My old perspective is productivity and accolade driven. It did its job to get me to where I was recently. i.e. successful business, strong brand, gain of recognition by peers.
My current critical reality holds my family (child) as priority. i.e. I want to be present for my child both as provider, nurturer, and guide. Elsewhere I’ve described this as “aiding the evolution of consciousness of a new human being” – this is a personal belief.
While I tried to convince my old perspective that this life changing decision will in due course bear fruit as personal transformation, I find myself continually fixated on “what have I accomplished as proof that I AM indeed making a difference in the world?”
My new perspective answers, “the proof is in front of you every single day, from the moment you wake up and see your child smiling at you.”
My old perspective answers, “yes, that’s ONE… what about others? How many how much by when?”
My old perspective likes lots of numbers in the answer, and is hard to convince otherwise.
My competitive nature may be one of “competing with myself”, but I’m finding that competing with myself, as opposed to competing with others, is not serving my current critical reality at all.
This is because the “I” today cannot compete with the “I” of yesterday – these two “I’s” live in totally different realities: one was a full time entrepreneur with time at her disposal, one is a full time parent with maybe 1-2 hours/day at her disposal… and even these hours may be reallocated to “self-maintenance” on some days in order to operate the next day.
I spend more energy trying to find peace within these conflicts rather than spending that energy in a creative state. [the fact that I set myself a 6-figure revenue target for 2009 as a full time mother is influenced by my old "I", and while I'm on track to reach this target, I often feel exhausted!]
Earlier this week, my husband and I went through the “list of things Jane accomplished so far in 2009″, and I was tired just listening to the things I’d listed! It was all about the numbers and acquisition of targets.
“See,” said my husband, “this is how competitive you are.”
But at this stage in my life, competing with “myself” isn’t working. Competing with “others” isn’t where I want to go, either.
(this post is ending abruptly, because I don’t know what the answer is, yet…. maybe you have ideas?)
