Once upon a time*… there was a passionate you!

Alenka Lena Klopčič

Do you have a problem making decisions? If yes, then I warmly invite you to continue reading…

If you want an extraordinary life, you need to take action, says the world-renowned success coach Tony Robbins (who, by the way, was born Mahavoric, so his parents are actually from neighboring Croatia). But this action is conditioned on first making a decision.

Decisions, actions, and --- the fear of failure
The reason why we are often unable to make decisions and to act (on whatever it might be) is because we are afraid to fail. But we are also afraid because we simply don’t make enough decisions. However, all action is fathered by decision. Of course powerful decisions are not always the right ones and the real decisions are not made when you just express your desire, but only when you cut off any possibility except the one to which you are committed, stresses Tony Robbins.

Instead of making more decisions (and gaining experience and knowledge, eventually mastering decision-making), we always want to gather more information, so that we can make (supposedly) ‘the right decision’ and avoid possible mistakes.

We should therefore – according to Tony – make decisions more often. The thing is that if we try to find out everything about an opportunity beforehand, if we try to be certain about it and only decide once we’ve collected all the possible information, the opportunity itself might get away from us.
And on the other hand, it is better to do something, to make a decision, even if it’s the wrong one, so that we can learn from it, take it as a (life) lesson and then change accordingly – learning from it in order to make a better decision next time. Because if we lack experience, we will never be confident, which means we will not stand firmly behind our decisions. Furthermore, we might start making (the wrong) decisions out of fear.

“A decision made of fear is usually the wrong decision.” - Tony Robbins

On the other hand, if we get comfortable with these processes, if we build up our decision-making muscles, we might even start to enjoy decision-making, Tony argues. This can definitely help us awaken our internal fire, the passionate version of ourselves. So yes, let’s take action!

Experiences, knowledge, and --- building up our stories!
As time passes, we build up life experiences – some good, some not so good. However, this is all knowledge. We should never disregard the knowledge (and experience) gained from our decision-making processes, but instead put it into action, as – according to Tony – this knowledge is not yet power – it is (only) potential power. Hence, let our learning, our knowledge lead us to action!

As another coach, entrepreneur and speaker Maya Comerota says, if we really want to be who we were born to be, we just need to live our story, so that we can support those around us whose experiences and struggles are similar to ours – by sharing them. Not only do we all have a great passion for sharing our story (to set ourselves free), we also have a very powerful reason why – to use our own situation and story to help others.

“Mommy, please tell me a story.”
There is a reason why we are here --- and that is to tell our story, says Maya, while Rachel Naomi Remen, a cancer physician and master storyteller, notes in one of her stories (in her beautiful book Kitchen Table Wisdom) that we are here to experience wisdom and love. And after all – didn’t we all (or at least most of us ☺) love to listen to stories as kids? Stories that often ended with something like “and they all lived happily ever after”.

Coming back to Rachel’s Kitchen Table Wisdom; Rachel mentions more than once the concept of ‘wholeness in life’. At the end of the day, this is probably something we are all searching for, just that we call it happiness. And a lot of people condition their happiness on success (in the western world, this usually relates to financial success). But at the same time, we are – as Tony puts it – afraid of making decisions because we always want to be absolutely sure about everything, even to the point of perfectionism. But perfection is just an idea, although many people have made it their life goal, Rachel reminds us.

We should absolutely bear this in mind when the next opportunity comes around. Because it could be an opportunity to awaken the passionate you! And if you’re still not sure about it, you can simply reach out. ☺

"Wholeness lies beyond perfection. Perfection is just an idea. For many experts and many of us, it has become a life goal. The pursuit of perfection is actually dangerous to health. Type A personalities who see perfection as a lifestyle are prone to heart disease. Perfection can break your heart, as well as all the hearts around you. (…) The pursuit of perfection has become one of the major addictions in our time. Fortunately, she is trained. No one is born a perfectionist, so it is possible to heal. Before I began my recovery, I felt that just like everyone else, I wasn't living up to expectations and that what I was and what I was doing was never good enough. I judged life itself. Perfectionism is the belief that life is messed up. (…) Few perfectionists recognize the difference between love and praise. The pursuit of perfection is so prevalent in our culture that we had to invent a new word for love. 'Unconditional love', we say, although love is always unconditional. Everything else is just praise." - Rachel Naomi Remen.

*I wrote this blog after an inspiring morning run (while listening to speeches by Tony Robbins and Maya Comerota). The path took me from the charming Bavarian town of Fussen to the Neuschwanstein Castle – the inspiration for Disney’s Cinderella castle.