Guru inspo from speakers to self-help books, to ra-ra retreats, to programs and methodologies can be helpful. These resources open our minds to beginning to imagine a new “what” - a big life change.
But it’s the how that all that inspirational, motivational content never seems to wrangle.
For decades I’ve consumed personal growth and productivity content. And, to boot, my career happened to be built upon managing complex change for massive organizations. So I should have been a master at big life change.
But nothing out there truly cut through the warring cross-currents of real life. My reasonable-seeming goals were continually hijacked by invisible barriers and un-wrangle-able chaos.
After decades circling in place, I redirected my business change management expertise onto myself. I created a series of crisp, simple, doable tasks that all daisy-chained together to drive big change in real life. Each task served to narrow the focus and track metrics that exposed invisible barriers in an objective, non-emotional manner. Each step drove one simple decision and hooked that decision to one real-life action.
Along the way, I discovered the importance of embracing a number of foundational tools and mindsets, without which the whole chain of progress would break. These included tools to achieve absolute clarity about the tough choices required to make space for something new. It also included a practice I now call KindEdge360 which fortifies 360 degrees of our lives to ensure we have the physical energy, the mindsets, the systems and the support that is needed to sustain a path of change.
I remember the moment I realized it was working. I’d picked up a self-survey I’d completed a few years before, just as I was putting KindEdge into practice. As I read through my old self-evaluation of all aspects of my life, I could barely recognize that girl or that life. I had fundamentally transformed the way my days felt, the way I was investing my minutes, and the people, places and things that I was exposed to every day.
Days that, years before, had been filled with jagged edges, unanswerable questions, and a recurring sense of defeat, were no longer so. My new life felt effortlessly amazing and in flow from sunrise to sundown.
My minutes are now invested, by design, in the inputs and outputs that feed my mind, my body, and my soul. I’m perma-chuffed and generally jazzed.
Seeing that this series of tasks, and tests, and trackers I’d built for myself was working, I decided to share it with others.
Because each of us has a thing within us that we need to get in motion.
This type of change is urgent. I’m dying and so are you. The minutes only count down.
KindEdge.com is a collection of bite-sized action steps that help you get transformational life change in motion, even when everything else around you seems to push back on your goal.
I called this thing KindEdge because it needs to be a “kind” process that we will enjoy returning to again and again. It is a path that is intrinsically rewarding and sustainable for the long haul.
And yet the process must push us past our uncomfortable “edge” with tools that help us discover our hidden “yikes, ugh, I would never, but what if…” points of resistance. KindEdge gives us exercises to build a stronger muscle for change. Getting comfortable with making a bit of a mess is a super power that opens new doors to new lives.
My KindEdge steps are tools that pile-drive your dreams through
the chaos and invisible barriers of real life.
Here’s to you pushing past your edge… to arrive at a sustainable
way of living out the life you know was meant for you.
Cheers, cin-cin and hugs,
~ @MarySueIRL
