The 4- (5, 12, 25, etc.) Step Method Approach to Life

I've been thinking a lot lately about all the books out there that give you a "tried and true" or a "guaranteed to give you results" or a "follow this and you're sure to succeed" promise that will change your life. I'm thinking about why the surefire answer approach just doesn't sit well with me.

Maybe it goes back to my need to find THE answer to all the challenges I wasn't even able to articulate in my own life. I've always been a seeker, an eager learner and an overachiever, so I was a sucker for anything that would promise me results - especially those I could obtain outside myself.

The very reason I've titled my blog "You Already Know This Stuff," I think, is why I'm unsettled by having someone else tell me what I should do or guarantee me results based on their formula for success.

I get that there are certainly great ideas that others have learned from their own experience and that they want to share with others. I'm the same way. I'd love nothing more than to be able to share all the things I continue to learn about my own life so that others might be able to subvert those experiences themselves and get to more important work more quickly.

But for some reason I have a problem with some guru promising others THE way to success. Maybe I'm overly sensitive since reading Peter Block's The Answer to How is Yes, which really altered the way I ask questions to support people in connecting with what they already know.

I'm all about connecting with our inner KNOWING. Maybe it starts with defining that inner KNOWING - the collection of all the wisdom we've accumulated over the years and either discounted because it didn't fit with who we are or accepted because it did. I wonder if we get to a point in our lives that we've accumulated enough inner wisdom - a critical mass, maybe - that makes it easier to trust both WHAT we know and THAT we know.

I can't promise that someone's life will be altered by reading this or any blog, or any self-help book out there. But I do know that there comes a point in everyone's life - Lance Secretan in the book "Inspire" says that sometimes it happens on people's deathbeds, but it does happen - when they connect with their destiny, when the switch flips and they realize that they can have a life they love.

I don't want to wait until my deathbed, and I'm learning every day - every minute. Yes, as the Beatles tell us, "Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see/It's getting hard to be someone but it all works out, it doesn't matter much to me" (from Strawberry Fields Forever).

Don't let fear of the unknown keep you from living with eyes open, learning to understand all you see. It's a much more enlightening place to live as you figure out your own, personalized approach to life!