Faith is a strange and wonderful thing.
With faith, you are unstoppable. You are constantly in motion toward something of purpose and value that you have never approached before. Faith is that thing just outside of your realm of experience which requires you to cover new ground to achieve.When I pose this question to audiences and committee members I get variations of the same answer every time. “You need faith that you can reach the top.” To which I smile because I know we’re about to blow the lid off of anything holding them back.
“You can reach the top of a mountain without ever having faith that you’ll make it all the way,” I reveal to uncertain faces. “If you do have it, great. But it isn’t necessary.”
For companies and individuals that love the idea of becoming all they are capable, the trek ahead can look like an unclimbed mountain. Picturesque and foreboding.
- Who wouldn’t want a business that stood out as the obvious choice in an overcrowded market?
- Think of how easy it would be to recruit partners and employees if you built upon your strengths with a conscious effort toward personal fulfillment for everyone.
- How dedicated would your customers be when you offered them exactly what they wanted and treated them as honored guests?
- Is the media-driven economy your chief concern if your customers are telling you what they would like to buy from you next and you’re able to give it to them?
This is what is available for businesses of any size and it is an awe inspiring site, but that mountaintop seems pretty intimidating from the bottom. In most cases, the initial view feels too far out of reach and the urge is to abandon the climb before ever beginning. Larger companies have an especially difficult time at this stage.
The CEO of a large healthcare system actually apologized to me because he loved what he saw, but didn’t think his organization could make it all the way. “What you have outlined would solve every issue we have right now and probably set us up to deal with anything else that came along,” he said. “But getting there seems impossible to me given the size and willingness of our company.”
Like so many of us, he stood and stared at the end result in disbelief. Because of his lack of faith, he stood still. Paralyzed. More willing to stay a course of plummeting attitudes, economic uncertainty, and tired methods because it was what they knew.
“I don’t need you to believe you can reach the top,” I told him. “You can reach the top of a mountain without ever having faith that you’ll make it all the way…”
How many steps does it take to climb a mountain? A lot! Thousands, millions, I don’t know.
How many can you take at a time? One. So if you want to climb a mountain, how much faith do you need in order to do it? Enough faith for one step at a time.
As you take each step the landscape changes. Objects that looked like obstacles from a distance come into focus. Now you see them as footholds and stepping stones. You approach each adversity individually and with the accumulated experience of the steps you’ve already taken. Soon, the number of steps remaining is fewer than the number you’ve taken and the momentum shifts.
Here’s the thing to remember. At no time does your level of faith have to extend beyond the next step. You can climb an entire mountain with only enough faith to take one step. Eventually that step is the one that puts you on top.
Now the reality is that your faith naturally expands with each step you take. In teaching all of the Elements of Personal Choice as part of this journey, I make sure everyone has a heightened Awareness of what they have accomplished along the way. Confidence grows, fear subsides, and the comfort zone becomes decidedly bigger but uncomfortable.
If you’re ready to climb your mountain, identify the steps needed and take the next one.
Editor’s note: There is a follow up to this article here.
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PJ McClure helps aspiring entrepreneurs to multi-million dollar business owners destroy roadblocks and seize opportunities to achieve their ideal vision of success. He is an award-winning speaker and the best-selling author of Flip the SWITCH: How to Turn On and Turn Up Your Mindset and Unlock Your Life: How to go beyond Time-Management to the Life of Your Dreams. You can download a copy of Flip the SWITCH for Free by clicking here.
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