Sometimes we get into trouble because we overstep: We jump into a situation too soon. We act with too much enthusiasm or commitment.
The bigger challenge that most of us face in life, however, is not that we overstep, but that we understep – that we miss opportunities to be who we most want to be – whether out of fear, self-consciousness, or the simple premise that we are not really up to the opportunity/challenge. Sound familiar?
The biggest regrets people share with me (and frankly, which I have felt in my own life) are rarely about what they did, but much more often are about those things they wish they’d done, but didn’t do. In other words, the times we wished we had stepped up, but didn’t.
Start with the opportunities to step up that are most important to you – not those which others tell you are the most important ones.
But that can change. It turns out that stepping up is actually a learnable art form, and it often comes down to these three basic things:
- Have people in your life who are there to encourage you, to remind you that you are more capable than you may give yourself credit for, and have more permission to step up than you typically allow yourself. You need to find at least one person who sees you as you wish you saw yourself, and listen to them, at least sometimes, when they tell you to step up.
- Be the person who you need for at least one other person. Be the one who gives to someone else the encouragement and permission you most need. In fact, this may be the first step because for many of us, it is easier to give encouragement or permission than to receive it, and giving actually heightens our capacity for receiving.
- Perhaps most importantly, be yourself. Start with those opportunities to step up that are most important to you, not those which others tell you are most important. Perhaps they are right, perhaps not. Perhaps you will get to those, perhaps not.
What matters most, I think, when it comes to stepping up your life, is appreciating that it is your life, and that the steps you are taking, are yours – nobody can take them but you, and because they are yours, nobody can take them better than you can.
Listed for many years in Newsweek as one of America’s “50 Most Influential Rabbis” and recognized as one of our nation’s leading “Preachers and Teachers,” by Beliefnet.com, Rabbi Brad Hirschfield serves as the President of Clal–The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, a training institute, think tank, and resource center nurturing religious and intellectual pluralism within the Jewish community, and the wider world, preparing people to meet the biggest challenges we face in our increasingly polarized world.
An ordained Orthodox rabbi who studied for his PhD and taught at The Jewish Theological Seminary, he has also taught the University of Pennsylvania, where he directs an ongoing seminar, and American Jewish University. Rabbi Brad regularly teaches and consults for the US Army and United States Department of Defense, religious organizations — Jewish and Christian — including United Seminary (Methodist), Yeshivat Chovevei Torah (Modern Orthodox) Luther Seminary (Lutheran), and The Jewish Theological Seminary (Conservative) — civic organizations including No Labels, Odyssey Impact, and The Aspen Institute, numerous Jewish Federations, and a variety of communal and family foundations.
Hirschfield is the author and editor of numerous books, including You Don’t Have To Be Wrong For Me To Be Right: Finding Faith Without Fanaticism, writes a column for Religion News Service, and appears regularly on TV and radio in outlets ranging from The Washington Post to Fox News Channel. He is also the founder of the Stand and See Fellowship, which brings hundreds of Christian religious leaders to Israel, preparing them to address the increasing polarization around Middle East issues — and really all currently polarizing issues at home and abroad — with six words, “It’s more complicated than we know.”