Walking on ceilings

Chapter 97

Every level you reach in life, becomes the platform for the next. You don’t notice because you are just living it and its incremental. But what was so difficult for you in the past, has over time become the simple and the normal for today. And that is now your platform, your floor for the next level. Some take months to transform into your new normal, some take years, and some take decades. I am to the age and point in life that I am experience some of those decade-long transitions. 

Yesterday was the 8th anniversary of my friend Mark passing away. The reason that date is pertinent to this conversation, is because when he died I made some huge vocational decisions. I decided to stop coasting, to stop doing what was easy and do what is important instead. It was so incredibly difficult, and so far beyond my abilities back then. Failure was frequent and always knocking at my door. It was terrifying and now when I look back it was not nearly as dangerous as it seemed. And what was difficult back then is effortless now. That impossible ceiling I was trying to break through eight years ago, is the floor I walk on today, maybe even the basement floor that I have underneath the floor I walk on!

This is normal and what we should expect. They aren’t any exceptions to this principle, however there are a small number of situations where progress is exceptionally slow and so you should be prepared. One is our emotional fears. Even after 30 plus years of public speaking, I still get sweaty palms and shaky legs. And the second one is physical development in capacity and strength. When exercising you see rapid results right away, but then your body adapts and you have to continue making new platforms from which to operate. Example, when I first started I thought 10 minutes of exercise was going to kill me. Now I regularly dig in for 2-3 hours non-stop.

What is easy for you today that was so difficult in the past? What is the new level you are using this new normal to leap from?