Evan Sanders's Blog, page 21

Answering To All That You Know

It’s not about what you think…

It’s about what you know.

What do you know deep within your bones?

What do you know to be true — a wisdom that cannot be taken from you?

Those whispers will guide you home.

They will take you in the right direction — the places you’ve always needed to go.

But if you think about it, you are already heading off path.

It’s not going to make sense to your mind…it lives far outside of that.

That intuition, that wisdom, doesn’t live from the head down — it arises from the bottom of the ocean and pops once it reaches the surface.

Then, you know. You know without a doubt.

It’s not always easy to trust your gut. I know from a lifetime of going back and forth on decisions that this is definitely true for me. But I have to tell you…every time that I actually listened to my intuition, I never went wrong.

Did things happen the way I thought they were going to?

No of course not.

But it was never about that (I can see that now).

It was always about learning what I needed to in order to grow.

Of course I wish I could have avoided all the headaches and heartbreaks along the way, but when I look at it now, I see just how necessary those were in order for me to become the man I am today.

Without them, I would have the tiniest fraction of who I’ve become…and, honestly I wouldn’t trade those hard times out for anything.

I think if you spend your entire life avoiding hardship you are going to build a castle around yourself and learn nothing. Eventually, you are going to want to go out into the world and run the risk of getting hurt if the promise of adventure is there.

But I know what it’s like to be in that place — the place where you want to shut yourself off from the rest of the world and go into protection mode. That can be fine for a while if you need to regroup, but you really can’t let that become a habit.

What happens when you wall everything out to protect yourself from anything bad happening?

You wall your true self in.

You’re going to get hurt.

You’re going to suffer.

That’s a part of life.

The sooner you can accept that this is just how life is and that’s part of the playing field we all live on (I didn’t make the rules I promise) the less of a shock it becomes when it does happen.

You can deal with it better. You can handle the ups and downs with a little more grace.

You see, the problem with walls is that they cut you off from everything you were ever meant to become. Sure, they are reasonable, but you never ever start to scratch the surface of what could be.

That one line — what could be — is what has me so fascinated lately.

After being neck deep in this project for over 7+ years now, I have reached a place where I have never been more excited about what’s coming in the future.

Sure, there has been a lot of work that has been done, but I am seeing all of these projects come to fruition and I can hardly wait until they begin to bloom.

I think at times I forget just how much work and care it takes to give dreams the chance to bloom.

Is it work it?

Of course.

Are there times where I have wanted to quit?

Pretty much every single week.

But I just know deep within my bones that this moment in front of me is it.

I can feel it.

I sense it.

I just know it.

The mistake in the past is that I wanted to rush it.

Not this time — I’ve learned that lesson far too many times.

This time, I’m taking my time…waiting for that wave to peak at the perfect moment, and then I’m riding it all the way in.

Evan Sanders

The Better Man Project

P.S. If you want to walk the journey with me, just sign up for my free newsletter called “The Spark” here

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If You Find The Courage

If you find the courage to believe in your dreams, anything is possible.

If you find the courage to believe in your dreams, anything is possible.

Anything could happen.

It could all unfold as you saw it in your imagination. It can happen. It can all be real.

There’s a price to pay.

The bigger the dream, the greater the price.

Long hours. Fear. Doubt. Worry. Sacrifice. Loss.

But there’s so much to gain.

Even if a fraction of what you thought could be ended up happening, it would completely change your world.

This sense of belief is what lives in the child.

This is the kid in me speaking.

The same kid who ran around the yard dreaming up all sorts of plays and scenes to live in worlds away from the world I was in. My imagination was wild and untamed and saw that there was lifetimes of possibility.

As time went on that imagination became clouded with so many ideas, events and concepts that weren’t even mine. They made my mind murky and I headed down paths that I was told I should.

But I lost myself on those paths.

Can you imagine the confusion?

I thought I had people guiding me in the right direction…how could I end up here?

But I kept going. I kept on listening and listening and yet the places I arrived at with this adventurous and persistent soul of mine ended up being fruitless.

All I was left with was a lot of energy expended and a story to tell of a place you can get to, but when you get there it disappears like sand running through your fingers.

I remained naive.

I placed my hope in things that would never yield anything.

I depended on people more than I depended on my intuition.

I believed in things that were just smoke and mirrors.

It nearly destroyed me.

Nearly.

This isn’t about that though. This is about what happens next.

I think life is going to put pressure on you no matter what. Things are going to go ways you never could have predicted and it’s going to fall apart at times. Forgive me for bringing up a cliché, but that pressure can either turn you into a diamond or into dust.

How are you going to handle it?

