On Your Mark...Get Set...GO!

All of you runners know the meaning of this very familiar phase “On Your Mark”, in other words “Get Into Position.” This week’s theme is positioning oneself for success. This is a year of getting ready and getting prepared for launch. Are you ready? Stop waiting to dot every I and, cross every T before you make your move. In other words, listen to the famous saying “don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.”

Let’s get started with good, and advance toward better and ultimately advance to giving our personal best. Perfection is overrated. It’s almost like Nirvana, we’ve heard that it exists but many of us have never achieved it, and that’s okay. It’s okay because our mission is beyond ourselves, and our charge at this moment in time is to find meaning in life. Finding this meaning is prescriptive to finding happiness. Once living a life of meaning is achieved, we can then move beyond happiness; stronger, smarter, and wiser because we now know that it was never about happiness in the first place.

I recently heard a Ted Talk by Emily Esfahani-Smith who presented to us, “the four pillars of finding meaning”. These pillars included

1) Belonging

2) Purpose,

3) Transcendence

4) Storytelling

As I understand it, belonging is about self-love and love of others. Purpose is how I show that love of self and others through the life I lead and the choices I make. Transcendence is my personal journey toward establishing faith and finding the God of my understanding to help me connect to a higher reality. Lastly, storytelling is the language I use when I talk to myself, about myself. Am I building me up or breaking me down? Words matter and the words that I say to myself matter most.

Esfahani-Smith’s pillars of meaning are one way to get “on your mark.” Once you have mastered searching for and finding the meaning of life, your life, then and only then will you be ready for the race. Don’t worry about the hurdles. Don’t look to your left or your right. It’s all about you now and the energy that you will expend to meet your goals. The preparation that you have made has helped you “get set” for this defining moment. Then, you will hear in a still small voice or an amazingly loud shout, the words that you have been waiting to hear….GO. Go and don’t stop, find where you belong. Identify your purpose. Seek and find transcendence. Then as the sun rises each morning and you get on your mark again for the new day, always, always, remember to tell yourself, that you are more than enough. See you at the finish line just across from the winner’s circle.