Time to Get Off the Merry-go-Round

John Lennon so eloquently wrote and sang:

“I’m just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round,
I really love to watch them roll,
No longer riding on the merry-go-round,
I just had to let it go.”

I do the same when I observe the difficulty my clients have in making decisions which are in their best interest. I know this because they tell me!

On a peaceful and sunny morning, Jason—my coaching client—entered the conference with a look of determination. “Sid, I made the decision to resign from my part-time job because I came to understand I just hate it.”

I asked Jason to share his plans for making the change. Within thirty minutes I observed the wheels go round and round, and observed a melancholy and saddened human being say the following:

• I am about commitment, so how can I do this to them?
• I am not a quitter
• I finish what I start
• Other people like the job, so it must be me
• I am never satisfied

When you allow the wheels of internal chatter to become more important than your own sense of truth, you are playing into the hands of habitual and negative thought.

Making and sticking to decisions we make isn’t easy, especially in light of the internal and mostly negative chatter. But you can honor yourself and the decisions you make by first being consciously aware of that chatter, and the complete judgmental nature of most of it.

You are bigger than the noise. Tell it to shut up, and move on. Your freedom and joy is dependent upon moving towards your truth and away from the chatter of lies and judgment.

There isn’t a silver bullet to joy, but it begins by being awake, conscious and not attached to the chatter.