Are you going to let yourself lay down and quit or are you going to dig into your never say die attitude.

At times, I meandered in between those with a flurry of half-commitments and changing plans.

But as time has gone on, I can see that there’s always that 1 important thing right in front of you that if you push that domino down, all others will fall as well.

It’s about having focused, precise, diligently chosen decisions. If you can do that, the obstacles that face you become much easier to manage.

My greatest room for growth right now is to bring my attention back from looking at the big picture and harnessing all of that energy towards the very thing that is right in front of me. I haven’t been good at that so far in my life.

In fact, the big picture would move and shift and I would lose my way in the present.

But now, I’m coming back over and over again.

Whenever I wander, I bring myself back.

Because all I have is right now.

No magic or mirrors.

Just this heartbeat guiding me along the way.

Evan Sanders

The Better Man Project

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Don’t Fear The Wave

There’s this fine balance…

No matter what, things are going to change and you have to learn to go with them.

But…

You also have to learn how to fight for what you know is right.

This can be a bit tricky. How do you distinguish between the moments where you go with the flow and the ones where you start moving against the current.

For the longest time (and I’m still working on this) I couldn’t find that balance. I didn’t know how to let go and to move with it. Instead, I fought like all hell against just about everything.

I could accept change. I wanted things to go the way I thought they should. Because of that attitude, I was actually limiting myself like crazy to what was truly possible for me. Even though I thought I was a big picture type of guy, I wasn’t even getting close to seeing the whole thing.

But that still leaves the question…

How do you know when to move with things or fight through them?

Your gut.

Not your head.

Your gut.

You have to go to the place where your inner wisdom lives. You have to get out of your head (not leaving it behind completely though) and start to tap into the deepest wisest version of who you are.

And how do you get there?

Well, the best answer I have for you is to get very quiet.

Go into solitude. Go into the mountains and the forest. Quiet your mind down and seek the answers there.

If you ask the questions, the answers will come in time.

You might have to wash away many old bad habits and ways of thinking, but if you’re patient, what you need to discover will arrive. That’s exactly what happened to me in one of the strangest ways of all.

One day I was just hiking, about 9 months into this journey and I just suddenly felt like I woke up from a dream. It was like I was pulled out of this groggy state and started to see everything much more clearly.

After this moment, I then had to work through all of the guilt and judgement that I was getting attacked with internally (thanks inner critic), but from that process and finally seeing what I needed to see…the picture became a whole lot bigger and clearer.

Now I was seeing the big picture.

Don’t fear change.

It’s just how it’s supposed to be.

Learn to work with it. Learn to move through it and let it take you where you need to be.

You will learn all that you need to.

Trust that.

It’s worth it.

Evan Sanders

The Better Man Project

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Breaking With The Past

 

Put the past to rest.

Break from it.

You can’t go back. You can’t fix or change anything. You can only accept it and move on.

Only forward. Only forward.

So what will it be now? Victory or defeat?

Who will you be in these moments that exist before you?

Will you stare back at the past and wish you could go back or will you look towards the future and create something that ignites the fire within?

That choice is yours every single day.

So instead of thinking about who you will become, think about who you will be right now and eventually as time goes on, it will come to life.

That’s exactly where I am today — breaking from the past and putting it to rest.

It’s time to redefine all of this and bring with me the knowledge and wisdom I have gained throughout these years.

There’s no turning back.

There’s no looking back.

All that happened and all that took place was meant to unfold as it did. It taught me. Shaped me. Sometimes, it hammered me into submission. But I learned and that’s all I could ever ask for.

So in this parting moment, I honor my past.

Thank you for making me into who I am.

And in the next breath, it’s about everything I am to become.

Evan Sanders

The Better Man Project

 

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I Didn’t Know What I Was Building

If you could build anything you wanted to, what would you build?

What would it look like? What would it feel like? What would it represent to the rest of the world?

But most importantly, what would it mean to you?

Anything at all.

Anything.

It doesn’t matter what it is, you could create it.

You see when I started, I didn’t know what I was building. In fact, all that I was building was, “I’ll take anything that is just not this.”

But that’s no way to build. You don’t see this pile of rubble on the ground and go…

Anything will do as long as it’s not just this. 

But when I look back, that’s what I see. I knew I wanted a few things for myself, but that can be likened to a couple of support beams. I knew I wanted to build some different skills, but that’s like choosing the wallpaper before the foundation.

I had no plan.

I just went out into the open and expected great things to happen.

Truthfully, they did at times. There were many great things that came to be. But there were many structures that were built upon false footing or continued because of going through the motions.

But like I said…

That’s no way to build something.

So I’ll come back to it — if I was going to build something, what would I build?

