Is Your World Ordinary or Extraordinary?
I’d like to continue with the discussion in my last post, where we looked at the stages of the Hero’s Journey in myth and story structure. In the first stage of the Hero’s Journey a character is in the ordinary world but soon begins a life-changing adventure.
What is your ordinary world like? Is it a place you want to be? Does your ordinary world reflect the best of you? Ordinary is defined in Webster’s Dictionary as “a kind to be expected in the normal order of events”. Do you want your life to be ordinary or extraordinary? Everyone has the potential to live an extraordinary life. To do so requires uncovering your unique gifts and having the courage to live your dreams.
What can you do now to make your life extraordinary? Here’s a simple step you can take: eliminate five tolerations in your life by the end of this year. Tolerations are the things that you allow to exist in your life that do not serve you. They may not be glaring problems but they drain your energy and you’d be better off without them. Start by identifying five aspects of your life that qualify as tolerations. Consider what it will take to rid yourself of them. Then, do it. Here’s a bold step you can take to make your life extraordinary: make an act of power. An act of power is something you do that will change your life forever. This is big. It can be doing something you dream of or making a radical change that will make your life better.
Are you willing to make your life extraordinary? Once you believe that it is possible and begin to take action, things will flow. Here’s a quote to inspire you:
“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, the providence moves too. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way. I learned a deep respect for one of Goethe's couplets:
Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it!”
- William H. Murray, The Scottish
You can do this. I believe in you. Move out of your ordinary world and live an extraordinary life.
