Lately, I’ve been thinking about how I can show up for others, personally and professionally. When times get difficult, why do I want to run when I know how I can contribute? When someone I care about meets their max stress level, would I face my fear and show up to an opportunity to remember I can still do something? What if the one thing I could do is the one thing I didn’t want to? This line of questions is where the work is beginning for me.

First Response

How will I choose to respond to help in a way that doesn’t feel like I’m being taken advantage of?

Thanks to the book, “The Four Agreements,” I feel this is the perfect opportunity to apply the second of the four, “Don’t Take Anything Personally.”

“Nothing other people do is because of you. It is because of themselves. All people live in their own dream, in their own mind; they are in a completely different world from the one we live in. When we take something personally, we make the assumption that they know what is in our world, and we try to impose our world on their world.

 Even when a situation seems so personal, even if others insult you directly, it has nothing to do with you. What they say, what they do, and the opinions they give are according to the agreements they have in their own minds. Their point of view comes from all the programming they received during domestication.” – Don Miguel Ruiz

Taking Action

Act on The Common Denominator of Success, I’d learned of last year.

“The common denominator of success — the secret of success of every man who has ever been successful — lies in the fact that he formed the habit of doing things that failures don’t like to do.”

In this 1940 speech, Albert E.N. Gray goes to say that “The things that failures don’t like to do are the very things that you and I and other human beings, including successful men, naturally don’t like to do. In other words, we’ve got to realize right from the start that success is something which is achieved by the minority of men and is therefore unnatural and not to be achieved by following our natural likes and dislikes nor by being guided by our natural preferences and prejudices.”

Best I Can Do

Whether it’s doing my best, not taking things personally, accepting people as they are, or having some give-and-take, I can contribute to this now. If the work and the effort lie in getting back to the baseline of normalcy, acting on the common denominator of success can set me apart. Form the habit of doing to help the situation.

“Just do your best- in any circumstance in your life. It doesn’t matter if you are sick or tired, if you always do your best there is no way you can judge yourself. And if you don’t judge yourself there is no way you are going to suffer from guilt, blame, and self-punishment. By always doing your best, you will break a big spell that you have been under. “– Don Miguel Ruiz

What actions I take going forward to accomplish the common good serving people and helping each other, lifting each other, is where I’m focused. The question may be hard, the actions may be difficult, but why can’t I try? Just focus on what you can do and show up.

“Action isn’t something that comes after figuring things out. Action is a way of figuring things out. So be clear and take the next step. Or be confused and take the next step.”-The Art of Taking Action by Gregg Kreck

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