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Star Wars meets Personal Development
Weren’t we just talking about setbacks, roadblocks, and challenges? Perhaps not in so many words. However, my recent post about not giving up on blogging is right in line with the theme of this Path of the Jedi episode from back in November.
I know, I know. It’s May now. As I alluded to in that post, I had faced some setbacks (mostly in mindset) which threatened to derail this entire endeavor all together. That’s what roadblocks do – they make you feel like you can’t continue forward. But that’s no more true of a literal roadblock as it is for a figurative one.
Even without a pursuit of some lofty goal, in “normal” everyday life we all face the inevitable setback.
To live is to experience both calm waters and turbulent storms. This is the ebb and flow of life as natural and certain as the cycles of the moon, the season of the year.
So what do we do when we butt up against the seemingly impassable? Perhaps Anakin and the Clone Troopers’ example can provide us some guidance. Give a listen to this episode and find out.
Originally released November 3, 2021
(Intro soundbite) If we talked about it just from the context of Star Wars, the challenges are necessary, right… Without challenges, without conflicts our characters would have absolutely nothing to do. So the challenges and and the road blocks and the conflicts… it’s a necessary part of good storytelling.
(Intro music/ main podcast)
All right welcome to Path of the Jedi, the podcast where Star Wars meets personal development. Bright suns, citizens! Today is going to be a little bit of a shotgun episode. I am on the road again so let’s just get right to it with news and updates! Actually… you know what… I’m going to switch things up this week and save the news and updates for the end of the podcast and go ahead and dive right into todays topic.
(Anakin soundbite from Star Wars: the Clone Wars) “We’ve lost our momentum! Fall back!”
That clip comes from Star Wars; the Clone Wars – Season 6, Episode 1. In this scene we have Anakin and the clones in a battle against Separatist droids. Through the course of the battle they start to lose their advantage and they need to fall back. That’s where we get that quote.
I chose this particular scene and quote because setbacks are things that we all experience and go through. We all face set backs. We all face challenges. We all face roadblocks along our journey. It’s just a natural part of life especially if you’re working towards a specific goal or trying to achieve a specific task. There’s always going to be challenges along the way.
If we’re talking about it just from the context of Star Wars, challenges are necessary. Without challenges, without conflicts, our characters would have absolutely nothing to do. The challenges and the road blocks and the conflicts… it’s a necessary part of good storytelling.
So for us, number one, I want you guys to understand that setbacks are normal. Challenges are normal. They’re there to stretch you. They’re there to help you grow, because without them there would be no growth – there’s no lessons, there’s no progress. And if there’s no progress, you’re never going to get to where you want to go. So we need setbacks, we need challenges, we need conflicts, and we need roadblocks because those are the things that help us learn and grow.
Now, if you happen to be facing some challenges right now or going through some setbacks, understand that it’s okay to fall back. In this scene Anakin had no issues making the decision to fall back by, to reconnoiter, to regroup and look at what went wrong, look at what we did wrong and see how we can improve moving forward. That’s what falling back is.
So if you’re faced with a roadblock right now, if you’re facing some hurdles, take a step back. Take a breather. Reconnoiter. And as much as possible from a neutral standpoint, from an objective standpoint, just to take a look at things that you’ve been doing and see where perhaps things could be improved. This is a great time at to look at strategy, to look at where you can tweak things, maybe improve the situation. And again, it’s really important that you come at it from a neutral standpoint because you don’t want to have your emotions and your reactions getting in the way and clouding judgement.
Another thing you can do is seek an outside perspective. Seek the perspective from a coach or a mentor, especially somebody who’s already been where you want to go, or someone who’s already done the things that you’re trying to do. It’s awesome and it’s very, very effective and could cut your learning curve and cut your work when you get the perspectives of somebody who’s already done it. So seek out a mentor.
And then once you’ve identified the areas that you can fix and have a good idea of how to fix them, then that’s when you get back into the fray. That’s when you rally the troops so to speak, you rally the clones and you get back into the battle. That way you not only refreshed and rejuvenated your strategy but hopefully you’ve also refreshed and rejuvenated yourself. We all need to take breaks, reconnoiter and fall back, because going full throttle seven days a week twenty four hours a day… it’s just not healthy and it’s really not possible. You’re going to burn out. You’re going to melt down physically, emotionally, and mentally, and you’re just going to want to quit.
