Finding What is Needed on the Path
I am exploring finding what is needed on my path. Just because I know the path does not mean I am completely enlightened.
I know where I desire to take my life. When it comes to who I am and who I desire to be, I am completely aware of both locations and the complexities of building the bridge between them.
So here I am, more than 7 months into writing full-time, and I am still trying to figure out how to make the most of my work. How do I better promote myself, market myself, and increase my sales?
Further, I have begun recording audiobooks for other authors, plus my own books. I would also like to figure out how to take my mindfulness/awareness practice to the next step and start public speaking on this topic. It is my belief that this could help people with what they most desire to become.
These are big scary steps to take. Doing this can and will propel me into another life. I have no idea what that will look like, but at the same time, I am all excited to find out.
The thing is, I don’t know how to move forward. What do I do next?
Getting unstuck
I know that on my own I am stuck. Well, ok, not exactly stuck, but instead of swimming in water this is kind of like swimming in slime. Still able to swim, but you don’t move half as fast.
I have reached the point where I believe I am going to need assistance. No, this is not counter to practicing mindfulness, because to get somewhere I have never been before it’s helpful to get assistance. This may be what is needed to move forward.
When you do not know what the next step looks like, it’s time to admit you need help. Depending on where you are in life and what you are doing, this help can take many different forms. It might just require finding a book or online info. Perhaps you need a therapist to work out trauma. You may need a coach, business consultant, or some other form of expert to help you.
That’s where I am at. I have reached a point where I cannot go it alone, so the time has come to get help.
Asking for what is needed can be difficult
I know a lot of people who hate having to ask for help in any way. They feel that when they ask for help they are making themselves vulnerable, are imposing on others in an unpleasant way, being a burden, admitting defeat, or some unpleasant combo of all of these.
This is a familiar feeling for me, too. In particular when I’m over here preaching the gospel of mindfulness and being aware of the self. It ends up feeling like asking for help is somehow hypocritical.
It’s not. In fact, it’s exactly the opposite. While mindfulness does make you aware of your thoughts, feelings, and actions, thus opening you to influencing and controlling them more thoroughly, it doesn’t open some faucet of flowing information. Knowing yourself better allows you to take the wheel from your subconscious. When you do that, you also can better see where you need to learn things.
Education is not in any way, shape, or form, restricted to schooling. Not even a little bit. Education is a life-long activity, and you are constantly growing, evolving, changing, and LEARNING.
One of the most incredible things about being human is our near-infinite capacity to learn. This is why over the course of fewer than 100 years civilization has connected across the globe instantaneously, broken the speed of sound, broken the bonds of the atmosphere, and developed essential, incredible tools to keep growing.
This changes many things. For some, that’s terrifying. Change is unknown and scary. Being mindful can help lessen the fear. Mindfulness can help you see change as opportunity rather than calamity, potential instead of problem.
Being mindful, I know there are lots of things I do not know. To get somewhere I have not been before I might need to ask for help.
That knock on the door is opportunity
Recently I have begun to give LinkedIn more attention. As such, someone connected with me who works with an agency that can offer me help for what is needed to take my brand to the next level.
Though I have not been referring to it as such, in truth I AM a business. Being a writer/editor/podcaster/audiobook voice actor may appear to be a random amalgam of talents. However, it can also be a business model.
That may very well be the next step I need to take. To get where I really desire to go, I need to leverage my abilities and keep doing the things I am doing. But I also need to figure out how to expand if I am going to truly make my living this way.
So here I have this opportunity. I have found someone who can coach me through better marketing using tools I already have, better self-promotion, and scaling up (since I know one of the problems I have is that I can see here and there, but the in-between is cloudy and unknown).
This is scary for several reasons. First, I have to put trust in this unknown to help me. Second, it’s going to cost money I need to figure out how to find. Third, this growth could potentially change my life significantly.
Am I ready?
There are many things I am very content with in my life. Yet I also know that to go where I truly desire to, I need to leave the comfort zone behind.
This is an opportunity, and the timing is serendipitous. I know my path, and this step is probably what is needed to be taken to advance.
Kick uncertainty in the ass
Rather than viewing this as leaving my comfort zone, perhaps I should put this into Star Trek context. It is time to leave behind Federation space (the comfort zone) and cross the Neutral Zone into the unknown.
That’s what this opportunity is. The Neutral Zone. That’s because it is a true learning opportunity that reasonably costs me very little but has the potential to earn me far, far more than I have thus far. I am not a one-trick pony, but the how of marketing the brand that is me requires action I have never taken before.
I am uncertain as all get-out about this. Will this be a waste of time and money? Or is this the knock on my door I would be an idiot not to answer? I know my mindset, my own headspace, and I know that I really could use some help at this point.
This is all on me. So I need to take a deep breath, kick uncertainty in the ass, and determine the best way to take this step forward. I know that this may well be what is needed for my path. I am excited and scared, but more excited because I know I am looking at a means to the end I desire.
How do you find what is needed for you along your chosen paths?
This is the four-hundred and eighth entry in my series. These weekly posts are ideas for, and my personal experiences with, walking along the path of life to consciously create reality. I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world along the way. I also desire to empower myself and my readers with conscious reality creation.
Thank you for joining me. Feel free to re-blog and share this.
The first year of Pathwalking, including some expanded ideas, is available here. My additional writing works, both fiction and non-fiction, are available here.
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