The Importance of Self-Inventory for Achieving Clarity and Direction For Your Life
So there I was. Homeless.
Laying in the back of my 2012 white Toyota Camry with my clothes on hangers acting as window shades to block the ability for outsiders to look in.
I folded down my back seat so I can have half my body in the trunk, the other half on the folded down back seat. Not the most comfortable at first, but you eventually get used to it.
The cold from the plastic cover behind the seat and the moisture from the ocean air penetrated through my sleeping bag to touch my skin and give me goose bumps.
I'm alone. Frustrated. I feel a bit lost. And I feel like I just can't get a win with failure after failure.
So far, the entrepreneur life I pursued has left me worse off than when I started. How? Why?
Life has brought me to a place where it was trying to teach me something.
A defining moment came that night in my car. It was as if God gently said, "Are you done trying to do all this by yourself?"
I broke down. Cried. Because I was trying to do everything in my power to create this life I loved, selfishly. Instead, I kept getting in my own way, distracting myself from the real issues I needed to work through first, and had a big ego that needed shifting.
I needed to realign myself and it was now an opportunity to recreate myself.
What happened that night was an incredible experience of surrender. It was like a huge weight lifted off my shoulders. Life was teaching me and now giving me an opportunity to realign and restart from a new perspective and position.
From that night, each morning in the coming days I would sit on a bench by the side of the ocean and reflect on who Kyle was, my life, and everything in it. I started taking inventory.
I also started to be grateful for what I had and where life brought me so far, even sleeping in the back of my car. Every time I would have a "poor me" thought, I let it be and let it go. Every time I had anxiety creep in due to feeling out of control, I let it go and surrendered more.
During this time of reflection and taking inventory I was able to zoom out and get a 10,000 ft view and then zoom in to look at each aspect of my life.
Just as life always does when it is calling you to become a better version, it will test you with a big shakeup and bring you to time in your life where you need to let go and learn something in order to go to a new height.
It does this so you can leave behind and shed an old version of yourself and come out of the experience a better version of yourself. Kinda like a crab that goes through a molting process.
And life does this because you will cross paths with someone in the future who you are an answered prayer for. You'll have the opportunity to help them through the same circumstance life pulled you through, share the same lesson you learned. That is what life is all about.
Since those days in my car and sitting on the bench by the beach, to now 5 years later my life has completely transformed to creating that life I initially wanted to create when I got started on my entrepreneur journey.
Now I have put together my experience and process that got me here to what I call the RISE Process. This process continually evolves and improves but right now this is what I use every year to review myself and my business to rise up and reach new heights.
The R.I.S.E. Process looks like this:
R - Reach
I - Inner
S - Serve
E - Evolve
Make sure you download the R.I.S.E. work book and follow along.
The first part of the RISE Process is Reach.
Reach has two different meanings and two different parts:
verb- to arrive at
verb- to extend to
Today we are going to look at Reach from the perspective of to arrive at.
Taking inventory gives you a clear understanding of where you are currently at. It forces you to look in and around your life to get an understanding of where you have arrived at so far.
It gives you the ability to get a detached 10,000 ft view of your life.
There are core aspects I look at when taking personal inventory:
Being
Body
Balance
Business
Finances
I review each core aspect and ask myself a lot of questions.
There is a quote that stuck with me for a long time from a Tony Robbins conference, "The quality of your life is determined by the quality of your questions."
The funny, kinda weird, thing about asking yourself questions is that when you sit in silence for an extended period of time, the answers usually reveal themselves to you. That's because all answers lay within you. Your higher self knows whats best. You just have to slow down to listen.
It is also recommended to ask some questions to those close to you (family, friends) and hear their responses just to get feedback. We all have blind spots. The more we understand ourselves from our perspective and get feedback from others, the better we can become.
Here are questions to help you determine where you are currently at.
BEING
What are my positive and negative character traits?
What does my relationship with myself look like? Do I love myself?
How do I talk to myself? Is it how my mother or father talked to me growing up?
What are the beliefs I hold about life? About myself? Are they serving me or are they limiting me?
What story or stories do I continually tell myself? Are they from a victim perspective or growth perspective?
What do I watch, listen to, and learn from?
What current actions (inputs) am I doing? Are they helping me become the person (outputs) I desire to become?
BODY
Is my body where I want it to be? Weight? Strength? Body Fat? Flexibility? Energy? Healthy?
What does my diet and food intake look like the past 6 months?
What are the beliefs I have about my (the) body?
What are the stories I continually tell myself about my (the) body?
What current actions (inputs) am I doing? Are they helping me achieve the body (outputs) I desire to have?
BALANCE
Who are my closest friends? Do they support me or do they hold me back?
What tribes (communities) am I apart of? What is the collective consciousness and energy of the tribe? Do they help me grow or keep me limited? How does the tribe make me feel?
What does my relationship with my significant other, friends, and family look like?
What are my hobbies? How often do I do something away from routine? work?
Do I tell myself I don't have enough time? Am I always 'busy?'
What current actions (inputs) am I doing? Are they helping me achieve the life (outputs) I desire to have?
BUSINESS
Do I love what I am currently doing for work?
What beliefs and stories do I keep telling myself that are keeping me limited in my growth towards the next level of business (or career) I desire to create & have?
What current actions (inputs) am I doing? Are they helping me achieve the business/career (outputs) I desire to have?
FINANCES
What is my monthly and yearly income? How much do I make per day?
What are my current beliefs about money? Is money good or bad?
What current actions (inputs) am I doing? Are they helping me achieve the financial goals (outputs) I desire to have?
Welcome to your currently reality.
If you love where you are at in life, fantastic! Enjoy life, but know if you aren't growing, you are dying. Taking Inventory allows you to optimize your life at greater levels so you can continually reach new heights, become your greatest self, and serve at the highest level.
If you don't love where you are at in life, it's ok. Examen it from the 10,000 foot view. You will be able to zoom in and zoom out so you can start to begin taking steps in a new direction and remove what is not helping you get there.
Your currently reality will always be your lowest standards, not your highest dreams. The best way to continually reach a new height is to continually raise your standards in everything you do!
If currently reality is not a place you love, there is a high probability that you have been moving through life unconsciously for a majority of it. Thats ok. The goal of Taking Inventory is to bring light to where it is dark.
From this dark, comes a new sense of awareness and a new opportunity moving forward. The 10,000 foot view and the internal review helps do this. You will move forward with full-consciousness and awareness to create the life you love.
The only way for you to move forward, is to be grateful for where you are at right now and how far you have come. The second we can have acceptance is the second we get to learn, heal, adjust, take a new step, and move forward.
What we resist, always persists. That is because life is trying to teach us something and it will continually "repeat" or keep us in the same circumstances until we learn and grow. What seems like life keep you here is really you keeping yourself there.
Here is the thing about acceptance, just because you accept doesn't mean you are giving up.
Acceptance IS a sense of gratitude for where life has brought you so far and for what life is trying to teach you. It gives you power to understand that the days that lay in front of you can be completely different than of the life that lies behind you.
Even be grateful for the all the bad, difficult, and ugly times - everything is a test to help you grow into who you are supposed to become IN ORDER FOR YOU TO HELP SOMEONE ELSE!
You have the power to change. You have the power to recreate everything.
Don't wish it was easier, wish you were better.
The only person who is responsible for keeping you where you are at right now in life is you.
I hope this exercise gives you some fuel to get the rocket going for you to reach a new height.
Next up we cover the perspective to extend to for Reach.
You got this.
Keep going.