What Game Are You Playing?
Photo by Michael Parzuchowski via Unsplash.
I've been thinking about the ego and its attachment to goals.
How it can take an inspired idea, turn it into a plan, squeeze the life out of it—and leave you feeling tight, twisted, behind, or not enough.
Goals themselves aren't the problem. They can be wonderful—a way to focus our energy, to play with Life, to bring an idea into form.
We do need the mind for that part of the process: turning inspiration into physical reality.
But when it comes to the birth of the idea?
That's not the mind's job.
It's the place before thought. The impulse that moves you, whispers to your heart, and hums with aliveness. The more we practice paying attention to that—learning what inspiration actually feels like for us—the richer our creations become.
Because when we don't… we default to playing a transactional game. A game where the goal is entirely external—get the client, fill the group, hit the number—and our whole sense of worth rests on whether it happens.
That's a win/lose game.
Even when you “win,” the feeling is fleeting… and soon you're onto the next goal.
I've done this too many times to count.
Years ago, when I first got serious about my health, my goal was simple: make the number on the scale go down. That was it. Which meant on any day my body (in all its intelligence) decided to fluctuate up a pound or more, I “lost.”
What if, instead, the game was to get stronger? To go from a 120-pound deadlift to a 150-pound deadlift? Or, to enhance balance, improve flexibility, or expand capacity for pleasure—the intention creates a through line, but with a completely different energy.
The same is true in coaching. I've been tunnel-visioned on filling groups before—especially in the early days. And it was awful. The pressure. The anxiety. The unconscious performance and manipulation. All rooted in the misunderstanding that my worth and safety was tied to the number of seats filled.
It's still tempting now.
I recently saw this pattern resurface after announcing my school: The School for Humaning Well.
Part of me was hoping for an avalanche of sign ups and inquiries. When that didn't happen, disappointment rushed in… which quickly turned into fear, worry, and the urge to over-function my way to safety.
I watched my mind want to make these first two days of results mean something about me—my value, my lovability. I could feel the pull to start doing from that place.
Instead, I turned toward the sensations. I asked:
What's the real concern here? What's the fear?
Sometimes the answer came as a thought. Other times it was just a tightness in my chest. But every time, it became clear: the fear was coming from the “me” I imagine myself to be—the separate self that believes she's all alone and has to earn love and worth.
That version of me doesn't exist in truth, even though the experience of it can feel very convincing. From this truth vantage point, my heart opened…my perspective widened…and the fear dissolved.
So I've been playing a different game:
How relaxed and open can I be during this process?
How can I soften when the old worthiness story gets activated?
What if the whole process—from idea to enrollment to delivery—was about creating for the sake of creating? What if success wasn't just measured in seats filled, but also in how much joy, relaxation, and inspiration we allowed ourselves to experience along the way?
Because here's the truth: Creation takes care of who's right for the program.
A magnolia tree doesn't track its blossoms and compare to last year or to the tree beside it. It just blooms.
This is the invitation for us too: to bloom the same way. Not just with the announcement of a new offering, but in each phase after that. This is what partnering with Creation looks like.
We take action—inspired action…aligned with our wholeness. Not contorted, trying to control, over-functioning, or frozen in terror-filled inaction.
The more I practice this, the more I experience my okayness. That I'm okay no matter what—whether one person registers or twenty. And that is freedom.
So I'll ask you:
What game are you playing?
Is it transactional and therefore limited, or is it expansive—allowing all of you to play along?
With loving,
Amber