I’m figuring that out as we speak.

I’m sitting in this room allowing myself to dream and seeing the way in front of me. After all these years I truly have come to understand that so many things are possible. We are all capable of incredible achievements. They come at a price of course, but they are possible.

For now, let’s start with the foundation.

Evan Sanders

The Better Man Project

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The Building Of A Dream

I’ve been thinking a lot lately.

Well, I’m always thinking a lot, but maybe this is in a completely different way.

There’s been this idea that has come to my mind, something that has tickled my curiosity, and I just can’t help but ponder on it.

I look at my life right now — 28 years old turning 29 soon — and have started to see more and more of the big picture. I see a lot of uncontrollable events in my younger years and then the act of starting to really turn things around as I grew up.

But the idea that came to mind was…

What if you decided to live a completely new life over the next decade? What would you do? What would it look like?

I am a firm believer in the fact that anyone and everyone can make huge shifts in their life if they are willing to accept the impact of those decisions.

Most of the time, we really just don’t want to.

We want to stay where we are in what we are doing and as much as we like the idea of change, we never actually do it.

For me, I am in love with dreams, goals and challenges. My hiccup wasn’t the desire to change…it was the long-term execution of those changes.

It was the day in and day out over a very long period of time that usually gets me.

That’s not to say I haven’t made some big changes — I have.

But with those very big dreams, I ran into all sorts of issues that tripped me up and stalled my journey. Sometimes willingly…a few times unwillingly…I was pulled off the road completely and had to really stop advancing.

But as I sit here now, a few weeks from my birthday, I am chewing on the idea of creating a 10 year plan in detail, breaking it down as much as possible and executing it every single day.

That structure will help me.

It will sustain and support me.

I can see over the past 10 years just how much I was striking at anything that grabbed my attention.

But now, in having grown, I can see and understand what needs to be done in order to truly achieve what I have set out to do.

I can also see my greatest pitfalls…and I think there’s a lot of value in that as well.

These past 10 years have been interesting to say the least.

One thing that I am so happy about is that I have a written record of everything that I have been going through since at least 21 years old.

But now, moving forward into the next 10, I want them to look drastically different in many ways.

So, this week, I am setting my mind to creating a plan and starting to head down it.

Consistent.

Persistent.

Dedicated.

Comitted.

Day in and day out. Let’s see what comes to fruition.

Evan Sanders

The Better Man Project

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Finally Taking A Stand

There’s something exciting, bizarre, and oddly peculiar that at any point in your life, you can completely start over.

You can head down a new path.

You can decide to do something wildly different.

You can abandon an old plan, make a new one and head down it.

And then there’s that word — choice — which usually stops us from doing all of those things.

Are you willing to make the choice?

Are you willing to decide once and for all that you are going forward with unfolding a new destiny versus traveling the old path again and again?

I wasn’t.

I stood at the gates of that new path, running a few steps forward and then heading back to the threshold again.

Month and month.

Year after year.

A lifetime.

You can look at that and say…

Well you didn’t know any better. You were young. You didn’t know what you didn’t know.

And while all of that is true, there’s something to be said for the fact that deep inside my bones I knew that it was the way to go all along.

I am guilty of taking far too long to throw myself in 100% to things. I’ll get in 95% and go for a while, but then there’s something that stops me, throws me off track and then a very long time comes in between when I finally get back around to it.

I’ve seen this. I’ve recognized it completely. Now, I just have to do something about it.

I have this strange relationship with myself and my inner wisdom.

The “old soul” inside recognizes exactly what to do but it takes me (me?) some time to catch up to that thinking. I think there’s also been a side of me — that critic — that loves to rip me apart for not listening as much as I could have.

This year was many things to me.

It was brutal, incredible, insightful, healing, troubling and everything else in between.

This year, I lived.

I know that when I’m an old man, I will look upon this time I spent here in the mountains on my own as one of the most transformational years of my life.

I saw a different path — a new way of living — and while I struggled with a lifetime of old habits and ways of thinking, I kept on coming back over and over again to give it one more effort.

I have signed on to do some of the hardest things there are to do.

I know I have to give myself a little credit for that.

But as for now, here I am taking a stand for what I know is right and what I truly need to do.

Not 95%

Not 98%

100%

It’s all or nothing.

All in or all out.

I get that now. I understand that fully. And, I know that if I do go in 100%, that this entire story is going to change beyond belief.

I’ve seen it and I know what’s coming.

All I have to do is give myself that gift.

Challenge accepted.

Evan Sanders

The Better Man Project

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Amongst The Ancient Juniper Tree

Deep in the mountains I planted my dreams amongst an ancient Juniper tree.

