The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy has this to say about flying, “The knack of flying is learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.”
Now not everything in the Guide is accurate and what is accurate is often wrong to a great degree, but we can learn a few things from this regardless.
Perception
Perception is critical. How we perceive something frames how we act. For instance, do you have a challenge or a problem?
A challenge sounds exciting, can you do it? It pushes you in a positive way.
A problem is the opposite, it is confronting you. It is trying to stop you from doing something you want or need to do.
When confronted with a challenge you tend to embrace it, whereas a problem you might avoid, ignore, shy away from or fear.
Perception also helps you understand the situation from a different viewpoint and that opens up possibilities you wouldn’t otherwise have considered.
To fly, why would you consider going toward the ground when the objective is to rise above it?
If you only ever looked up when considering how to fly, you never would have considered ‘missing the ground’ as a means to flying.
Loss of Control
Not every direction we follow or action we take allows us to be fully in control. Risk, by definition, is a loss of control. The greater the loss the higher the risk in success because you have less and less bearing in the outcome.
We like to be in control. We like to know. Sometimes though, it is better if we don’t.
Conclusion
Would I advise you to throw yourself to the ground and help you try to miss in order to fly?
Probably not, but together we might consider some options you hadn’t previously considered because of your perspective and fear of a loss of control. Together we can evaluate the risk and reward and determine if it is a risk worth taking and how to best approach it.
Remove restraints and learn how to fly, even if it means you’ll hit the ground and have to brush off some dust once in a while.
Resilient Seeker Coaching | Ross Raymond Nunamaker 