 years!"

and that is a major part of my project ... getting through the crap like that that stops me from doing things that i want to do.

it is about leaving the realm of 'follower' which i do so well.
it is about leaving the realm of 'leader' only when i feel like i really know what i am doing.

it is about stepping into being a leader in my life and in being that, stepping through the doubts and self-limiting thoughts that hold me back.

i also see where all this mental chatter is a load of bullshit and something i want to drop and just fucking 'be'. i am guilty of deconstructing things a lot, wanting to understand all the ways of being (ahem ... yes, i've studied a lot of psychology) ... and i love it and want to escape it at the same time.

given that ... all the stuff above is awesome and i love thinking about it and learning and growing.
and there's a big part of me that sees how it is all just a sliver of this game of life and that there is so much more outside of that slice of pie. it's just one that i am focusing on for the moment and i trust that it is serving me in some way.