Photo by Chris Barbalis on Unsplash
Recently I’ve been getting caught up with the different goals in my life. I’ve fallen into the trap of longing for the future where I’ve ‘got to’ the place. This is particularly the case with my coaching business.
When we fantasise about achieving something or reaching a certain status, we believe that once we do something in the future, then we can be happy. In reality, once we get to that point, we arrive only to find a new set of issues. The only place we can find contentment is in this moment, right now.
I’ve spoken a lot to my own coach around slowing down. It can feel counterintuitive to think that doing things slower can make us achieve them faster, but it is often true.
Rushing around saps us of our energy. In our frenzy to complete pre-determined tasks, we miss the opportunities that are staring us right in the face. For me, this has been around developing my relationships with the people around me. I’ve been sociable, but being worn out means that I’m not really being as present as I could be.
My shift in the last 14 days has been to focus around my patterns. The more I gave myself space for rest, the more I found my mind settling down. It was like returning to a healthy rhythm. Life has felt far easier.
Examining our life’s rhythm lets us critically examine how hard or easy we are making life for ourselves. Too hard and we will spin in a cycle of exhaustion. Too easy and we will not lose our comfort zone, and watch our dreams go unfulfilled.
So let’s set ourselves the correct balance. Something that gives us a good amount of challenge, but won’t leave us feeling so frustrated that we just want to give up.
I often play on my Playstation during my downtime, and in video games you get to choose the difficulty you want to play at. Generally I set it on the medium difficulty for an enjoyable challenge. Once I gain proficiency I can look at taking bigger challenges or increasing the difficulty. If I’m really struggling I can also turn it down.
Whatever challenge you may be facing, you can adjust the settings to play it in your favour. If you want to start a new project, you can increase the difficulty parameters by giving yourself a deadline, or a stretching target. If things feel too much, try lowering the difficulty by giving yourself more time or finding ways people can help you with it.
Quite often we can feel guilty about wanting to make things easier for ourselves. But having the right level of challenge is critical, otherwise we may give up, or burn ourselves out with an impossible task.
What’s the difficulty level for your goals?