Which brings me to the second point I wanted to discuss today. When we set new goals and visions for ourselves, when we give ourselves new targets, especially in the beginning, it can feel awesome, it can feel great. It’ll feel like is a lot of forward motion and momentum. And that’s fine, that’s awesome. It’s totally normal because it’s new. There’s a freshness to it and it feels like you’re making progress.
Now eventually what happens is it starts to feel like you lose momentum. It starts to feel less exciting and less invigorating. And again, that’s normal too. We can start to feel like during this phase of our journeys that there’s no progress being made. Understand this: results don’t happen overnight. The danger with this is that you can start feeling like you’re just spinning your wheels but getting nowhere. And if you’re feeling like this for a prolonged of time, the natural inclination is that you’re just going to want to quit and walk away and go do something else.
At the time, that may feel like the right thing to do and the right decision to make. But I will say this: there’s no quicker and surer path to failure than quitting. And if you do it again, if you repeat that with the next goal and the next goal after that, it becomes a pattern and you end up never achieving any of the things that you set out to achieve.
So don’t quit. Losing momentum is normal. Having setbacks and challenges are normal. Hitting roadblocks along the way are normal. This is the time to fall back, reconnoiter, refresh and rejuvenate your strategy, yourself, and then get back into the fray.
Success isn’t about luck, it isn’t about chance. It takes time. It takes effort. It takes growth. Journey’s don’t happen standing still. If you’re trying to get somewhere in life, going through the challenges and the setbacks and the conflicts is the only way to get there.
All right and that’s going to do it for today’s episode. What challenges, what roadblocks, what hurdles are you facing right now? What are some things that you’ve done in the past that have helped you get through particularly difficult times on your journey? These are some things that I would love to hear from you guys and I’m sure could help others on their journeys as well. If they hear and could relate to something that you’ve been through, maybe you can help them on their track.
So just message me. Let us know, let us know what you think about this episode. You know how to hit us up on Twitter and Facebook – it’s potjpodcast on both of those things. Of course you can email us or a send a MP3 to info@pathoftheJedi.com. And then yeah, well beyond that the other news and updates that I want to tell you guys about…
This weekend, I will be up in the Hershey, Pennsylvania area doing a small event for my local team there. So if you happen to be in that area or are from the surrounding areas and would like to meet up, let me know. Shoot me a message or hit me up on Twitter or any of the social accounts that we have. Connect with me. I would love to meet you in person if there’s anybody, any of my listeners here from that area.
Or if you’re even interested in taking a look at what I’m doing with Yoli, what our teams there are doing with Yoli, you can come to our presentation and our training event there as well. Yeah hit me up, hit me up. If you’re in the Hershey Pennsylvania area and the surrounding areas, hit me up on Twitter or send me an email and we could definitely link up. I’m going to be up there until Sunday so I would love a chance to get to meet you.
And of course, last but not least I cannot do an episode without a shout out! This week’s shout out goes to my good friend Paul Duane! Paul is just an exceptional individual. He’s an amazing photographer and artist. He does a podcast as well. And he’s just one of the coolest individuals that I’ve ever met in my life. I love the time that I get to spend with him. When I do it’s always such a enlightening and fulfilling experience.
So yeah I’m going to hit you guys up with the with Pauls social feeds. Follow him. He’s got an amazing podcast and he’s a phenomenal phenomenal freaking photographer. I will leave his two Instagram accounts as well as his podcast info in the show notes of this episode. So make sure to look him up, connect with him. Again one of the coolest individuals you’ll ever meet. So yeah… well Paul, here’s to you brother!
Okay so that is it! I will still be traveling next week so we may get another shotgun episode. But who knows? Who knows? We’ll see what happens. We’ll see what happens. Either way for sure you’ll get a fresh, new episode next week, so until then, everybody be well, be safe, and may the Force be with you.
