What do you think of when you think of the word surprised?
Do you think of smiling and being astonished and feeling amazed and happy,
Something you never believed you'd see?
Or do you feel upset and shocked,
Feeling overwhelmed and stressed about something unexpected?
These are important questions because,
Let's be real,
Life rarely goes as planned.
Things often that come up that weren't part of our big picture,
They weren't part of our agenda,
And we have to navigate and manage them.
We have to work through these things.
And so it's important to think about these changes,
Unexpected things in life.
Are they surprising you in a good way,
Something that makes you excited?
Or are they surprising you and throwing you off track and making you frustrated and upset?
I have a question.
Have you ever looked back and like over a day or a week or month or year,
Like however long you want to do,
And just thought,
I can't believe that happened.
Have you ever said that to yourself?
Sometimes if we make space,
If we look back over time,
We find things that surprise us,
Things we never expected,
Things we never thought possible,
Things we never thought we were capable of.
So yes,
There are going to be those unexpected things that try to throw us off course,
Try to challenge us,
But there are just as many,
If not more,
Things happening that we don't even realize until we stop to take a look and reflect on what has happened in the past.
We don't realize how small,
Consistent daily action adds up,
Which often becomes so much bigger than we could have ever imagined.
We don't realize that each step we take toward our goals and dreams is an opportunity to surprise ourselves by going beyond what we originally imagined for our future.
Every time we take action,
Every time we take a step toward those things,
The more often that we'll surprise ourselves,
Because usually we do.
We usually think,
Can't do it,
Not capable,
Not strong enough,
Not smart enough,
Not fill in the blank,
And that stops us in our tracks.
Usually we don't even try then.
But if we persist and we keep going,
We will exceed the things that we even set out to do.
It's amazing.
So something to consider is when you set a goal,
Do you set a plan to achieve it?
Do you lay out a map of how to accomplish it?
Do you have direct action steps to get from point A to point B?
Many of us see our goals and our plans and expect certain things to happen along the way,
But what happens when the unexpected happens?
Do these things catch you off guard or do you see them as an opportunity for a pleasant surprise along the way?
Is there something,
I want you to consider this,
Is there something you've done that ended up surprising you?
Is there something that you have accomplished or steps that you have taken that is surprising to you?
Because that's where we start to see that each little bit really adds up over time.
It's so powerful.
So I encourage you to take some time with this and see what things might present themselves as surprises along the way.
