Let Go Of Your Vine

I love this quote on the right, I don't even remember what book it came out of at this point, but it's a practice I've really made a habit the last 8 months of my life: reflecting and taking stock.

When assessing a business, if you're low on inventory in an area, you don't have an attack or fall to the floor crying...you go about doing what you must to get what is required. I don't think acquiring skill sets is all that different.

I also have come to believe that people attach too much stock in behavior. If you asked me a year ago who I was, I would list out behaviors.  Now, my answer would be different.  I don't know what sparked the self reflection, but I remember a specific period of time where I was so tired of limiting myself.  I found myself thinking of the following analogy:

I felt as though I was swinging through the treetops, but at one point, I swung forward, grabbed the next vine, but failed to let go of the last.  As the picture reel in my mind plays, I swing backwards and forwards like a pendulum.  Exerting so much effort to keep swinging, but going nowhere but forwards and backwards, forwards and backwards, forwards and backwards.  I needed to let go of the old vine.

To me, that old vine where behavior traits I had used to define myself for many years.  Some were endearing characteristics, and some.... weren't.  I had latched onto a self definition and it was restricting me. I needed to let go and redefine.  I chose to believe that who I was was not how I behaved, but what I believed.  Who the world thought I was...well, that was rooted in behavior.  So it was my responsibility to be a better messenger and make sure I better communicated my values through my behavior.

I won't sit here and tell you it's the perfect answer. All I know is that it gave me the freedom to let go without the fear of losing who I was.  It left me with the exhilaration of new discovery - my values were not changing...just how I expressed them.  I hope it's a perspective that allows you to do the same.


Here a few questions to consider in no particular order:

• Who are you? 
• What do you value? 
• What character traits do you want to embody most? 
• What adjectives do you want people to use to describe you...and what type of behaviors will lead to that?
• What is most import important to you?