Have you listened to Michelle Obama’s book on Audible – she reads it herself – it’s lovely. It’s also ridiculously inspiring and I could write 17 blog posts about it already… And, for today, we will dig into just this one idea.
The Swerve
The idea that people can have a totally normal, predictable, great, happy, predictable life out ahead of them… and then go and do something that doesn’t make sense.
WHAT IS THE PRE-MED GRAD DOING BECOMING A MASCOT?
What might people think?
- They are ruining their life.
- They’re setting themselves back.
- What will people think?
- Their parents must be so embarrassed…
And LOADS of other thoughts about that person’s CHOICE.
Do you get that though? The Swerve is the option to change your own damn mind – No. Matter. What.
I swerve all the time. Every single time I’ve been in a job where I could see the whole path I swerve right on out of there because I have the realization that “I don’t want that life.”
Where are you right now? When you look ahead, do you see the future? Do you like it? Is it a life you want to get out of bed for? Are you excited to get out of bed for it? The other people who are doing it, do you like their lives?
You don’t have to. You don’t have to like where you are – even if you paid $250,000 to train yourself to get there. You don’t have to stay in a job just because you’ve been in a job.
You can NOT decide what your future looks like by looking backwards at your life.
If we did that, imagine what would have NEVER happened?!
- Weight loss would never be possible, I never did it before, so how could it happen now?
- Toddlers would not learn to walk, they are made for crawling only.
- Rudy should NEVER have played football (you know that movie?).
The only reason anything different ever happens is when we build more belief about what is possible than we have commitment to stay the same.
That’s what stands between the norm and the swerve. And hey, we don’t all have to swerve – some of us got it right all along and hats off to you folks! You got everywhere faster!
…but if you need to swerve, I see you, it’s possible, people will surely have thoughts and feelings about your choice, and get on with your bad self. You can do it.
