The Visual8

Before our hero became a hero, she lived in an ordinary world.

She fell into a routine until something happened. That inciting incident forced a journey into the unknown. With each passing episode, she overcame obstacle after obstacle. Until she faced the most difficult challenge of her life.

Joseph Campbell’s work, The Hero With a Thousand Faces (1949), taught us that in many cultures, across time, we create and we crave the hero’s tale.

We identify with the hero, because she is not special. She was not from nobility. Nor did she display extraordinary talents.

When she digs deep within herself to overcome danger, we lean in. We want this for ourselves.

Interestingly, the Hero’s Journey begins with the protagonist ignoring the Call.

Until she or he cannot ignore it any longer.

For example, Luke Skywalker declined the summons until he returned to see the smoldering ruins of Uncle Owen’s and Aunt’s Beru’s farm. Then he followed Obi-wan Kenobi into deep space, far from home.

Some of us have have no choice. When tornadoes or flash floods tear apart our homes, we must rise to the occasion.

However, most of us will not face this physical calamity.

Instead we wrestle with the mental and emotional challenges of our own choosing.

Consider our day-to-day . We may drive carpool, fight traffic, argue with a spouse, or dread the end-of-year report. We are not conscious of these as challenges. They are simply how it is.

We shrink into the familiar because it is known. And when the moment comes that we want something different, we catastrophize the challenges of the unknown. It’s what keeps us in place.

Sometimes the desire to become overtake the uncertainty of becoming.

In such situations, we must evaluate both sides of the challenge coin. We need to decide whether to stay or to go based on the challenge each present.

Ask yourself these questions at the moment this desire surges:

1. What challenges do we take on in the new state of being?

Will this effort leverage existing strengths or build new ones?

How will you become more reliant on yourself or more dependent on others?

Does this new state require investment, anticipate loss, or stretch you in a financial way?

What new risks are there?

How does your list of stakeholders change?

2. What challenges do we give up in the current state of being?

What is no longer our business?

What can we offload to others?

How much new time is gained?

What rewards do we lose in abandoning these original challenges?

3. What challenges do we face in letting go?

What fears are there for the new state?

What traits do we need to put aside because they are no longer useful?

Who will we no longer be with?

What comforts do we need to put away?

4. What challenges do accept in our relationships (with ourselves, with our loved ones, with our work)?

What expectations and agreements need to change?

What new vocabulary is required?

What emotional discomfort might we encounter and how might we address them in our relationships?

Sitting with those answers crystallizes what your step should be.

If you believe that it is within our nature to avoid challenges, think again.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi drew our attention to the optimal state called Flow. In that seminal work, he explained a curve where skill meets difficulty. We prefer to be slightly more challenged than our current skill level.

In other words, we find satisfaction in incremental challenges which develop our skills.

Flow Research Collective defines it as 4% more challenging.

This need for challenge puts the game controller in our hands. It laces up our running shoes for the race. It has us returning the piano to play the scales despite the tedium and off-key fingering.

When we want accomplishment, we endure the defeats, the setbacks, and the long hours.

To those of you who are relentlessly minimizing challenges, you are playing it too safe.

“A ship is safe in harbor, but that is not what ships are built for”. — John Shedd, Salt from My Attic (1928)

“It is not what happens to us that defines us, it’s how we react to what happens to us.” — Epictetus, Greek Stoic philosopher (attributed)

When we hide in the basement, we limit our full expression of who we deserve to become. We fail to experience the vibrancy of what is possible for ourselves.

Why not choose differently?

“…to skid into the grave sideways, thoroughly used up, worn out, and loudly proclaiming, ‘Wow! What a ride!’” –Hunter S. Thompson (attributed)

The point is to make the unconscious, conscious.

When we let the program dominate, we stagnate.

There is no change, because there are no new challenges. We are doomed to repeat this year as we’ve done the last ten. Or last twenty.

To move ahead, we must take stock of what we want and the challenges that come with what we want.

We must re-see the challenges of the here and now.

It is only then can we intentionally move from the AS IS state, to the TO BE state.

Note that this is an evergreen process.

In our twenties, what we choose to take on may seem grand. But in comparison to what we want in our thirties, not so.

Articulating challenges ahead prepares us to be ready for tomorrow.

Revisiting challenges routinely prepares us to choose new ones and grow.

Anything short of that, lets the external world be in charge of our identity.

Don’t wait for the call from outside forces. It is best heard and answered from the inside.