Reverse temptation for your own positive gain

A key tenet of recovering from addiction is resisting temptation.

Walk in dry places, twelve steppers say.

By keeping your sobriety at the top of your list, all other decisions follow in proper order.

But what about the opposite? Could this ancient temptation maxim get reversed for positive gain?

Absolutely. Because it’s not enough to avoid putting yourself in the way of temptation by not walking in the wrong places.

Not hanging around unhealthy companions helps. That’s good reactive work. But you also have to put yourself in the way of finding what you seek. Being proactive with your growth.

Because waiting for things to happen doesn’t work. You have to go out and happen to things. That’s the only way to change the pattern. Taking contrary action.

This is one of the fundamental truths you learn as a small business owner. To quote my mentor, the door must be opened from the inside. We have to manufacture the opportunities that allow us to be as creative as we are.

As a case study from my own career, busking in my neighborhood park was a transformative practice in my work as a musician and songwriter. Showing up, in public, every week, with nothing but my instrument and a story to tell, this became my consistent routine of healthy, proactive creative activity that put me in the way of my goal.

It forced me to keep writing new songs, keep expanding my vocal range, and keep iterating on those tunes until they found their center of gravity and became ready for studio recording.

Nobody could have given that to me.

But then again, it’s not who’s going to let you, but who’s going to stop you.

That, my friends, is how you put yourself in the way of what you seek. It’s a reminder that chasing your dreams is work, but creating the opportunity to chase your dreams is work too.

Dry places aren’t the paths to walk.

How would your life be different if you believed that opportunity was subordinate to wherewithal?