The forecast called for sun.
That was good enough for me. I packed my gear and headed to the mountain for a day of skiing.
In the previous days a freeze followed a thaw, so the once soft snow hardened to crust and ice. But the sun, once she rose, would loosen up the snow and provide a wonderful stomping ground for a Wednesday.
Waiting for the sun, I took my time in the morning, waiting in the ski lodge until 10 a.m.. The trail was hard, slick, and very fast. My skis wanted to run in these conditions, so I let them.
Cruising at a good clip, I approached the last section of the trail, a steep but smooth knoll that encourages a tuck — let ‘er rip and feel the exhilaration of flying.
The knoll is steep enough to be hidden from view until after you reach the top of the ridge. Having skied the trail hundreds of times, I knew the topography and I did not slow my descent as I crested the ridge at 42MPH (as my GPS later informed).
Now with the bottom of the mountain in full view, I pressed down on my left ski to make one final turn before zooming to the gondola.
That was my mistake.
I shifted my weight on my ski just as I was on top of an invisible patch of ice. The effect is like slamming on your car’s brakes while driving on a frozen lake; I lost control.
In an instant, my skis whipped around 120 degrees beneath me, my back facing downhill, the forces of inertia preparing to slam me senseless.
The back of my head bashed the frozen slope as I began a long, uncontrollable slide. Above me, the edges of my skis dug into the hardpack, jerking me left and right until they popped off, sparing my knees.
Lying still, I could hear the “oohs and ahhs” from spectators riding on the chairlift who had a hawk’s view of my crash. I gave them a reflexive wave as I gathered my equipment strewn about the hillside (judging from where I’d lost one of my poles, I’d skidded around 150 feet from where I fell).
I took inventory of my body. I was fine. I clicked back into my skis and got back on the chairlift for another run. But when I returned to the trailhead, I realized that in fact, the fall had done some internal damage — I no longer trusted my skis.
I am an expert skier; my dominant feeling on any trail is exhilaration. But I spent the next few runs trying not to fall instead of skiing. The feeling of fun gave way to the feeling of anxiousness.
Skiing tentatively, my skill level dropped from expert to intermediate. (Side note: Interestingly, from how sore my legs were the next day, I became aware that it’s more physically taxing to ski cautiously.)
As time passed, the sun never burned through the clouds and the icy conditions never improved. And my confidence never returned. So I did something I cannot remember doing in the past.
I left the mountain early.
I share this story because I want to illustrate importance of alignment in a couple different ways.
First, the common way to talk about my experience would be to say I lost my confidence, but a better way to describe my experience would be to say that I fell out of alignment.
What does this mean?
This means that I could not access the thoughts and feelings that were up to speed with my desires. My desire was to feel great and a have fun day on the slopes. But given my experience (falling) and circumstances beyond my control (the icy conditions), I could only connect to feelings of worry and doubt.
On the ladder of feelings, there’s a big gap between the rungs of Doubt and Fun. That chasm is too broad to jump.
Why is this important? Because one of the 7 Key Principles to upgrading to a Very Cool Life is that you get into the habit of Acting from Alignment. This means that you make a point to getting into the feeling place that matches your desire before taking action.
Sometimes this is not possible. As in the present example, the distance is just too great. In this case, your best move is to get off the mountain and wait until you feel aligned before moving forward.
Applying this to other situations, don’t sign that agreement unless you feel aligned. Don’t commit yourself unless you feel aligned. Don’t try to resolve a dispute unless you feel aligned. Don’t try to solve a problem unless you feel aligned. Wait.
Align first, then act. The reason for this is simple. Unless you are creating from a place of confidence, it is impossible to create outcomes that you desire. In fact, when you are out of alignment, the chances are excellent that you will manifest the precise outcomes that you do not want. By skiing scared, the chances of me getting hurt increased exponentially.
If you’re not feeling confident or aligned, you cannot just wait around and expect this feeling to show up. There is no “Confidence Fairy” making the rounds.
Getting your thoughts and feelings to be in harmony with your desires takes awareness and practice. There are no shortcuts. You need to learn the skill of directing your thoughts to match your desires. Learning this skill requires an investment of your time, energy, and attention.
So here’s the upgrade to make every day a very cool day:
Always act from alignment. If you’re can’t find that feeling of alignment, wait to act until you do. Master the skill of being able to choose aligned thoughts. If you’re not having fun, the forecast looks good for Friday…
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Just a reminder the deadline for Early Bird pricing for my Cracking the Very Cool Life Code Live event is midnight Thursday, March 31st. (We’ll be going much deeper into the concept of living from alignment and feeling great!)
Price jumps from $497 to $647 on April 1st. Register now and save $150!
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To learn more and register, please visit:
CracktheCode2011.com
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Perfect timing! Today, I saw a financial advisor. Our second meeting. We set a third meeting for a month from now. He wanted it a week from now. The third is the meeting where you sign things and make commitments about trusting him with your investing.
He is a nice guy. Appears knowledgeable. Has followed through on his commitments. Age-wise he’s sufficiently younger so that he could still be advising me during my retirement. No red flags. But I don’t feel in alignment. So far, I don’t know if this is my own inherent cautiousness and programmed fear, or if I’m subconsciously picking up on something. Either way, it is not the place from which I am prepared to sign contracts and make financial decisions. I’ll do some more shopping around, see if I can find my flow, and it may very well be that he is my guy. But I’ll wait until I am sure.
A few months of lost revenue is a shame, but decades of an unhappy alliance is worse. Thanks for helping me feel strong in my decision.
Drew, I would quibble with your secondary advice to “wait to act” as the exclusive approach to finding alignment. In your skiing example, an alternative approach might have been to drop back down to the green trails to get your skis back under you and regain your confidence and then move back up to the easier blues and then on up to more difficulot terrain. That may or may not have done the trick, as you might have concluded that skiing on icey conditions the juice wasn’t worth the squeeze. But an active approach can often be useful to achieiving realignment, especially in situations where you’ve performed well in the past or in other contexts. So you might have found realignment that afternoon with an active approach.
Caitlyn’s comment above is a further example of an active approach to experimenting with finding alignment. Instead of doing nothing further, she’s going to shop around some more. Doing so might help her to fine-tune her perceptions, expectations, and decision-making.
Doing nothing is sometimes the very best thing to do. But not always. FWIW.
@Glenn: Hey Glenn
Thanks for reading.
I agree with your quibble.
Not sure that I made the point that waiting was the exclusive approach.
Sometime it is, sometimes it is not.
Real point is to do what it takes to find alignment.
I consider the internal work to get aligned with your thoughts to be a very active process.
Thanks again, d