Impetus

Happy First Monday of May, Kids,

Did you know that there will be five whole Mondays this fifth month of 2022?

I love the number 5. My reasons for that are a bit other-worldly. It’s a number connected to an African deity, later connected to the patron saint of Cuba, which is where my entire family is from. I am not a religious person, but I admit that when I see the number, I feel what some of you might feel when you see a robin or a cloud formation or a meaningful lyric: like Something’s watching over.

We’re all a little crazy, yes?

As I write this post, I decide to look up the meaning of the number 5. Google tells me that in numerology, the person associated with the number is a “master of change, able to go with the flow and adapt itself to different environments and social situations.” On another site that defines it spiritually, 5 is the number that augurs a time of positive change.

Ain’t that somethin’? All news to me. And now that I know it, I feel the need to embrace it in some way. After all, Change and Coaching are indelibly connected.

I don’t know about you, but I am decidedly not the master of change. I am a grounded, still creature, at its happiest within the safety of familiarity and routine. I love tree roots and old stone structures and the feeling of solid wood underneath my bare feet. The impetus for change has often been self-protection, a need to get away from something harmful, like a deteriorating neighborhood or an unhealthy relationship or an unstable manager.

I’ve noticed something else about change in my own existence: While self-protection is an important and healthy response to the circumstances, when my impetus is purely motivated by anger, fear, or desperation, or when the internal battle of whether to stay or go, shut up or speak up, give up or try harder, is still in full-force, change doesn’t arrive. And when it finally does arrive, the option turns out to be, well, more of the same.

Anger, pain, and dissatisfaction inform us. We must pay attention, call them all by their rightful names, and listen to the stories they tell. When that’s all done, though, we can then adjust our senses to the untold stories on the other side of them. We may have to create these tales from scratch. They may seem implausible. But if we truly want to move, not just away from harm but toward something else, we have to name that “else.”

Today, on this Monday Number 1 of 5 May Mondays, I set a new impetus for change. Another “else.” I will call it Joy.

What can your impetus be?