Changing Lanes

Has the year already started running away with you and you find yourself back in the same rut you were in last year with your New Year's resolutions and the hope they gave you now just a distant memory? Or perhaps you are trying really hard to achieve your goals but just not making the progress you'd like to make? If either (or both) of these statements is true for you, you may want to consider coming to one of the workshops or retreats I'll be facilitating in the next couple of months to help you shift gear and 'change lanes'.

Most people operate in either the slow or middle 'lanes' of the 'highway' that is life, choosing to be either the victim of life and blame other people and external circumstances for their suffering and miserable fate (the slow lane) or the ambitious achiever striving to succeed in life at all costs, which are usually their own peace of mind, happiness, health and good relationships with others (the middle lane). As a result of limitations in their vehicle, which is the equivalent of their mind set in our highway analogy, they are fast asleep or at best, only half awake, at the wheel and their subconscious 'blocks' keep arising to sabotage their progress and real success in life. Of course, these blocks manifest as difficult people and circumstances in a world that is apparently outside the person and so it appears to the person that these supposedly external things are the cause of their problems and therefore they are fully justified in blaming them rather than identifying the real cause of all the problems they are experiencing, and have ever experienced - false beliefs and the false perceptions they give rise to in their own minds.

To relate this back to our highway analogy, if you believe you are the human equivalent of a Volkswagen Beetle, then you are limited by your vehicle's design limitations to staying mostly in the slow lane of life, but will tend to blame the trucks and slow vehicles you constantly encounter in the slow lane for your slow progress and the diesel fumes that rush in through the air vents of the Beetle, when in reality, it's actually your choice of vehicle and your unwillingness to upgrade to a more modern, better designed and faster vehicle that are the real problems. 

If you believe you are a Citi Golf, you are able to drive in the second lane of the highway of life, but can't comfortably go more than about 140 km/hr and are always trying to go faster to get where you want to go more quickly, but your vehicle's limitations are forever limiting to your speed and what you think of as your progress, so you are in a continual state of frustration born out of unfulfilled desire and fear of not making it to your destination on time or at all. This usually leads to you revving the car continuously 'into the red' and trying to force your vehicle to go faster than its design limitations allow without properly servicing it in a desperate desire to go faster and arrive at your imagined utopian destination, which is always just over the horizon, a behaviour pattern that will eventually result in the vehicle breaking down and being stuck in the 'breakdown lane'. This will manifest in someone's life as a crisis of one kind or another - a financial melt down, serious disease or accident, break-up of a long-term relationship, addiction that becomes unmanageable or any of the other so-called 'disasters' that can and do happen to people, which are really blessings in disguise designed to help them to change lanes.

The only way to transcend the pitfalls of the slow and middle lanes of life and move into and stay in the 'fast lane' is to permanently upgrade your vehicle - your mind set - so that you can effortlessly cruise at a speed that anyone operating in the first or second lanes of life cannot believe is possible, let alone effortless. This lane is the equivalent of driving on the autobahn in Germany where there is no speed limit in a brand new Porsche at 250 km/hr and being in the 'zone' of effortless concentration- what is called 'effortless effort' in Zen- that allows one to enter the 'flow' that racing drivers and top performers in any field of endeavour all report experiencing when they are performing at their peak.

To enter and stay in the third lane of the highway of life, you must permanently upgrade the vehicle you use to drive through life and your skills as a driver, which are your mind and your mind set that is made up of your core beliefs and attitudes. And how do you do this? Continuing to have the same beliefs and adopt the same attitudes will clearly not work because, as Einstein said, "The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them." He also said that doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity.

Using Einstein's sage advice and the principles underlying the 'changing lanes' analogy, we can create a formula for transformation of your mind and the performance and results that inevitably stem from it, and state it in 4 simple steps:

  1. Be aware of the lane in which you are currently operating and the beliefs and attitudes that put, and keep, you in this lane;
  2. Decide to let go of the beliefs and attitudes that will forever limit you to your current lane;
  3. Take immediate and persistent action in support of your newly adopted beliefs and attitudes to reinforce their truth in 
      your own mind;
  4. Surrender all attachment to the outcome of your actions, trusting that because the actions arose from your true Self 
      and therefore, true beliefs about yourself and life, the outcome will be for the highest good of yourself and everyone else;

