Counting Myself In

I always was a class monitor in my school and one of my favorite activities as a monitor was to count the number of students in the class before and after the break.  As I reported those numbers, I would always be wrong or rather, short by 1 student.  And that would be me.  I would not count myself in.

Many moons later (last week to be precise) I was doing some work where I had to map people to some mentors and I was doubling up as a mentor myself in that activity.  As I went around counting numbers again, I realized while I had mapped people to mentors, I forgot to count myself in the list once again.

Isn’t that ironical how we tend to, numerous times, in our lives also forget to ‘Count ourselves’ in the game of life? We hear stories of women who forget to count their dreams in the pursuit to please  society around them or of men who forget to live their lives because they have to ensure the hygiene check boxes are ticked for their families all the time.  In my numerous interactions with people around, I typically come across two different mindsets that play up in these situations:

1.   Mindset #1: I don’t know how to count myself in:  People lose track of their dreams, hopes, aspirations while flowing in their life to the extent of sometimes being unconscious of their potential, their strengths, the wisdom and the courage that they possess.  Its only when they step back, become aware of their thoughts, beliefs and patterns, acknowledge that something needs to change that the real process of evolution begins.  The key to deal with this mindset is in awareness, acknowledgment and taking action. 

2.    Mindset #2: Counting myself in means I am a part of the story, so I need to act therefore and, all my life, so far, I have stayed away from taking accountability for myself:  I meet this set all the time.  The ones brimming with reasons why they should put everyone else above them.  Change is the most difficult part to accept and most of us are comfortable living with patterns that have been built over time.  Breaking those patterns and the subsequent evolution means going through the pain, the sacrifices, losing some people that are not used to seeing the empowered you and most of us are scared of such outcomes.  Such processes manifest in words like, I don’t have enough time, my surroundings are not conducive, I don’t have enough energy or money etc etc. While all of this may be true as well, think about it, how are these reasons stopping you from living your best life?  A life that has some purpose attached to it, a life that is built on the gifts that you have. 

Having met countless men and women who have traversed this path of inner evolution, I can safely say that they have all broken certain patterns to count themselves in.  Here are some of the rituals that go into breaking those patterns:

-       Clean your own mirrors – They accept that the change begins within them.  You can’t slay the demons outside and feed the ones within hoping that everything will be sorted.  The first step in counting yourself in is to acknowledge the demons within and then to face them.  Sort yourself out first and the world around you will sort itself automatically.

-      Believe that you matter above everyone else -  Resourceful people believe that they are the architects of their own life and therefore responsible for everything that happens to them.  There is a saying that if there is no time for self-care, everything else around you will collapse if you collapse someday.  And if you think, nothing will collapse, you know the reason why you should care for yourself all the more today!

-       Take action – Keep all excuses, judgement and unnecessary logic aside.  Counting yourself in means that you take action at whatever cost it takes.  One of my mentors taught me this: your mind has an uncanny ability to come up with hundred perfect reasons why something will not work for you or why you shouldn’t take the difficult yet beautiful path of change.  Learning how to dissociate with your mind and not feeding logic and arguments to it all the time is the name of the game.  We had a wonderful participant in our workshop few weeks ago who decided to show up and be there.  She said that all she had to do was ask her husband to take care of the child while she was away.  She never did that in the past as she thought every other priority takes over her own priorities in life.  For that one day, she chose herself and her dreams and she gathered support around her to make that happen.  When you know that self-care is important, taking action becomes easier, the trick is to know what needs to change and actually changing it by not allowing excuses and judgement to play a spoilsport.

-     Do not put a timeline for your dreams.  We all dream of something that is always in future.  That vacation with family, starting a new venture, quitting an unfulfilling job and pursuing a hobby.  Why not start acting on it now instead of putting it out in future?  If your loans and EMIs won’t allow you to quit your job right now, can you start working towards saving and repaying your loans starting now so that you are able to start the venture of your dreams in next few years.  Or better still, can you acknowledge the fear of not being able to take that big leap in your life right now, facing it heads on and setting an intention to deal with it today.  Resourceful people do set these intentions every day and live their lives in accordance with their purpose and dreams. 

One of my personal learning from many mentors, gurus and successful people that I have had the fortune of meeting in my life has been the discipline which they have to make themselves count in life.  There surely will be constraints, there will be all sorts of people who will try to dim your light, there will be situations that will deflate your energies.  Eventually, what matters is how committed are you to yourself and your process of growth.  When the ‘Why’ of your life is clear, ‘How’ will figure itself out on its own. Count yourself in and shine in your own light!