The Importance of Faith in Your Business and Personal life
I was in Seattle recently and had my backpack stolen by a person experiencing houselessness. It was my fault. I left it unattended on a table of a coffee shop and wandered into the adjacent lobby of the building it was in. I saw a houseless man walk in and thought nothing of it. When I came back, my backpack was gone. Had I been him- desperate, hungry, living on the streets- I probably would have taken it too. There was an officer right outside, and she and I immediately hustled down the street together, looking for the man I had seen enter the building. Quite luckily, I had my MacBook Pro in the bag and was able to track it from my phone. The signal was coming from the middle of the street, so we scoured the subway underneath. Unfortunately, the tracker signal lagged, and the last connection got older and older: 12 minutes, 14 minutes, 18 minutes, 26 minutes. We walked in circles above ground, hoping to spot the guy.
What had started in my mind as a feeling of near certainty that we would recuperate my stolen bag, based on having a tracker in it, started to fade. After half an hour of searching I thought for a moment, “Wow. We may not find it.” I caught myself having this thought. I knew that if I gave up, I was doomed. I needed to keep believing that I would find it, or I would give up the search. So I said out loud to myself, “Calysta, you’re going to find it.”
I restarted my phone and got a 6 minute signal from my computer. Bingo. He was still in the vicinity. Within minutes, we spotted the suspect with a big black trash bag and something heavy in it. The officer approached him from behind, surprised him, and he dropped the bag and took a few steps back. She reached inside and pulled out my beloved backpack, a flowered North Face bag that my best friend had given me for my 50th birthday. It was strangely covered in flour from inside the trash bag. I grabbed the bag, raised it above my head, and yelled as loud as I could for the 10 or so houseless people watching us, “F*#k yeah! We found it! This is MY f$%&*ing backpack!” It was a guttural cry of victory: loud, and sure, and definitive. I looked at the man who had taken it and said, “Sorry dude. I know you were excited to have it, but I need this way more than you do.” Besides my computer, the bag contained my wallet, car keys, journal, daily planner, and several books.
I have kissed every item that I have taken out of the bag since then with gratitude that it’s back in my life. While I could have figured it out and replaced everything (except the journal), it would have taken me countless hours and thousands of dollars. What kept me hanging in there during our search was my faith that we would find it. I stayed calm, knowing that I had a very competent officer helping me, a tracker, and a visual on what the man looked like. I also knew that I needed it more than he did. My attitude as we searched for it was one of having already decided that we would find it. There was no other option.
If you approach our business or personal goals with the same unwavering faith that the outcomes we are seeking will come to be, the way you show up in the world will be different. You show up totally confident, knowing it’s a non-negotiable. Hope is not faith. Hope lacks conviction. It’s more of a “I hope this happens, but it might not, and I’ll be ok with the outcome either way.” Faith is, “I know this is going to happen, I’m so excited for the outcome, and I’m so grateful for what that’s going to feel like.” When we have faith, we will do what it takes to make things happen. The people around you can feel it too.
The trickiest part of faith is not collapsing it with attachment. The beauty of faith is that it’s action without attachment. You’re not forcing and pushing and efforting and gritting your teeth. You can approach your goals with calm, centered action, knowing that the outcome is coming. You can relax and trust that it’s going to work out, even if it works out differently from how you had planned or pictured. You just keep walking the path, having faith that the end will happen. While it can be stressful at times (mostly when doubt creeps in), it feels more like flow and gratitude than worry and effort.
You may have to make your desire a little more general. With the backpack, it was very clear that I wanted that object back. With a business goal, it might be that you want a specific promotion within your company. While that’s fine, perhaps you could generalize it to “I want to be recognized for my hard work and intelligence by getting promoted to a higher position that reflects my talents.” Who knows? Maybe a different company will hire you to go to Sweden for a higher position and will pay for your whole family to move there. Trust that when you declare the bigger picture of what you want and can surrender and have faith that it’s coming, the Universe will provide it in ways that your limited thinking could never have imagined.
The same is true of personal goals. Let’s say you want to lose 20 pounds, and you have faith that you’re going to. Try broadening your goal to, “I want to feel healthier than I ever have, love exercising, feel great in my clothes, and be able to eat foods I love until I’m full.” Who knows? You might find yourself on a fitness retreat in Mexico with girlfriends, eating pineapple and carne asada all day and laughing your face off. All you need is faith that your goals and desires are going to come true, no matter what.
Check in on your faith today. Do you have faith that the ends you are working towards are going to happen? Or are you stuck in hope? If you’re stuck in hope, take a leap. The only way to try it is to try it. There’s no recipe. You just decide. You cut off any other possibility and have undying faith that the outcome you want is going to happen. It might feel like faking it till you make it at first, but keep growing that muscle. If you do, I’m not kidding, miracles will happen.
