{"id":13152,"date":"2020-05-25T15:03:24","date_gmt":"2020-05-25T15:03:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/948294437a.nxcli.io\/?p=13152"},"modified":"2020-05-25T15:03:24","modified_gmt":"2020-05-25T15:03:24","slug":"finding-your-mojo-in-the-midst-of-a-pandemic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alpsleadership.com\/index.php\/2020\/05\/25\/finding-your-mojo-in-the-midst-of-a-pandemic\/","title":{"rendered":"Finding Your MoJo In the Midst of a Pandemic"},"content":{"rendered":"
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For many, COVID-19 has been excruciating, even deadly. While it has caused most people to stay away from other people and shelter in their homes, it has forced others to directly engage with those who need care \u2013 risking their own health and safety to do so. Some help others because it their job \u2013 but most do so out of a sense of duty. You find a noble sense of purpose when you choose to serve the needs of others by placing their interests above yours. What is it that drives people to be courageous and act so valiantly?<\/p>\n

The answer isn\u2019t necessarily simple, but there is a profound sense of joy you experience when you accomplish things that are meaningful. It may be that the satisfaction you experience from accomplishing such things is our greatest source of joy. There are many things that entertain us, please us or distract us from our necessary routines that seem to make us happy, but none compare to the moments of overwhelming joy you experience when you accomplish something significant.<\/p>\n

It begs the question, what makes things meaningful or significant?<\/p>\n

To some extent, you might look externally to the reaction or feedback from others. As a child you likely learned the value of pleasing others. Initially such behavior is instinctive and served as a mechanism for basic survival. When you were a helpless newborn, you relied on others to feed and protect you, and pleasing those who could was how you ensured that they did. And as you developed some basic emotional intelligence, you probably discovered that pleasing others would not only get you what you needed \u2013 it could also get you what you desired.<\/p>\n

One way you can determine what is meaningful to you is to look to what is significant to others. You can find useful guidance in the validation you receive.<\/p>\n

This is likely how you were educated. You were rewarded for pleasing your teachers by demonstrating that you learned what they were tasked to teach. Value was placed on these achievements in the form of grades and other rewards.<\/p>\n

You can also determine what is meaningful without relying on the approval of others. Rather than achieving what others would have you do, you can be guided by an internal sense of what matters. You can be guided by your values to connect to a sense of purpose. You can find value and deep satisfaction in what you accomplish by being conscientious in what you do. We all have a source of inner guidance that sorts out what feels right and what feels wrong. These feelings that express your values are the source of your beliefs, and your beliefs are the source of how you make meaning of things. More accurately, it is how your mind makes meaning from what you experience around you.<\/p>\n

How you experience life is less about the circumstances you find yourself forced to deal with \u2013 and mostly about how you interpret them.<\/h3>\n

Your mind is a powerful meaning-making machine that processes what your senses feed it. You take in whatever you can perceive about the world around you as a matter of fact \u2014noticing sounds, smells, tastes, physical sensations and what your eyes can see \u2014and this becomes your sense of reality. We are all fooled by our senses now and again \u2013 mistaking something you have imaged for something actually present. And we easily miss things that are right in front of our eyes.<\/p>\n

Your personal reality is a matter of perception. \u00a0What you believe actually defines what you experience.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Your beliefs don\u2019t necessarily change your surroundings, but they absolutely determine how you feel, how you think and how you act in the face of the world around you. What you might see as an obstacle or impediment to reaching your objectives\u2013 someone might see as a useful resource for attaining theirs. One person\u2019s stumbling blocks are another person\u2019s stepping stones.<\/p>\n

I was relatively certain that people cannot move mountains. \u00a0We may be able to effectively destroy them \u2013 but the notion of moving mountains is generally used as proof that some things are not humanly possible.<\/p>\n

Over the course of millennia, nature has quite ably moved mountains \u2013 as the crust of the earth has floated about atop its churning mantle and molten core. Nature is also quite adept at removing mountains – turning them into stones, pebbles, sand and dust through erosion caused by constant freezing and thawing and circulating winds. Other mountains have disappeared under the oceans or have even been swallowed-up by shifting tectonic plates.<\/p>\n

Most of my life I have had a basic understanding of physical geology, enough at least to believe that you and I cannot physically move mountains. And somehow, I learned that I can \u2013 and I did.<\/p>\n

For years I used the image of the Matterhorn in the heart of the Swiss Alps as the mascot of my company, ALPS Leadership. I had never actually seen the mountain with my own eyes \u2013 but had a clear image of her majestic contours and brilliant glaciers etched in my mind. Then, having been encouraged by someone to experience the mountain with my own senses, I finally made it happen. I took a detour from a speaking tour in the UK \u2013 and traveled to Zermatt, Switzerland and placed my feet on the base of the mountain \u2013 and then traveled be at eye-level with her peak.<\/p>\n

I had moved the mountain from a place in my mind \u2013 to a place right in front of me.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Moving mountains is a metaphor for removing the obstacles that prevent you from accomplishing the things that matter most – and moving yourself to where you want and need to be.<\/p>\n

Moving mountains is a perception thing. Whether you believe you can or you believe you cannot \u2013 you are right. It comes down to what you what moving a mountain means to you. If you choose to believe that in order to move a mountain you must cause it to physically change its physical location \u2013 then I am still fairly confident that will not happen. So, the question is, how do your beliefs hold you back from accomplishing what matters most?<\/p>\n

There are people I know and love who are among those who have jumped into the fray \u2013 to treat, comfort and care for patients with COVID-19. They have seen enormous suffering and too much death. And at the same time they have seen hope, the depth of real humanity and have experienced moments of overwhelming joy \u2013 in the meaningful and significant things that can and must be accomplished in times of extreme need such as we have been forced to live through.<\/p>\n

No one will ever rightfully describe these as happy times. Surely no one will ever wish for them again.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But there is some comfort in knowing that when called upon, there are people amongst us to dig deep to connect with a duty to a noble purpose, who find the grit that enables them to get comfortable with being uncomfortable and become the heroes and leaders we need.<\/p>\n

I believe it is this MoJo \u2013 the moments of overwhelming joy <\/em>that truly allows us to bring out the best in ourselves \u2013 and realize the best in all of us.<\/p>\n

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