This afternoon I engaged in an event in which I missed the mark by a mile in terms of desired outcome. BUT it led me down a new path of thought that I will be testing for this week.

Since third grade, I’ve feared people disapproving me; for decades I’ve allowed fear of people’s reactions to turn me away from from goals. So, this afternoon, I was determined muscle my way to a specific result when engaging with a stranger. Instead of achieving the result I wanted, I got a lap full of disapproval. On the one hand, it was a win in that I stood my ground for once and “waded in” instead of my usual cowardly retreat from the field of battle. The disapproval slid off like water from a duck’s back. For that, I award myself a gold star.

However, I failed to achieve my objective. Keeping a blind eye on my objective, I expressed myself in forceful manner which immediately elicited resistance.  Now I am re-thinking what it means to be powerful. It could be a mistake to define power as “the greatest application of force.”

What if power results from focused imagining of the desired outcome before engaging in activity?

What if I actively imagine a desired outcome, then stand aside and allow the desired outcome to work itself out using resources of which I am unaware?

What would have happened if I had taken ten or fifteen minutes to actively imagine the desired outcome, before engaging myself in that event?

Had I not been so blindly determined to achieve my outcome would I have been smarter and taken a breath and taken time to assess the energy in the room and assess the other person’s state of mind?

Funny thing, the interaction that occurred was an exact reflection of myself.