Associated Worksheet
The worksheet is to help you explore how to make meaningful progress in 1 year of focused devotion.
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Quote: “Real progress is not found in those giant leaps. Rather, it’s found through tiny shifts in perspective that affect small changes in how we think and show up. It’s these tiny steps that compound over the lifelong journey we go on.”
TL;DR
Embrace 2024 with a compassionate and playful approach to personal growth. Learn how small, consistent steps can compound into significant transformation over time. This blog post explores the delicate balance between human desires and spiritual evolution, and the importance of facing life’s challenges with a learning mindset. Discover how setting focused goals and being part of a supportive community, like the HeartBased Deep Divers’ Group, can guide you towards a year of meaningful progress and deeper self-understanding.
Honor the Sincerity of your Desire
It’s not uncommon to avoid a deeper understanding of what’s truly possible for our human journey because we fear the potential disappointment of things not working out. I mean, how many times have we created a plan or written down what we’d like to experience, only to ultimately fail in making any progress at all?
This disappointment often leads to abandoning those visions with different assumptions that assume… it just wasn’t meant to be. Sure, that might be the case. Maybe we explored it and truly found a lack of resonance, or found we were chasing something that didn’t truly resonate.
However, in some instances, we abandon those visions simply because of the pain of disappointment, and the mind can be very good at creating reasons or excuses that mask a deeper sincerity that wished it would have worked out.
Why do I bring this up?
Well, I feel it’s a bit of an unspoken struggle, especially in spiritual circles – where the sincerity of our human desires is somehow met with a spiritual dogma that says we should just accept things as they are and not long for something more.
However, accepting things as they are includes accepting the deeper sincerity held within our hearts to move beyond self-imposed limitations.
Do you see how easy it is to miss this?
To miss the acceptance of our genuine humanness and fall prey to spiritual dogmas that strip the humanity from our human journey.
Craving for Something More
What does it mean to crave something more? Fundamentally, it is the longing to get closer to a deeper connection with ourselves, others, and all of life.
On the surface, the mind can create visions of what this might look like, whether it’s an improved relationship experience with a loved one, or a better quality of health and wellness in body and mind, or embarking on the journey of building a business that honors your heart and adds genuine value to the world.
There is a dance happening here, between the soulful longing of your spirit to evolve your consciousness, and the desires held within the raw reality of your genuine humanness. They go together in the most beautiful ways.
Essentially, we are working through the reality of our humanness to connect more deeply with the spiritual nature of what we are. What we are NOT invited to do is to abandon our humanness in hopes of becoming more spiritual.
Life is Supposed to Be Challenging
Cute spiritual phrases often suggest an ease and effortlessness that can be interpreted as a life lived with no more struggle. Therefore, if we find ourselves struggling, it becomes easy to assume we must be doing something wrong. Ultimately, we fall into the trap of self-judgment, which leads us to abandon ourselves even further.
I invite a shift in perspective that understands the human journey as inherently challenging, and that’s beautifully okay. It is meant to be challenging in a playful way that offers us the opportunity to learn and grow. These challenges are divinely inspired, guiding us in our journey of growth and transformation towards a deeper and more authentic connection with ourselves, others, and all of life.
Put it this way: the transcendent version of yourself that is inherently peaceful and undisturbed by all illusions came here to this dimensional experience called being human, so it could lose itself and learn through being disturbed and getting lost in illusions. Your “soul,” so to speak, came here in human form to go on a great adventure, while knowing deep down that you could never actually get lost, it would all be a dream that facilitated a deeper discovery.
You didn’t come here to be totally zen all the time, you came here to get lost, to get confused, and then find your way back home… to the real heart and truth of what you are.
Small, Manageable Steps of Progress
Real progress is not found in those giant leaps. Rather, it’s found through tiny shifts in perspective that affect small changes in how we think and show up. It’s these tiny steps that compound over the lifelong journey we go on.
1% progress every week (a tiny step) compounds into a dramatic transformation over a year’s time.
