Rusty Osborne

Most people are sitting on problems they’ve had for years.

“I can’t let people know how bad my finances are.”
“I’ve been dealing with this health issue for years!”
“My husband and I don’t really talk anymore, it’s been a long time since we really connected regularly.”

One day, the pain of the problem gets so bad that you finally do something about it…
But what keeps us from seeing the problem and the solutions to it sooner?

It’s pretty simple. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy.

Think about this: the thing that makes you FINALLY say enough is enough is… what? Do you know? I do.

Pain.

Once the pain is strong enough, you move. It’s biological and psychological. You can’t help but move or change when the pain feels bad enough. But then why do some people let problems fester so long?

They’ve figured out ways to not feel the pain.

Avoidance. Distractions. Bad habits. Addictions. Numbing.

So if you want to change your big problems faster…
Or if you want to see your problems when they’re small, and change them before they’re big…
You got one job.

Feel.

Get present to the pain, and feel it. For real. Is it uncomfortable? Duh. It’s pain.

But tune in! Don’t tune out.

P.S. I’m flabbergasted by how much energy and life I’ve felt since I stopped watching TV two weeks ago. I had no clue how much it was sapping my energy. Cutting out worse habits gives back even more.

And gives me more time to reflect on the Into the Wild Within Retreat in Iceland. .within

This winter was a bust.

We hardly got any snow. I mean, when it hit, I enjoyed it… but it was so minimal compared to the past few years here.

I spend a lot of time wishing for better. Like, when you give me a bowl of vanilla ice cream, I’ll eat it while thinking about how it would be better with chocolate syrup. Instead of enjoying the vanilla fully.

So now that spring is in full swing here — full of birds, bees, battlestar galactica (jk i’m not watching TV right now) — I’m having to remind myself to ENJOY IT.

The trees went from bare, to blooming flowers, to shedding flowers in like 2 weeks. It goes by so fast.

So I’m working on remembering this lesson in my life and in my business:

Embrace the season.

I’m in a season where I’m coaching a lot. I’m spending more time on zoom than I’ve done in a long time.

And I’m really enjoying it right now.

But there’ll be a time where I won’t have all these calls. I’ll have another business model built, or hell maybe a whole different business.

And that’s when I’ll look back and remember how great this season was… IF I embrace it fully now.

Even if you’re in a rough patch - can you embrace it? Surrender to the sh*ttiness of it, and learn from it?

Or if life is great - surrender and feel how great feels now?

Everything ends.

Embrace what you’ve got while you’ve got it. (Rusty, I’m talking to you.)

Call me weird if you want, but I love doing the dishes. Because while I’m there my thoughts organize and clarity shows up. Like shower thoughts, but in the kitchen.

Last night I realized I’ve been beating myself up a bit the last few days. While I was in Iceland, I journaled daily to catch my insights and thoughts. So many things happened there, I knew I wouldn’t remember it all unless I wrote it down.

But now I’ve been home a whole week from my trip, and I still haven’t finished going through my journal to review those learnings. So I felt like I’m wasting the money I spent to go there, by not reviewing my journal and remembering what happened.

While doing the dishes last night, The Voice spoke clearly and corrected me:

“I didn’t send you to Iceland to worry about what you wrote in the journal. I sent you there to learn how to act differently and more authentically.
Don’t live in the past. Even if the past was great.
Live now, and authentically express yourself in every moment. Create from your New You.”

I quit worrying about my journal in that moment. And I told Nikki - “Let’s get ice cream now, it’ll be fun.” Taking action instead of thinking about what action I wasn’t taking.

Even though I’ve got lots more learnings I’d love to share with you from my trip… it’s more important to show that I’ve changed than to tell what I’ve changed. Example speaks louder than words, right?