Tuning Slide 4.46- Being Free #2

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

If you keep doing what you’ve always done, you will keep getting what you’ve always gotten.
— Various

Last week I started a series based on a blog post at Planet of Success. It is about 10 powerful ways to free yourself if you are stuck. I took the concepts and riffed on them from my own experiences in the last 8-10 years to overcome self-defeating attitudes that kept me from changing and growing in my trumpet playing. Last week I looked at the first three:
1. Face your fears
2. Break your routine
3. Effect change, one step at a time

This week we take the next three and see where they can take us as we work to keep from staying stuck. Again, my thoughts are in italics.

4. Overcome the perception of impossibilities
✓ Feeling stuck in life … paralyzes us and diminishes our ability to see exciting new opportunities. Instead, we feel as if the options at hand are impossible to execute. If every solution you can think of seems impossible to accomplish, you’ll get even more stuck. … no progress can be made. nstead of getting trapped by these thinking patterns, try to explore your options… [T]ry to find the one solution that you like the most and commit to the decision.

It is not impossible to start a new career at least twice in one’s lifetime. Nor is it really too late to do it. I have seen many people over the years just kind of waste away into retirement- and spend many years moving toward it. It is not impossible to find new opportunities. As I have talked about with my trumpet playing, I was convinced that it would be impossible at my age (any age after about 40), to do anything about my shortcomings. Fortunately, I was wrong.

5. Be honest with yourself
✓ If we do want to break free from being stuck, it’s necessary to be honest with ourselves. Astonishingly, we almost always have the answer within ourselves. It might take some time to discover it, but it’s always there. The problem is that we do not act upon this knowledge. We prefer to keep this answer locked within ourselves.
Have the courage to at least think about the possible solution. It might be challenging to even consider acknowledging that you took a wrong path in life. But ultimately, it might prove to be better than suffering from this decision for the rest of your life.

Honesty. I have talked about this as part of the trio of honesty, openness, and willingness. The first honesty is to call BS on yourself when you say “I can’t do that!” or when we say “I don’t know what to do. It’s beyond me!” Neither is true. Because I had that moment of uncertainty at age 18, it does not mean I can’t do it now. Because I am trained in one area of life doesn’t mean I can’t get new training in my mid-40s or mid-60s for that matter. Admit that the biggest obstacle to getting where you want to go is YOU. That’s the first step of courage. The second is to say, “… and I don’t have to continue to block my own way!”

6. Change your perspective
✓ When we feel stuck in life, we most certainly do not have a good overview of the situation. Unfortunately, the feeling of being stuck in a rut can heavily affect our perception of life. It’s time to broaden your perspective!

▪ Stop walking the same path you’ve always chosen.
▪ Explore new perspectives by taking other paths.
▪ Ask yourself what your real goals are.
▪ Explore what you’re passionate about.
▪ Discover what it is that truly energizes you.
▪ Find your true purpose in life.
▪ Challenge yourself to have a vision for your life.

Discovering your vision and the pursuit of your passions can create a powerful drive. It can help you to liberate yourself from the vicious circle of being stuck.

That list above says more than I can absorb in a few moments. In essence, it replays that old cliche that if you keep doing the same things you will keep getting the same results. As long as I said I can’t change, that people my age can’t do that, someone with my history will fail, or I don’t know how that could happen- it won’t happen. Nothing will change if I don’t change. Nothing will improve if I don’t take the steps to make the change and improvement. That means looking at life from a whole new angle and finding out what I really want to see happen.

Remembering the first three things needed to get unstuck:
1. Face your fears
2. Break your routine
3. Effect change, one step at a time.

These were the prelude to everything else. I remember being asked to join a brass quintet, which I had never done in over 40 years of playing. (All three of those.) I remember deciding to get a trumpet teacher and then asking him. (All three of those.) I remember sitting with my teacher and him mentioning music camps and my then signing up for the Shell Lake Adult Big Band Workshop. (All three of those.) That’s when this week’s list came into play.

1. Things were no longer impossible. I did things I had never done before and began to see results, changes in my playing and increases in my skills.
2. I got honest with myself. I had been getting in my own way, but I also saw where I needed help in improvements. So I asked for help. My fears had been lessened, I had broken my routine of decades. I was taking it slowly, one issue at a time.
3. My perspective was changing. For one I began to see my third career in life included music. I was actually beginning to see myself as a “musician” and not having to excuse it away. Getting involved at Shell Lake with Mr. Baca’s trumpet workshop then gave these three items even more power and direction. I could see a vision, a movement, an honesty that was refreshing and exciting!

These first six things, interacting with each other and my new experiences, were life-changing on a surface level. That is where all change begins. We act our way into a new way of thinking, one small step or change or action at a time. After that, the changes get internalized, normalized. But that’s for next week.

Last week I asked you to take time this past week to find a fear that needed to be confronted or something in your routine that can be changed. Did you find a way to make a change? In the next week

• begin to look at those from last week and how your perception is changing,
• how you are no longer getting in your own way.
• What are you still saying is impossible?

Take it deeper- and keep moving forward.