This picture was taken last Thursday in Sacramento, California, where I took part in a panel of experts on coaching. I was the Life Coach, while there were others representing Leadership, Executive, and Career Coaching. The program was titled “Demystifying Career, Executive, Life, and Leadership Coaching.” It was well done and a lot of fun.
What distinguishes life coaching from these other forms of coaching is pretty obvious – it’s about your LIFE, the whole kit and caboodle – while the other forms are more focused in a particular arena. From my perspective, to be really effective, you’ve got to look at the whole person, not just one aspect. It’s not unlike medicine – the best doctors treat the whole person, not just a symptom or problem.
At the event I shared that as a Spiritual Life Coach and “A Partner for your Soul’s Purpose,” I’m interested in the deepest aspects of living: one’s core truth, mission, and purpose. My particular treatment and prescription is the Major Good Mojo Coaching Program and System. Over the past 13 newsletters, I’ve outlined step-by-step the entire 10-step system.
While the Major Good Mojo System does teach specific tools and processes, these are conduits for the expression of your own UNIQUE divinity. It’s through these tools that you discover YOUR truth, find YOUR way, and embrace your total individuality and uniqueness.
In this blog I emphasize the power of your uniqueness and the importance of tapping into that truth, following wherever it may lead. Being able to achieve this skillfully is one of the biggest benefits and outcomes of the Major Good Mojo System.
Read on and enjoy!
Finding Your Own Unique Way – Your Hero’s Journey!
“You enter the forest at the darkest point, where there is no path. Where there is a way or path, it is someone else’s path. You are not on your own path. If you follow someone else’s way, you are not going to realize your potential.”
― Joseph Campbell, The Hero’s Journey: Joseph Campbell on His Life & Work
The Hero’s Journey is your own personal journey of self-discovery, knowledge, growth, and transformation. It’s your personal exploration of the mystery of life, of your life, of coming to know more and more who and what you really are.
It’s very important to know there are lots of ways to engage this journey. I’ve enjoyed many personal growth and transformational programs, investing far more than $100K in my own transformation, not to mention significant amounts of time and energy. And every little bit of it has been absolutely worth it. But there is one enormous thing I have learned, and I want you to know: ultimately they all lead to the same place – back to YOU. So don’t worry about taking “the right” pathway. You cannot get lost. It’s more important to just get started, to get on the path. All of the pathways are essentially facilitating the same thing in different ways – self-knowledge. This entails knowing yourself at deeper and deeper and more powerful levels.
I’d like you to consider that your life is like a beautiful mosaic that you create piece by piece over time; you don’t know exactly what the final picture will look like. But you do know that by authentically selecting and engaging each piece, as each piece comes together, you’ll end up with your own unique, beautiful and satisfying work of art. This is creating your own path, true to the quote by Joseph Campbell.
We tend to look at life in a linear fashion; this follows this, then this follows that, and so on. Think of going to school: there’s kindergarten through 12th grade; then college; then a job; then marriage; then kids, etc. It’s all very logical and linear and can become limiting if that is your only view of life.
Looking at your life like a mosaic, or perhaps as a patchwork quilt, is a much broader view that allows a lot more freedom and creativity. It allows each piece to stand on its own – nothing necessarily has to precede it or follow it. Then other pieces, (many other pieces, in fact), can build off of it and go in multiple directions, all within the context of the overall mosaic of your life. Sometimes you can’t see the role a particular piece will play until more of the mosaic is built. As that larger picture comes into view those previously strange pieces can suddenly make sense.
A criticism of modern spirituality is that we are approaching wisdom traditions like a cafeteria buffet – taking only what we want and leaving the rest – thereby disrespecting those traditions and decimating their paths. There certainly can be some misunderstanding generated when rituals or practices are taken out of context. Examples might be, “because I do yoga I understand the path of the Indian Yogi,” or “because I participated in a sweat lodge, I understand Native American Spirituality.” Yoga postures and the sweat lodge experience are small parts of much, much larger and rich philosophies, practices, and approaches to life.
However, if you look historically at how religions, traditions, and movements have formed and begun, the good, powerful and lasting ones frequently take the best of what is available in their time and then add their own new perspectives and approaches. This actually is an aspect of evolution; we take the best of what is available, blend things together in new ways, and thereby make them even better. This is how I created the 10-Step Major Good Mojo System. I put together the best tools and processes for powerful living I had found (appropriately licensed and trained to do so, not just ripping things off) into a one-of-a-kind unique system that produces results for my clients. This is a path that helps you enter the forest at the darkest point and CREATE YOUR OWN PATH.
This is how I encourage you to create and live your life. Make it your own. Explore, have fun, allow yourself not to know, allow the unfolding of your life experience and see what it wants to become. This is a practice of discovery as you build your own life’s mosaic.
To develop the skills that will help you create and discover your own unique path I invite you to engage the The Major Good Mojo Coaching System.
Your Major Good Mojo Assignment:
Collect a pile of magazines that you don’t mind cutting up, and a large cork board and push pins from an office store. Flip through the magazines, stopping when a picture resonates with you. Is it a shot of mountain climbing? Is it a teacher in front of a group of students? Is it of a veterinary clinic? Visual images can stir us in unique ways to help us identify deep longings. These examples may show you a longing for adventure, for a new career as a teacher, or to work with animals.
At any age, male or female, this technique can help you get in touch with your passions, your dreams, and your deepest desires. To find your way and make your own path!
Congratulations – you are one step closer to Major Good Mojo!