Of course, the confusion arises from our conditioning that looks for quick fixes and hacks that promise overnight change. However, the problem with these shortcuts is that they lack an opportunity for embodiment and integration.
For example:
Mathematically, a 1% improvement each week, when compounded, results in a significant increase over extended periods.
- Over 1 Year (52 weeks):
- Starting from your current state (which we represent as 100% for calculation purposes), a consistent 1% improvement every week for a year results in a total growth of approximately 67.77%. This means if you’re at a certain level of skill or proficiency now, you would be 67.77% better than your current state after one year.
- Over 5 Years (260 weeks):
- If this consistent 1% improvement is maintained weekly for five years, the total growth from your current state would be approximately 1229.10%. This indicates more than a twelvefold increase in proficiency or skill level from where you started.
You see, it doesn’t matter whether you’re wanting to improve your communication skills, start a business, or work towards healing the relationship with yourself and others; the point is that the journey toward such (real) transformation is the culmination of consistent and tiny (1%) steps of progress.
A Container for Focus & Devotional Commitment
Much like a committed and devoted relationship can serve as a container that allows for growth, there are opportunities to set up containers for yourself that help you structure small and meaningful steps of progress.
A relationship can be a support system, and it’s vital that we, in our journey, become open to or seek out a proper and viable support system that helps us stay focused and honor our devoted commitment to grow.
This is why I am creating the HeartBased Deep Divers’ Group (DDG). It is primarily for myself, and I am extending an invitation to a small group of HeartBased humans (you?) to join me on a journey towards a year of meaningful progress and personal growth.
DDG is a container that’s designed specifically for individuals who deeply resonate with my unique flavor of self-inquiry and are genuinely interested in honoring their human journey with compassion and conscious engagement.
You see, as I devote myself to serving the hearts of others, helping them to learn, grow, and make meaningful steps of progress, it gently forces me to learn and grow at the same time. This is why, in part, I want to devote myself to this small group of devoted hearts in DDG. It’s no different than devoting myself in a relationship to another person, like my partner, where in my devoted commitment, it sets the stage for me to face the inner challenges that arise and learn from them, rather than trying to escape and run away.
This is the opportunity I want to commit myself to, to serve others in this way, to show up for them the best I can, and care about their journey as if it were my own. Of course, I can’t do this with everyone, which is why I’m creating the container of DDG and inviting a small group of beautiful humans to journey with me.
Make 2024 a Year of Meaningful Progress
As we approach the new year of 2024, I invite you to consider what a genuinely focused journey of progress might look like for you.
No, not in a hard, crass, and self-determinant sort of way, where you’ll be disappointed in yourself if it doesn’t work out. Rather, more so in a deeply self-honest and compassionate sort of way, where you playfully invite yourself to explore what kind of adventure of self-discovery you want to go on.
Again, imagine if you had the whole year to make very tiny steps of progress in only one area (or two areas) of your life that would add genuine value to your human journey. What might that look like?
For myself, those two areas are in my business, creating the container of DDG, and in my overall health, feeling strong and grounded in my body. I’m very clear on the tiny and manageable steps I can take that will lead toward genuine and embodied progress.
I did a similar thing this past year, and I was blown away by how focusing on one or two areas actually added value to other areas of my life without even trying.
You see, we don’t need to focus on 10 or 20 areas, which only leads us to searching for hacks and encountering false promises. We can start small, be more gentle, and much more practical in our approach.
There’s this holistic impact that happens when our growth is both practical and grounded with the willingness to truly embody the desired changes, where the focused progress we make in one area actually adds growth in other areas. It’s like getting stronger in one area of life adds strength to other areas of life.
Self Evaluation Worksheet for Focused Growth in 2024
I have created a self-evaluation worksheet that can help you gain clarity on how to take small steps of progress in 2024 that will lead to tangible and meaningful growth throughout the year.
You can explore that worksheet here.
Of course, additionally, if you deeply resonate with my exploration here in this Monday inSight Letter, I invite you to explore the HeartBased Deep Divers’s Group opportunity and join me on this journey while receiving genuine and beautiful community support.
