I’m having a hard time believing we’re already well into 2022. That is partly because it’s been just so darn warm here in Southern California! I know those of you on the east coast are smack in the middle of winter right now. As my east coast friends try to stay warm, we’re over here in SoCal still enjoying some sun!
The start of a new year always gets me thinking of new beginnings. When I think of new beginnings, I’m usually reminded of a new school year (I know, they happen in September, but as a kid, the new school year really was like a whole new year!). When I think of a new school year, I always find myself thinking about Jansport. You know, that backpack brand we all carried around as school kids?
The thing is, though, many of us carry around a Jansport, or a backpack, every day in our adult life, too.
My Jansport
I’m a very visual person, so for me, I like to visualize things. So, I visualized that a really long time ago, I was born with an empty backpack, an empty Jansport. And, I had the choice, all my life, to decide what I would put in my backpack. It’s my special backpack. No one else’s. Each and every one of you has your own backpack, too.
For me, what I’ve found is that some of my past choices didn’t serve me. Anything negative that happened to me, I stored in my backpack. As time went on, these burdens worked their way into limitations, self-doubt, mind chatter, and other states that didn’t serve me and made my journey exhausting. This prevented me from living and experiencing our fullest potential. It’s a cause-and-effect relationship.
Cause and Effect
When we’re at cause in our life, cause equal results. Effect equals reasons and excuses.
Whenever you have excuses, you’re living in “effect”. You have absolutely positively no control over what happens in your life or anything that goes on in your life. You view everything as everyone else’s fault. It’s really hard to do anything about your life when you’re living in “effect”.
However, when you live your life at “cause”, and you look at how you are the cause of everything that is going on in your life, then you have full control over shifting what’s going on. Shifting the situation. Shifting your state. Shifting whatever isn’t serving you.
Filling That Backpack
Throughout my life, in the past, when I was living in the state of “effect”, I would pick up lots of “rocks” (rocks being situations and emotions) that didn’t serve me and store them in my backpack. Then I’d zip it up and go about my day. Every single time.
But, there came a day when that backpack was really heavy and uncomfortable. My backpack was no longer serving me. It was uncomfortable to sleep in and really uncomfortable to walk through life with. I had decades and decades of rocks shoved in it. Some were large and some were small. But they all were heavy.
My backpack could hold an infinite capacity. But, I could not carry an infinite amount of weight. For me that weight became overbearing. It became so uncomfortable that I could no longer function properly.
The Solution
So what does all of this rock and backpack talk have to do with entrepreneurship? Well, it has everything to do with everything in your life. How you show up now is because of how you showed up in the past.