LIVE LIKE AN EXPLORER

Many years ago, although happy and fulfilled, I challenged my “way of being” to the point that a transition was imminent. There are so many opinions and personalities that writing about the steps to make a self-discovery is difficult. However, nearly every week that I serve as an executive coaching or a career coach, the topics of self-discovery and transition are priorities. I approach life and even coaching musically and artistically. It is the “way of being” for me. Seeing life and decisions through the lens of concepts, feelings and global thinking have always been my “way.” Life has a melody, pace and rhyme. Decisions and activities have styles. Feelings have value, color and nuances. As I mention a few things that may help you find your “way of being,” let’s use a quick example of “explorer thinking.” If you and your best friend, who just returned from a wonderful trip to places you neither had ever been, the photographs and images that you are now looking at could be seen quite differently. Let’s say you are a transactional thinker and linear thought and concrete ideas are your “way of thinking,” then you may be astounded by the lines of the buildings in the village revealed in the photos. On the other hand, your best friend may comment on how the sounds and smells made him feel when you were visiting that particular village. Same photo; different thinking. Actually different remembrances are now stated but both opinions have great value to the individuals. The two people I’ve depicted in the above case could be coached to think more like their friend. Although their deep styles and perceptions are still in place, they can broaden their experience by intentionally changing their “way of thinking.” My point: live like an explorer. Life as it is, whether challenging or wonderful, can be viewed as a discoverer or an explorer with little preconceptions and few assumptions. I also call it “clean marker board thinking.” To ever “be” something far different than what your present life-patterns are telling you, live like an explorer. Ask yourself, “what am I missing here?” Take note of people, things, and situations a little outside of your typical daily life-patterns. Try another route or another place for recreation. Approach your decisions from the opposite logic of your normal thinking. If you are right handed, try living life as a left handed person. (Not literally, of course) An explorer is walking through a place with fresh eyes and an expectant mind. In coaching programs, I give my clients many different logic models or thinking grids to push them beyond their already successful paradigms, to make discoveries. Those that are struggling, not knowing what to do next, we try to break patterns of thinking and presumptions to discover a new pathway for them. This is not easy, but many great successes have occurred. What’s next for you? You have no clue? Well, don’t feel alone, most of us are there at some time or another. Most of us couldn’t get to our newest destination without some form of alliance partner or coach. I hope your new world discoveries will be what you hope for.

RICK FORBUS, PhD
rforbus@troveinc.com

www.troveinc.com

www.facebook.com/troveinc

www.drrickforbus.com

Leave a Reply