EXPERT STATUS #63:
I’m Done With Results … How About You?
www.getknownnow.com
February 5, 2009

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ESSAY: I’m Done With Results … How About You?

I have always been the sort of person who LOVES results. While I’m not like my friend Lisa who is a numbers person and adores tracking all kinds of statistics, I’m usually all about how this or that project turns out; I find real delight – or horror - in tracking those results.

There are always questions in my head - What am I getting? How am I doing? Is this project going just as it should? What’s wrong, or right, here?

I think of it as a direct feed to my ego.

So imagine my surprise the other night when I was talking to a friend and I heard myself say, ‘You know what? I’m done with results.’

It just slipped out. I, Miss Encourage-the-World-to-Go-For-Your-Dreams, hereby denounces an attachment to results. Does this mean I no longer believe in having goals? No – of course I do! But this is about something different; the results, and more specifically the meaning we attach to them.

And therein lies the rightness of this … for in that instant I blurted that to my friend, I realized it’s not ‘the results’ per se, but what I do with them that counts. In fact, the results don’t even matter that much in the larger scheme of things.

For instance, recently I started really getting into how many folks were visiting my blog every week. I worried if the numbers were lower than usual, and had surges of delight when the report swung high. And then I’d try to figure out what I did right or wrong that particular week … and consequently mull it over, tease it out, analyze and just generally fret.

In the light of my new non-attachment to results, I can see that it doesn’t ultimately matter how many people visit my blog. That number was just proving to be an ego stroke or an ego bash. What matters is actually how I’m interacting with the blog – and what REALLY matters is how effectively I’m sharing with my readers.

So now the focus has shifted to the journey, and how I choose to play it out.

When I’m excited about what I’m writing and put lots of energy into my blog posts, the numbers coincidentally go up. Conversely, when I’m lazy about it and lose touch for a week here or there, the numbers happen to go down.

All they do is reflect where my attention is – and ultimately, that doesn’t even much matter, does it? If there are lots of people, great; if not, great. All that truly matters is the moment-by-moment journey I’m on – and living as authentically and honestly in each of those moments as I can.

And THAT is right where my love for my readers, students, clients, and the world comes in.

Now that I’ve turned the big 5-0, I’m discovering that life is really truly not about me – it’s about you; the other folks in my sphere. And so my results only matter as reflections of how I share that love. Instead of looking to see how many people hit my blog so I can stroke my ego and feel powerful, I might ask instead, how truly and deeply am I sharing with others today? Am I reflecting what Spirit wants me to reflect today? And the only reason to know that is just to determine how I’m doing my job.

An extension of that would be to say the only other thing that matters is me, and how I live my journey as it reflects my love for myself. For instance, is my writing for this ezine teaching me what I need to know in order to keep spreading that love? Am I treating my body in a way that affords me maximum energy and wholeness in doing my work? Am I mixing work with relaxation in a balance that feeds me, and allows me to spread my wings further and greater in sharing my love?

Kind of a big love thing, now isn’t it?

And by the way, isn’t that just how all businesses should operate?

Have a glorious day – and may you, too, enjoy the freedom of detachment. (Ironically, it could help you produce your biggest results yet!)

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