I promised myself that no matter what came my way, I would come back in 30 days a different man.

I will have claimed my right to be everything I knew I can be. I will have released myself from the chains of my past and have moved on in a drastically different way.

It was time to change, permanently, so I planted those seeds.

Today, I took my first steps.

I walked upon ground that I’ve been thinking about for months on end now.

While I had tried in the past, there was something very different about who I was today. Today, I was a committed soul. Today, I went all in.

There’s no turning back. There’s no looking back. There’s only forward. There’s only what comes next. While I have no idea what is coming for me, I am determined to find out. I am determined to write these pages the way I want them to instead of having them be written by the ways of old.

Today, was a hinge point in my life.

I can see how easy it is to fall into walking the same path over and over again. It’s one of the hardest things in the world to see another way of doing things and to change for good. There’s always this desire to retreat back into what you know — the past 9 months of my life are evidence of this — but I’ve seen that so much more is waiting for me.

Never again. Never again.

Today, I whispered goodbye.

Over the past couple of years, I have traveled thousands of miles across the globe only to discover that the real journey I wanted to go on was the one that I started taking today —

Within.

It was never about walking the earth.

It was never about seeing beautiful places.

It was always about connecting with what was already here.

It was never about there.

I believe I can do this. I believe that I am on a path that will drastically change my life. Am I a little bit nervous? Yes. However, I know that at the end of this, the amount of pride I will have in myself will be like nothing else I have ever experienced.

I am traveling a path few have gone.

I am climbing a mountain that few have climbed.

This is for me.

This win is for me.

This is what I’ve been looking for.

Evan Sanders, The Better Man Project

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It’s Never Too Late

I had this dream last night that would be near impossible to explain in writing, however, in that dream I heard this whisper…

It’s never too late to start.

For a while now, I’ve been pandering around the idea of answering to a personal journey that will last 30 days. It’s a path I know I have to travel and understand deeply that it will set me free in so many ways.

Throughout the past 6 months, I have tried and failed, sabotaged, and run from the idea of going the distance.

But after waking up this morning from my dream, I realized that this is only 30 days. That’s it. And, this 30 day challenge will last me for the rest of my life.

When I think back to some of my greatest moments I have ever had, they only happened when I went all in. I didn’t deviate. I didn’t take a step back. I didn’t stop a few days short. I went all the way.

So that’s what I’m doing.

I’m going all the way.

Once and for all.

Where that takes me, I have absolutely no idea. All I know is that this is the way I have to go and I will be far better off for it.

This year has been one of the wildest and yet most fruitful years of my life. I never could have expected it to go the way that it did.

So many people left, so many people came in, I learned so much, struggled a ton and I am now finally ready for my breakthrough with all of this. While at times I was driven a bit mad by things happening in life and also by certain ways I was acting, I stuck with it and that has made all the difference.

This is my time.

This is where I mount my comeback.

I’m ready.

Evan Sanders, The Better Man Project

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As These Bridges Burn

“To each there comes in their lifetime a special moment when they are figuratively tapped on the shoulder and offered the chance to do a very special thing, unique to them and fitted to their talents. What a tragedy if that moment finds them unprepared or unqualified for that which could have been their finest hour.” (Winston Churchill)

In many ways, this feels like the death of my soul.

How could you ever describe setting ablaze to the structures of old?

No more old ways. No turning back. There’s only forward. You can only go on.

There seems to be, in looking back, a very peculiar set of twists and turns that I have gone through. Not all of those moments have been pretty. Many have rocked me down to my foundation. And yet, even through the greatest moments of suffering and doubt they all had their unique purpose.

Some seem to have pounded me into submission.

Others have pressured me into becoming something stronger.

The Callings have continued to ring throughout the decisions and backtracks — often to the point of driving me mad — and I have learned how to answer them without second guessing their reasons.

And here I stand a product of a lifetime asking myself the question…

“What has this next lifetime always been destined to be?”

Because as I see myself now, I can see all of the ways that I have prevented myself from moving forward in life.

My identity — who I have thought myself to be — isn’t really the entire picture. 

It’s just the surface of the lake.

But what about who I really am…deep down to my core?

What about the rest of the lake?

That’s what I want this next chapter to be about — the rest of the lake.

Part of that understanding is going to be the version of who I am now going back and reading the work of the person who I was.

Thousand upon thousands of entries scribbled down working through my patterns (some still present) that forged these foundations.

But…

And this is a big but…

I have to remember that I just burned all of that down. As much as I can look back, there is no going back, and that’s that.

Theres only forward now.

There’s only onward.

What is done is done.

What is to be is left to a wiser mind.

Evan Sanders, The Better Man Project

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