When a pilot hops into the cockpit of a plane, he’s got a plan to take him in a particular direction. He lifts off and heads into the sky, allowing the process to unfold.

But while he’s in the air, he doesn’t just leave everything to chance.

No. Every time a bit of turbulence or air traffic comes his way, he adjusts his course. Course corrections are part of the necessary actions that keep an airplane on track to reach the final destination.

Likewise, stepping into your new testament, allowing your True Self to fully manifest is not a one-time decision or action.

Making the commitment once isn’t enough. Too much stuff will happen to try to throw you off course. You must course correct.

Every course correction is a re-commitment to the path you’re on.

Josh Chandler wrote a moving piece on women in society, and how we need to stop talking and start doing. That’s a decision to act. He decided it was time to stop “talking” and start “acting”, and then took his own action by writing about it. If you care at all about this topic, I encourage you to read and at least consider the actions Josh recommends at the end of his post.

But more than that, I ask you to do something (regardless of the topic) and re-commit to it daily.

Because it’s easy for a mountain climber to say  ”I’m going to scale Mount Everest.” It’s a lot harder to actually do it. It’s even more difficult to press on once you’re on the mountain, staring down hurricane force winds, frostbite, snow blindness, and other obstacles that keep you from the peak – or may even kill you on the journey.

Once you’re in the throes of the process all kinds of things come up to distract or block you from your ultimate goal. It gets a lot easier to quit than it does to persevere. All kinds of voices step in to overpower the voice of your True Self.

To me, that is why it’s called the still, small voice. The God voice. Because it doesn’t try to fight. It’s just there, always inside you, patiently waiting out the storm of noise around you. Waiting for you to “be still and know”.

We’ve spent 10 days getting you to reconnect with your True Self. This isn’t the end. It’s the beginning of a new relationship with who you are really meant to be in the world. If you walk away now, and never make the daily re-commitment to your True Self, then all this work will have far less impact.

And you may find yourself somewhere on the side of the mountain, wondering why you haven’t made it to the top yet.

Things you can do to re-commit daily:

• Re-visit these posts or other posts that inspire your True Self. Comment, interact.
• Connect with friends that support and uplift you. Create a network of those people so no one person is always doing the supporting.
• Find others on this journey and be an encouragement by being an example.

This 4th grader has more intestinal fortitude than many adults I know. She is a great example of what we all do before taking the leap.

We try to talk ourselves into it. We obsess, we interrogate, we obsess some more.

We feel our nerves, sometimes we shy away from the edge, and we generally believe we’re not capable.

Then, with the encouragement of a guide, a mentor, a friend, someone around us, we give it a go.

When we come to the bottom of our 20 meter jump, we realize that it was the anxiety at the top of the hill that made it feel so crazy. We confidently say that a 60 meter jump is nothing now. We can do it because we’ve got experience with the smaller jump.

But that first jump… it’s a doozy!

When it comes to making a commitment, we hem and haw quite a bit, don’t we? But once we make the commitment, once we jump, all we can do is surrender to the process. Try not to “snowplow” on our way through the jump. Keep it straight. Essentially stay committed to the course.

When we come out on the other side, we’re whoopin’ and hollerin’ and generally thrilled with our result. We don’t bemoan our form, or how poorly we did something. We DID it, for crying out loud. That’s enough cause for celebration right now.

But a decision alone is not enough. Did you hear her at the beginning? “I’ll do it… here goes something.. I guess…. I’m gonna jump…”

Did you hear that small voice of her friend at the top of the hill? “The longer you wait, you’ll be more scared.”

Finally not only does she decide to jump. She commits to it. She actually jumps. She leaves the comfort of knowing the person she was before the jump, leaves her “old testament” and literally leaps into her new testament. This is what Queen Latifah calls a “life stopping moment” where life as we knew it ceases to be. It STOPS. Because we’ve begun something new.

“World changing ideas are born out of evolution. Breathing life into those ideas is what becomes the revolution.” - Simon Sinek

When I was a teenager, I read Jump and The Net Will Appear by Robin Crow. Not a traditional book for young readers, but I was obsessed with reading anything I could get my hands on related to the music industry. Robin’s story is now one that resonates deeply in my heart because of the parallels our stories share. At 40, Robin was facing the end of nearly everything, when he was inspired to step into his new testament. At his home in Nashville he built Dark Horse Recording into the premiere recording studio that many music legends now call their home away from home. He’s since gone on to author best selling books, multiple albums, and has become a sought after speaker – all since the age of 40.

Who says you’re too old to pursue your dreams?

But you can’t keep standing at the top of the hill talking yourself into your dreams. You’ve got to jump.

Robin parlayed his commitment to his new testament into a wildly successful venture that now includes an institute to train leaders and music professionals as well as business minds across the globe. Not bad for his new testament.

Is it all rosy? No. And we’ll go there tomorrow. Today, though, make the commitment to actually jump. And act. Jump into your new testament and surrender to the process. Let the net appear, and enjoy the ride.

I have an incredibly good friend that did me a huge favor this week.

