The
Growth Toolbox
What’s Your Misogi For The Year?
I know what you’re thinking….what the hell is a misogi? I didn’t know either and it’s something I recently learned. The word is derived from the Japanese culture. If you google the word it says “Misogi is a Japanese Shinto practice of ritual purification by washing the entire body.” But I’m not talking about taking baths. I’m talking about doing something that scares the hell out of you once a year. The other meaning of misogi basically says we should do something so hard once a year that it will impact us the rest of the 364 days of the year. Can you image something so hard and so fulfilling that it has momentum for the next year?
The closest experience I had to this was Dec. 31st, 2015. I jumped out of a perfectly good airplane at 14,000 feet in the air above the majestic island of O’ahu, Hawaii.
In January of 2015, I set a goal to “Attack All Fears”. This was after watching a Will Smith conversation on youtube and reading “The Obstacle is the Way” By Ryan Holiday. This led to setting a goal of sky diving by the end of 2015…I didn’t know where, when or who with I just set the goal. Randomly, I got a call from a friend in October of 2015 who said if I wanted to go to Hawaii we had a free place to stay just book the flight. At that time, I wasn’t thinking of sky diving I was thinking about surfing and hiking for 7 days. I booked the flight the next day. The next conversation my friend and I had led to the question “Hey, you ever been sky diving?”. I replied “No, never”. My friend smiled and said “Good! Cause we are going in Hawaii.”
Sometimes we have no idea how to get from Point A to Point B. But what I’ve learned over the years is to write it down, journal about it, talk about it with your friends and eventually your goals will show up. This jump changed my perspective on sooooo many levels. This is one of the best experiences of my life. The negative thoughts that I had built up over the years about it were all lies. My monkey brain had me believing things that weren’t even close to true. Following this jump was one of the best years of my life. In 2016, I met my future wife, I was hired as Residential Faculty in our Exercise Science Department at SMCC, we won championship in the Texas Collegiate League for the fourth straight year, I got hired by the YD Red Sox in the Cape Code League to coach the following summer, I started The Growth Toolbox “Life Skills Course” then spoke about it in Anaheim at the ABCA Convention in January of 2017.
Without a doubt, the trip to Hawaii and jumping out of that perfectly good airplane started that momentum in 2016.
So my question to you is what is scaring the hell out of you? On the other side of fear is our greatest achievement. So what is your Misogi for this year?