Most people don't move beyond step 1 because their ego, the false identity they have chosen to believe is who they really are, has suppressed their awareness of their own deep-seated limiting beliefs and attitudes in order to hold onto the false identity these beliefs support and remain stuck in whatever lane their ego feels comfortably protected in. Unless you are a spiritual master who has mastered the skill of self-awareness, and there are very, very few of those on the planet relative to the entire world population, you will need the help of someone who can be truly objective and detached about you to really 'see' your false self, because your ego is a master at hiding itself and deceiving you into believing it is really you. Ideally, this person should be a spiritual master with no ego attachment to you or your performance who operates in the fast lane himself / herself, but whomever you choose as a teacher, mentor or coach should, at the very least, be one lane ahead of you and shouldn't have any personal relationship with you so they can be objective and detached about you and your performance rather than having an ego investment in these themselves.

Books, talks, videos and information in whatever format it's packaged will only take you so far. If you really want to make real progress, which is achieved by upgrading your vehicle - your mind - and feeding it with better fuel - your beliefs and attitudes - rather than by trying to drive faster with the vehicle you have in the same lane, sooner or later, you'll have to find a good teacher / mentor / coach who will ruthlessly but compassionately help you to become aware of your ego's limitations and then hold you accountable for making decisions to let go of them as they arise as apparent obstacles on your path so you can ultimately transform your vehicle into one capable of operating sustainably in the fast lane.

How do you find someone like this and make sure they're the 'real deal' and not someone just out to take your money for telling you platitudes you already know and can read in any personal growth book, but can help you to become truly self-aware so you can really 'see' your ego at work and then hold you accountable for taking persistent action that is consistent with your intention to let go of the false, selfish, separate self or ego you have so carefully hidden from the light of true awareness for most of your life? The ego will try and convince you there's another way to transform yourself and your life in order to prevent itself from being exposed and ultimately, undone, but there really isn't. Without the help of a true teacher / mentor / coach, the task of undoing your ego to reveal your true Self will almost certainly prove to be too great a challenge and the ego with all its limitations and dysfunctions will remain firmly in place. The monastic and teacher / student traditions that are an enduring part of all religions and spiritual traditions are evidence of the truth of this and India, the country that has more monasteries (ashrams) and teachers (gurus) with their students than any other, has almost certainly produced the greatest number of spiritual masters of any country in recorded history.

"So where do I go from here?" you may be asking yourself. If you really want to upgrade your vehicle so you can enter and operate permanently in the third lane, I am available to personally mentor and coach a limited number of people - see my web site at www.successcoach.co.za for more information about me and what I do or simply reply to this email if you'd like to chat to me about setting up an in-person or telephone coaching session. If personal coaching is unaffordable for you, you could start off by listening to a series of seven 'Integral Interviews' with me that will show you how to create a truly balanced life lived in integrity to your true Self rather than your ego and lay a solid foundation for personal coaching / mentoring or any other spiritual practices you may undertake later. (You can listen to the first interview in the series at no charge by clicking here). Meditation is also something you should consider doing regularly if you don't already as it helps you transcend your ego and connects you with your higher Self. I have recorded a guided 'Forgiveness and Chakra Balancing' meditation that will help you to do this if you listen to it regularly.

If you live in Southern Africa and really want to transform your life, you should also consider coming to one of the retreats and / or workshops I'll be facilitating later this year, which include the 'White Lion Alchemy' retreat , the 'Dolphin Alchemy' retreat in Mozambique and the 'Freedom From Fear' Experience - click here to see a list of all the upcoming Lifebuilder events happening in the next few months.

If you live in Gauteng and can't afford to pay much to attend events right now, you can come to the next 'Breath of Life' workshop I facilitate in Victory Park, Johannesburg, and make whatever donation you can afford. The workshop will be followed by the screening of 'The Big Blue' movie about deep free diving, dolphins and their mystical connection with the main character in the movie, which you can also attend by making a small donation. 

I hope to meet you in person at one of our events soon. Keep shifting gears and changing lanes  in the mean time - I look forward to seeing you in the fast lane! 

Namaste (which means 'the Divine in me honours the Divine in you')

Jono

P.S. Why not join our Lifebuilder Community to get access to free e-books, audio recordings of talks I've given, videos and other great free resources to help you build your life on a solid foundation and connect with like-minded positive people? Click here to do that now.

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This article was written by Jonathan Quail, the founder and CEO of Lifebuild and an inspirational speaker, trainer, life coach, business values expert and entrepreneur. For more information about Jonathan, click here.