Some areas in our lives are a little more sensitive than others and we tread carefully. Then, there are the places we just don’t go. Maybe the subject matter is frowned upon. Maybe it’s considered too much, too tender, too taboo—for example sex, politics, abortion, or vaccines. But sometimes we don’t address issues because we fail to even see them as issues. It’s just “the way it is.” We make assumptions and then we make those assumptions the “truth” and wonder why we can’t move forward in life

The opposite of making assumptions is being willing to look. When we start to explore our assumptions with curiosity, quite often they fall apart. Nobody could run a four-minute mile until 1954, when Roger Bannister broke it at age 25. As of this date, over 1600 athletes have broken the “impossible speed barrier,” and the four-minute mile is now a standard for professional middle-distance runners.

Being willing to look is the fountain of growth.  When we can explore the areas where we are stuck and be willing to see what else is possible, we unlock a whole new range of options. 

To this day, in some families only men are allowed to go into business because they supposedly are the only ones who have business minds and women do not—until a female family member comes along who is willing to look at the assumption and kick it to the curb because she wants to go into business and won’t let anything stop her—especially traditional assumptions!

Take “Becka” for example. She felt stymied in her career life until she realized that the “stuckness” wasn’t hers. Willing to look at what was holding her back, she became aware of the family pattern. She remembered all the times she was told that “Business isn’t for girls!” And she put that pattern in its place and moved beyond it.

Frankly, when it’s time for a pattern to be released and transformed, when it’s time for a family system to evolve a pattern that wants to stop, it’s inevitable that a pattern-breaker like Becka is born. She may be the first one in generations to start a new pattern, simply because she was willing to look. By seeing the patterns and giving the “stuckness” a place in the system, she was free to create something different. 

When you are the one who is willing to look, shift can happen. When we shift from seeing something in a certain way, as “impossible” or as a “chore,” or “forbidden,” we find ourselves pulled past the excuses and reasons to not go there. We engage possibilities and level-up.

This is how you and your systems evolve.