Are you experiencing frustration because you’re wondering how it is that you’re not able to commit to the change you truly wish for yourself or your team?
Do you feel deterred or disheartened when the change you wished for, was met with another disappointment or deferment?
Wondering how some team members, colleagues or friends are able to remain focussed and connected to their goals and objectives, either personal or professional?
What does it mean “when the student is READY – the teacher will appear”?
Who is the teacher? How does the teacher know to appear?
The emphasis is not on a teacher, or a person, or even an entity- but instead on the acute awareness that is unlocked within a person.
When any goal or change is embraced with a sense of connectedness (aligning to your values, beliefs, strengths) it enables you to better envision it, which then activates an inner awareness that taps into your knowledge-based thinking. This then triggers an ‘aha moment’, the result of which is the emergence of the teacher- awareness, this then sparks the path ahead for you.
The teacher-awareness provides you with resources (information/hunches/intuition) but may sometimes also appear to impair you, especially when you go against the grain.
The real lessons of your goals or change, lies deeply and appears more tangibly in your failure So fear not failure…..
Hence, it isn’t necessarily someone teaching or judging you, but rather your ability to now learn from your own free will, and pursue your destiny.
No amount of help will create change – until the student is ready for change.
Here, red10 ‘s Sureya Naidoo shares from her Middle Eastern experience, the wonderful Buddhist philosophy of “When the student is ready – the teacher will appear”.
Attribute 1
Your ‘APPROACH’ is key
Ask yourself why this impending change, goal or objective important to you and how might you or your team benefit from this achievement?
Use the technique of ‘envisioning and embodiment’, to allow yourself to truly connect to the ‘feeling’ of having achieved this, and what it would look like to finally have what you want?
This process will encourage you to engage with a stronger sense of commitment to yourself and the team as you approach the goal or change.
Discernibly, when we don’t feel ready on the inside, we find ourselves reluctant to put ourselves in situations necessary to bring about such achievement or successes. We conjure up excuses to substantiate the inner stance of ‘we don’t believe ourselves worthy of, or ready for, the change ahead’ thus we may “dig our heels in” and “fold our arms”, utterly resistant to the ‘calling’ of the teacher.
Remembering that our greatest teachings and lessons are often born from the challenges we overcome, therefore these ‘teachers” may be visible and accessible – but if we don’t feel worthy of or truly ready for our desired successes, then we will sabotage our own chances of success.
Great lessons come from presence, as we capture the learnings of the insignificant moment’s we’ve lost sight of, we can learn something from everything we do in life. Whether it be a conversation with a colleague, friend or a walk through the forest.
So, approach your goal, change or objectives with a PRESENT state of mind.
INSANITY IS DOING THE SAME THING OVER AND OVER AGAIN AND EXPECTING DIFFERENT RESULTS.”
Albert Einstein
Attribute 2
Your level of ‘READINESS’
Think about what’s holding you back from being ready for your teachers.
You may find it helpful to look at those who already have what you want and ask yourself, ‘what did they have to do’? What sort of daily decisions did they have to make, to get them to where they are?
The list you come up with, may have small simple goals or changes, as well as big drastic ones.
Sometimes, it’s the smallest changes that have the most profound impact on your life – so if starting small feels easier, start small.
Be mindful when you start, to ask your if you’re aligned on the inside, with what needs to happen on the outside.
Here’s a powerful technique to test your level of ‘readiness’:
For example:
- Might it be that I take up or let go of a “belief’ that may no longer be serving me?
- Perhaps I need to enroll on a specific course, or read more – to skilfully enable myself to a position of greater self-assertion or influence?
- Maybe I should reconsider my methods of handling unresolved conflict and challenging situations?
- What characteristics might serve me better in particular situations” and how can I begin to cultivate them.
- What feels abandoned here, that may need restoring, in order to enable me to set and achieve my intended goal or change’?
‘WHEN YOU TRULY COMMIT TO MAKING SOMETHING HAPPEN, the ‘HOW’ will reveal itself”
Tony Robbins
Attribute 3
Getting STARTED and staying COMITTED
The saying also means that when we are ready to learn and grow, we will be ready to listen to and act upon knowledge we glean from a teacher who is already in front of us, and perhaps has always been there, but we were not open to receive.
The teacher on your journey of change, needn’t only be a person, it may well present itself as an event, opportunity or even a tangle, but in fact it’s how you respond to the event, opportunity or tangle.
Life is, 10% what happens to you, and 90 % how you respond to it.
START with clarity:
- Spot the opportunity
- Set the groundwork
- See things through
Stay COMITTED with presence of mind
- What if every person (individual) you come into contact with, is your teacher?
(a) Seeing every interaction, altercation, argument, or shared bliss…as your teacher. - What if, instead of the individual it is the ‘collective whole’?
(b) i.e. your reactions, responses and acceptance of situations, teaches you lessons, about your behaviors and influence on others.
When we observe those who have overcome their tangles in life, i.e., the person who climbed the success ladder in their career, the person who went from obese to slim, the person who cultivated healthier boundaries across the sphere of their relationships, or those who struck the work life balance, they all demonstrate one common denominator – they were READY.
Hence, the quote “When the student is ready the teacher will appear”
How ready are you to get started – ready to see yourself better than you are,
ready to explore a new perspective, ready to embrace the challenge,
ready to embrace commitment.
A fundamental part of a coach’s role is to help you experiment with new behaviors.