The Formula for Initiative
Initiative involves taking an ideal and transforming it from the spiritual, through our mental and emotional aspects, into physical form, or action. It begins with picking something simple and specific.
Here's an exercise to help you improve your initiative. The exercise is about taking the initiative to bring a goal into physical form, or action. Once you have picked a goal, write it down. Then ask: What is the value of my goal? Write down the value. Second, list three ideas or thoughts that help describe your goal in more detail Third, list three different ways you would like to feel if your goal took place. Fourth, list three different things you would like your goal to improve. Fifth, define some form of physical change and action that will bring your goal into being. Write it down. Sixth, apply and practice this.
There should be clear physical evidence of this action. You should practice this physical change or action until you can do it in the three areas that you want to improve. If you can't do it in those three areas, then you need to modify your physical change until you can. In order to modify it, look back at step two.
When you get stuck, examine this process and see where you are stuck. If you're stuck in an emotion, for example, realize that. See that you are not the emotion. Instead, realize that you are the initiate who is stuck in an emotion.
"The key," states Sensei, "is to see your goal, and the value of your goal, in the area that you are stuck in.”
Why is it important to list three thoughts, feelings and areas of improvement? Because this gives us more than one perspective. When we can see things from more than one perspective it's easier for us to bring it into form. The point is: What does it take to bring this new idea into form? Where are we in that process?
"We need to develop our ability to see our goals when we are in our moments of difficulty. That's when we need to take the time to create the space and to transform our difficulty into an opportunity to practice our goal."
In this way, we are bringing our ideal into form, into the space where our difficulty normally exists. This is the transformation we are looking to achieve.
"The successful initiate taking initiative practices bringing goals into form and initials his, or her, difficulty with the change they're looking to bring about."
First published in ‘The Current’, a newsletter of Great River Institute. 07 March 2002.