It’s Spring break around these parts, and that meant BOTH my boys would be home all week long, bored to tears as Mom and Dad are both working. Granted, I work from home, but we’ve been very clear with the boys about the boundaries I’ve set about work time and non-work time. Besides, I’ve got blog posts to write, a screenplay in development, and a few other writing projects going on. Not to mention coaching calls for both myself and my clients.

So it’s not a vacation for Mom.

In light of this, my friend Mike volunteered to whisk my kids away for a few days, and then another friend volunteered to host my teenager. This gave me plenty of time to complete projects at record speed around the house and in my business.

It also gave me a lot of time to marinate in the silence of my home.

It’s not every day that the house is dead calm like this. Hubby leaves for work in the morning, and doesn’t come home until evening. And even then, I don’t “see” him until dinner.

So it’s pretty quiet here.

Usually, it would drive me nuts to have this much quiet. But this process of communing with my True Self reminds me how much I need this quiet space from time to time. Not all the time, but periodically throughout the year, it’s helpful for me to remove myself from the noise of the “normal routine” of my existence. It refreshes me, and gives me a new perspective.

I also learn a lot about myself in those quiet times. In fact, I’ve learned that they’re so valuable to me that I now plan to be away from my family at least 3-4 times a year. Even if it’s just staying at a friend’s house for a couple of days, it’s good for me to get out of the routing.

This time, however, was very unexpected, and I found myself a little “antsy” about what to do with all the time that opened up on my schedule. But it didn’t last long, because I could hear the voices of a few good people in my head.

First, Amy Oscar: “What world do I want to live in? How can I choose that world w thought/action?”

She’s so smart, and always gets me thinking critically about stuff.

Then, my coach: “What brings you joy? Make a list.”

And I got to thinking about what I really like to do. The stuff that brings me delirious amounts of satisfaction, contentment and joy.

And then I heard @Sally_G‘s encouraging guidance from months ago, when I was going through Amy’s Soul Caller training series, when she invited me to explore my childhood connections to my passion for all things daVinci.

My childhood… hmm…

Then, I read this:

“Beyond rational and critical thinking, we need to be called again. This can lead to the discovery of a ‘second naiveté,’ which is a return to the joy of our first naiveté, but now totally new, inclusive, and mature thinking.”

- Paul Ricoeur

I recognized that last year, and rolling into the first quarter of this year, I was experiencing the end of what I call my “old testament”. I’m now in the throes of living/writing my “new testament” – the life of my second naivete, I suppose. And it comes from the joyful things of my childhood.

Which means in order to see what lies ahead for me, I need to take a good look at where I’ve been. In essence, I need to re-read that old testament before I can fully embrace my new one.

I’ve always been mature for my age, but even in that maturity, there was a childish/childlike nature that proved my years. 2011, in many ways, was the year that broke this camel’s back. And 2012 didn’t feel like it was starting out any better.

But this is my past. It’s the “40 years in the wilderness” journey that we all go through. Some of us just take a little more or less time to make the journey. This is where you’ve come from. What made you who you are today and what you’re about in the world today.

And at some point, if we really want to step into being who we really are – if we really want to connect to our True Self, we’ve got to close the chapter on our Old Testament, which we can’t do until we start working on our New Testament.

Last night, I watched “28 Days” for the first time. Sandra Bullock’s character finally makes it out of rehab and has to make a decision about her life with her hard-partying fiancee. If she really wants to step into a healthier life, a life without drugs and alcohol, she’s got to be willing to write him out of her life.

She doesn’t forget who she was, or sweep it under a rug. No. She uses her past, her Old Testament, as the foundational piece that opens her New Testament.

So Too, Must You Begin Your New Testament, Founded On Your Old One

A new testament isn’t a clean slate. Although, it can feel like that, which is pretty exciting (and a little scary) when you think about it. Your New Testament is a continuation of the journey that incorporates all of who you are into what you are becoming.

So I think about what I really want to do. What really matters to me. And I realize I’ve always known where I want to be in my life. Like, since I was a really little kid, I’ve known.

I’ve just been too scared to do anything about it.

“It is not because you do not know the truth that I am writing to you, but rather because you know it already!” (1 John 2:21).

You already know inside you what to do. You already know the truth of who you are. But you’re scared, or you’ve been blocked by the layers of grime and cobwebs “painted” over your personal masterpiece - your True Self.

And it’s hard to clean all that up. In fact, it takes a very delicate hand and lots of patience to restore a masterpiece to its original luster. It takes many hours of gentle work. It also takes courage, and a belief in your own abilities. A belief that you have what it takes to NOT make the masterpiece any worse, but actually make it better.

A lot better, when it’s all said and done.

Who cares if it takes half a lifetime, like it did for Susan Boyle? Or even a whole lifetime as it did for Colonel Sanders and Laura Ingalls Wilder? We care, because we think we “should” be some point further down the line than we presently are.

You are the only one who’s allowed the limitations being set on you right now in this moment.

If you’re willing, it’s time to listen. And start your New Testament. Today.