Clebrity Night Shot

"Describe a time when you were at your best."

To many people, this is a real challenge. Questions start popping up. What do you mean, "best" in what way? I never ran a marathon or was elected Miss Global Consciousness?

Granted it is an unusual request. When we see a doctor, she asks what is wrong. Often our friends, our spouse and colleagues do the same.

"What is wrong?"

Not that everything is wrong, it rarely is, we are just so used to describing what is wrong. When asked the opposite question our brain stumbles and strains to find a safe place to make a statement from.

A moment when something or even everything was "right"? A peak moment?

A woman in her mid forties, that I was working with, seemed to have been waiting to be able to tell her peak story. She beamed with joy describing how she had overcome a very difficult challenge. She had focused all her energy on it, slowly worked herself through the process over several months. Throughout, she did not have the assurance, it would work, the way she wanted to, but she had managed to stick with it. When it did work out, the experience transformed her life.

Faith in a project is not always enough, but it is often the only thing we have when no other guarantees are available.
Positive reflections can help keep the faith alive when distractions and doubts get in the way.

Allow yourself to shine.

Big moments can be very small ones. You don't have to be on TV or in a magazine cover story to shine. Our best moments play themselves out when we decide to do things that are true to our values, overcome our fears and assert some measure of control over our lives.

Or, when we simply challenge ourselves, like the woman I saw this morning in an over sized kayak paddling upriver with a pleased look on her face. It looked difficult. I am not convinced it would have brought me any joy. Maybe she was having a peak moment, maybe not, in any case, she was clearly enjoying her moment.
Do you need a positive re-introduction to yourself?

Now might be as good a time as any to take out a piece of paper and a pen and tell yourself your peak story (300 words or so).

The story will find it's way to the paper, or the screen, if you take a few deep breaths first and allow for the words to flow.

Need more convincing?

Here are 5 benefits to writing about a time when you were at your best:

1. See your strengths more clearly. What was it exactly you did at that moment that you are proud of today?
2. Change your overall life story to a more positive one.
3. Gain energy from remembering what you are capable of.
4. Celebrate the good times, help create more of them.
5. Use the positive potential to realize new projects. Put the negative thoughts aside for a moment.

One of my peak moments took place in a class room in France 11-12 years ago. It still has importance for me today.
To read that story, click here.

Sometimes it looks like the Hudson river is running the wrong way, upstream. I know it is not true. It is just the upper layers of water being pushed in the opposite direction. Under it, the majority of the water is running the "right" way, past the southern part of Manhattan, Brooklyn and Staten Island out into the Atlantic Ocean.

Inherently we all have a strong, positive flow capable of making us climb mountains, paddle up rivers or whatever else we choose to do. Don't let that layer of "wrong" decide which way your river is flowing.

Share yourself and your stories.