When you can’t answer an important email because your phone is ringing off the hook.
When you tried to deliver an important presentation but your team didn’t deliver the material.
When your wife is upset with you for staying back to work on a proposal.
When you left your stakeholders disgruntled and disenchanted when you made that ill informed decision.
When you won the contract but you terminally destroyed the relationship with your longest serving client.
When you settled on a property and you signed away to thirty five years of mortgage slavery.
When you watch your childhood best friend get married because you failed to tell her that you loved her for eighteen years.
We have all experienced one of the above stories and have felt the tremendous pain and inner conflict that arises within ourselves. And, all too often than not, we fail to pinpoint the sole reason why we are put into these situations.
Is it a test?
Is it for a greater purpose?
Is it part of becoming the person the world aspires for us to be?
Ultimately, we are the problem. We fail to prioritise our daily tasks. We fail to engage our stakeholders correctly. We fail to express our feelings at the risk of offending those around us. We fail to set our goals correctly. We fail to be authentic. We fail to tell our soul mates that we love them. We fail to be congruent. We fail to take risks. We fail to be the hunter and gatherer that is so embedded within our genetic makeup. In fact, we fail to recognise that we are the problem.
The upside is that we often fail to recognise that we are the solution. We are the problem and that we are the solution.
So next time you are confronted by conflict, miscommunication, inner feelings of concern, love, hate and anger; what are you going to do?
Are you going to act immediately?
Are you going to step back and evaluate the situation?
Are you going to think of how this impacts your greater goals or purpose?
Or, are you going to continue on maintaining your personal status quo and experience another similar event of disenchantment once again?
Are you going to be the problem? Or are you going to be the solution?
Be remarkable. Be congruent. Embrace it.