Why you will never witness your true 'greatness'

The Negative Effects of Vast Ambition:

We don’t get to bear witness of our greatness. Because, in striving to become ‘great’ we exude it with each: word, act, thought—for what’s focused on not only is the goal, but it becomes the path we step on and the substance that rubs off of us.

I thought of this when I heard Jim Rohn say - “Make goals that make something of you in the process of achieving them”

Find a goal so big that it scares you in achieving, but because you chose it; it requires more responsibility, more accountability and in the process (even if you don’t make it) you become more skilled, poised and articulate than you would’ve if you didn’t create that goal.

However, in the case of the ambitious mind—greatness, is a means to the end rather than embracing the process towards becoming.

^ This, is outside of your awareness. ^ This, is outside your perception because if you don’t have the “X” that you desire—you won’t realize the amount of growth you’ve made and you’ll constantly be in pursuit of achieving rather than enjoying how much you’ve grown.

I once saw Elly De La Cruz make a diving stop play against the brewers. There i was, waiting for my next set on DB press and i sat there amazed. Elly De La Cruz saw the ball being whacked by the batter and ran 20 or so feet, dove for the ball, caught it with his glove, leaped on both feet with his leg strength, quickly got up, made a 100ft throw 90mph and got the batter out at first with ease. Wow, I thought. Guess what? This was only play #8 in the web gem series (meaning there were another 7 plays ‘better’ than this one)

In becoming great your spectators are the witnesses of your greatness. It’s never you. All because, doing what you do is simple to you, and great to them. For some reason the ambitious mind has a conceived conclusion that “we’re on our way to it”. Greatness is only greatness (to you) until you reach the standard that you’re always trying to reach. Kinda like that game in the episode of South Park where Randy is always trying to catch the Dragon—but the game is designed so you can never catch the dragon. It feels like that.

However, it doesn’t have to be this way.

The reason for your dissatisfaction and your unrelenting need to get better, to get there— or the feeling that you’re not good enough is because of your perspective and where your mind goes when you think about who and where you want to be. Most of the time, we’ve created this imaginary place, one of solitude, one of peace, excitement and great riches. Things are, the way we want them to be in the present. And, we consider ourselves hardworking & ambitious enough to be able to sacrifice all we have in the present to reach the one place that is untouchable in our minds. Due to how untouchable it is we’re willing to trade fragments of ourselves in order to get there, one of those fragments? Being able to stand in the present moment of how much we’ve grown and to spectate ourselves in pursuit of it. But, this cuts off such a prime part of our humanity and that’s accepting and surrendering into the position that we’re in. Embracing our nature, how much we’ve improved. We shouldn’t revel in our improvement one day out of 365 when we sit on the couch, turn on the TV, and see our diving play to compare ourselves to how we were back in the day and how much we’ve improved now. It should be a recurring moment to you. If you think you’re going to get encouragement, positivity, and validation from others—without giving it to yourself— you’re greatly mistaken. Nobody is going to give you your medal of honor the moment you reach your standard of greatness. Because, once you do reach it the way you’ve been working towards getting it now—you will feel dissatisfied with it, you won’t be happy and you’ll only put yourself back onto a trail that requires another standard of greatness when you just reached the one you’ve been working your ass for. Nobody will treat you, how you want to be treated. Instead, treat yourself—speak to you, internalize, and be proud of how much you’ve grown capable, and competent. Smell the roses, appreciate the climb.

Success is about living in the present moment, because we only live now. We’re only experiencing, now. “Succeeding” is to be doing better than you expected of yourself, outgrowing your old version of you. Until, one day, you have everything you ever could’ve wanted. Success isn’t about a means to the end, it’s about embracing the process towards becoming.

We miss out on the great things we do because we’re too busy doing great things— questioning if we’re good enough or not. It’s not until we go back and watch the web gem play that we made with ease and automation that we realize, we’re living in the moment— the thing we desperately are striving to get to. Focus on the process, not the outcome and you’ll be as grateful as the people who see your greatness however, this time - you’ll be the spectator alongside them.

ghz_