Knock knock.
Who’s there?
AFGO.
AFGO who?
Another Freakin’ Growth Opportunity.
Ugh. One thing I know for sure about AFGOs is that they’re anything but funny.
Instead, they’re really good at upsetting apple carts, where apple carts represent your emotional status quo.
You’ll know an AFGO has coming knocking by the familiar way it makes you feel – like something isn’t quite right. You know that feeling well, even if you don’t really understand it. Even more, you don’t like the feeling and your knee-jerk response is to distract yourself with cookies or a new pair of shoes or another glass of wine or a new project.
Anything to not have to deal with it.
And that’s the best/worst part about an AFGO; it’ll keep on showing up, whether we want to deal with it or not.
Maybe it’s the things your mom says to you, still, that make your stomach sink.
Or maybe it’s the way you hold yourself back from doing what you love because you’re “not smart enough.”
But if we take a moment to understand the AFGOs that present themselves to us in various forms, we’ll see that they present us with opportunities to become the next best version of the kind of woman we aspire to be.
C’mon in, AFGO (says practically no one)
The thing that makes us reluctant to open the door to the growth opportunity is that AFGOs stir up our emotions. In fact, so much so that it would seem to be a better choice to find a way to stifle the uncomfortable feeling that signals the AFGO rather than have to deal with who-knows-what is behind it.
Instead, of looking into the deeper reasons why we get upset, we look for buffers. In that sense, AFGOs are like hot potatoes.
We deal with the hot potatoes by distracting ourselves from the feelings we don’t want to feel. We inadvertently cheat ourselves out of opportunities to really understand who we are.
None of this is intentional, of course. It’s all happening at the level of our subconscious mind. All we’re aware of is that something doesn’t feel right and we want that feeling to go away.
The feeling we get when someone else is doing it “better” than we are.
The feeling that hits us when we look in the mirror and don’t like the woman reflected back to us.
The feeling we push away whenever we’re reminded of the underlying belief that we’re just not good enough.
Hello AFGO.
Goodbye AFGO.
Hello donuts.
Hello Netflix.
Hello online shopping.
Hello passive aggression.
Hello excuses.
Excuses like, “I don’t have time” and “I’m too busy” and “I’m not ready,” i.e., the things we say when we don’t want to step out of our comfy cozy comfort zone and deal.
You know… like we learned how to do when we were little.
UNTIL… you realize that you are a card-carrying adult woman who is driven to evolve as a human being. Eventually, stifling yourself feels more painful than NOT stifling yourself.
People Places Things
AFGOs show up in your life as people, places, and things that challenge the status quo — your emotional status quo — in a way that makes you want to defend the status quo, even when you don’t like the status quo all that much.
In other words, you rather feel meh instead of upset in any way.
You (unconsciously) choose emotional mediocrity instead of clearing the way to emotional mastery, where you are in control of your mind, your decisions, your time, your money, your body and your health, your relationships, your life.
If everyone would just do what you expected them to do, and if everything could just stay the way you like it, and if you didn’t feel like there was an endless list of things to do, there would be no AFGOs to contend with!
But, think about it, life itself is one giant AFGO, so you know you’ve got your work cut out for you if personal growth is high on your agenda.
The worst thing about AFGOs is that they can feel downright scary because if we take the opportunity to change ourselves – to grow ourselves up on the inside – we risk pissing other people off because they’re not used to hearing our voice, our opinions, our preferences, our dreams.
In other words, there will always be people who prefer that we remain little girls who were trained to behave.
So, yeah, the threat of anger and disapproval and abandonment scares the bejeezus out of the little girl in us. And, of course, we don’t want to feel those emotions, even as grown-ass women. It’s bloody uncomfortable!
BUT…
(And it’s a really big but)…
As adult women we now have choices we didn’t have when we were little girls who were depending on the adults in our lives to take care of us.
We are now able to make CHOICES based on what we value.
What we consider important.
And what we value and consider important may be a whole lot different than what our mother or father or significant other or BFF considers important.
The AFGO presents us with an opportunity to stand up for what we say we believe in.
It’s an opportunity to shine a light on the unconscious belief that we are still powerless little girls who can’t tolerate anger or disapproval or someone leaving us. If we turn our backs on the AFGO by distracting ourselves with chocolate or handbags or wine or sex, we miss yet another opportunity to become a Woman UP.
Now, just because you decide not to deal with the AFGO, don’t think you’ve won; that AFGO will circle back again, and again, and again, until you’re finally willing to take it on… or you die.
AFGOs are relentless that way.
They insist on you coming to terms with how powerful a woman you really are; that you can make choices that weren’t available to you when you were a child, and nobody has the right or the permission or the power to stop you.
You are strong enough. You absolutely can change the status quo. You can be that woman. The only thing that can get in the way is your (lack of) willingness to slay the AFGOs, one by one, until YOU emerge, the you you’re afraid to let loose.
The goal? Nothing less than equanimity.
When we learn the practice of equanimity – the ability to stay calm in a turbulent sea that threatens to toss us right out of our comfort boat – we notice our voice begin to emerge, slowly at first, and then with a quiet ferocity that can only happen when we decide that we have no other choice but to finally embrace the AFGO and let it point us in the direction of our True North.
Did you know that STARTING YOUR OWN BUSINESS is an AFGO of EPIC PROPORTIONS?
Same goes for WRITING A BOOK – what an AFGO that can be!
At AFGO™ Media and Publishing, the name of my company, we show business women how to write tiny books that turn readers into paying clients. We also deal with the AFGOs related to those limiting beliefs that tell us we’re not “good enough” or “smart enough” to write a book. The only thing that might be true is that you haven’t yet learned how to be a powerful business woman. But that’s what your business is here to teach you. Don’t ever give up on your ability to figure all this out.
Now, if you’re wondering if your business need a book, take the BOOK to BIZ Quiz and find out.
