[ If you’d like to watch the video instead of reading, click here. ]

[lottery announcer voice:] Welcome to the 3-week F-word game – a game you’re guaranteed to win!
What do you win?!
My promise to you if you play, is you’ll win more joy, more energy, and more peace of mind.

[back to normal voice:] Pretty good winnings, right!?

Who’s heard of the brand Spanx? The founder is Sara Blakely.

When she was a little girl, every day she came home her father would ask where she’d failed that day. If she didn’t have an answer for him, he was disappointed.

His expectation was that she’d go out and try things – and not let ‘failing’ at them stop her from trying again the next day. Brilliant.

Sara’s relationship with failing – which essentially means trying out our ideas – became positively correlated at a young age with two things:

1. Her father’s love and approval.
2. Acting on her creative instincts, whether they worked out or not the way she hoped they would.

Sara built an empire – and did some very creative things to get there!

The F-word game is about getting in the habit of trying things, acting on our ideas, our creative instincts.

Let’s say you want a better job – not just any job – one where you fit and thrive.
For the next 21 days you’ll do a combination of personal + tactical things, because when we Feel good, we Do more.

Personal examples [notice any that feel uplifting to you]:

• journal
• go sky diving
• frame a photograph
• get a haircut
• end a relationship
• share this challenge,
• or something else you’ve been thinking about! Note that!

Tactical examples:

• tell some people you’re job hunting
• send a fish tank to a colleague and ask to be referred (someone did this once for a job interview – and got the job!)
• join a group that’s affiliated with an organization you want to work for
• introduce yourself to someone that feels like a reach.
• Anything you think of that’s not mainstream – follow those ideas, do the things you’re not sure anyone else is doing.

Generational expectations, educational systems, BS societal cultural norms –somewhere along the way these have influenced our relationship with failure (and a few other things…)

We’ve been conditioned away from the parts of ourselves that love to explore and play and find out what might happen if I do that thing I’m thinking about!

When I was practicing filming this newsletter – practicing (yep, not even a live recording) – I repeated some verbal stumbles. This judgmental critical part of me woke up, and I immediately started to feel shame and disappointment. Then I thought: “Maybe I shouldn’t be doing these videos”.

Ack!!! What?!!

It was subtle and it was fast.
I’m grateful I have a black belt in my own inner critic (a belt I have to keep training for!).
I noticed, took a breath, and here we are.

Many of us have harsh internal critics, and sometimes they take us out of our own game.

It’s part of the reason so many people struggle with depression and are aching for more joy.

Not because of their inner critic, but because it’s so strong it takes them away from going for what they want.

And 99.9% of the time, these inner judgments are a reflection of other people’s values, fears, and lost dreams! Not ours!

Imagination Pause: Let’s pause for a moment, allow a deep, slow breath. Imagine an empty ball in front of you. Now gather all the stuff – the values, fears, behaviors, shoulds, everything that belongs to other people that’s living in your body, your energy field – pour it all into the ball. Imagine it leaving you, and pouring into the ball. Do this for a minute.
 
Now whisper Thank You to all of it, and ask the ball to float away until it’s out of sight. Allow another deep, slow breath. Pause, and notice the presence of more lightness.

Trying out our ideas get’s us un-glued, wakes up our confidence centers, and sparks life energy.
Let’s play our way to getting radically okay with doing things that we believe will get us closer to what we want, without being attached to whether they do or not!

Let’s rustle around in the shadows and revive a dream we parked there.
Let’s allow what we want to come to us in unexpected ways.
Let’s allow ourselves to go and do the things we think of.

Let the creative spark come back to life.
Let’s play!

Let’s value our own opinions more than other peoples.
Let’s take our failures more lightly.
Let’s keep going.
And one day that job you really want will arrive.

The F-word game – 21 days.
Write a list, or wake up and see what’s alive for you each day.

Play the game.
Learn to love the F-word.
Share your F’s with me if you’d like to.