One thing that became abundantly clear throughout the course of this challenge to learn, arrange, record and post a new song every day in November last year was the power of intention and goal setting. We so often go through our lives with an energy regulator, constantly metering our output out of a fear that we might run out. It sucks to run out of energy. It feels really bad to be laid low by a hard week or spreading ourselves too thin across too many commitments. But so often we don’t realize how much energy we really have to meet life as it comes. Sometimes in our focus on the burden of stuff we “have to do” we become blind to the huge reserves of power that are available to us when we really open up, accept the task at hand, and apply ourselves to it willfully. It is so easy to slip into a victim mentality as life seems to just keep piling up in front of us appearing fully out of our control. But we do have control! We CAN use our will to say YES to the life that IS instead of constantly comparing it to the life we wish we had instead. This simple shift can help us to access a huge abundance of energy. Setting goals and intentions can be a really tangible way to access this energy. When we open ourselves up to be pushed to our edges, those boundaries that looked so bleak, desolate, and scary up ahead are really spotted with oases of self realization, learning, and deepening purpose. Of course it’s not going to be a walk in the park, but the rewards are huge. This goal setting doesn’t even need to be about a big project you want to accomplish like our New Song November challenge, it can be a simple intention to not close down and get angry when your partner “says that thing they always say” or an intention to be more gracious and loving toward a coworker that is constantly on your nerves. This hidden power is simple to tap into. It’s as easy as willingly and powerfully accepting life as it is, and creatively applying ourselves to it. This opening also opens us to new capacities and reservoirs of energy we didn’t know were possible. The other option is to close down and not trust our power. It seems like the easier path because it allows us to draw in and protect instead of making ourselves vulnerable by stepping out. But in choosing this path we vastly limit ourselves.
In the case of day 2 of the NSN challenge, it had settled in from our experience with day 1’s Hey Jude, that it was all going to take waaaaaaay longer than we thought to meet our goal each day. Fear immediately crept up and we wondered if it was going to be too hard, take too long, etc. It would have been easy to slip into that state of disempowerment and defeat. But instead, as the song suggests, we jumped into the deep end and decided to go for it. “We’re far from the shallow now” …The shallows feel safe, but do we really want a shallow life people? Jump into the deep end with us!
Set an intention or goal for yourself today! Step into the edges of yourself and see how much energy you truly have. It probably won’t work out the way you expect and you may not even accomplish the exact goal you set out for, but if you stay open, the lessons and power you need will continue to open up inside of you.
