When you know you are not the words you write, you can write more freely.
When you know you are not the time you run in your marathon, you can run more freely.
When you know you are not your pain, you can let it be the without thinking it’ll never go away.
And when you know you are not your love either, you can enjoy it fully without being afraid to lose it.
Maybe you feel like you’re going off-track once in a while.
Maybe going off-track is how you build your own track.
Maybe your own track doesn’t always have to go straight.
Maybe you’re the only one using your track.
And maybe that’s fine.
You’ll struggle with hardship, until you get used to it.
You revel in good fortune, until you get used to it.
Habituation is how we make it through the hard times.
And habituation is how we stay ambitious when we go through prosperous times.
Back to the baseline we always go.
“Is this really important right now?” I ask myself, as another distraction passes through my head.
I imagine an old wise man, disturbed from his task at hand, looking up.
“No? Can you come back later then, at a more appropriate time? Thank you very much.”
Back to work he goes.
“Is this really a life-threatening event?” I ask myself, as another anxiety-inducing thought intrudes my mind.
I imagine the same old wise man, fending off a harassing distraction.
“No? Can you come back with a message more appropriate to the severity of the event? Thank you very much.”
On with life he goes.
If only it were that easy, my friend.
The distracted, anxious, worried mind tends to fight back. I’m taking the liberty to assume you’ve also noticed that at some point in your life.
Nevertheless, I believe we can, nay, we must fight back.
Not that I’m advocating suppression.
Excited, worried, sanguine, anxious, passionate, defeated: let them have their moment of attention – at the appropriate time.
Maybe it’s all about the art of making all the selves get along?
I imagine the old wise man, who has mastered that art.
I know I’m not that old wise man yet.
But I could be, if I make it a point to practice every day.
And so could you, if you make it a point to practice every day.
If that’s something that’s important to you, of course. That’s for you to decide, in your personal situation and in your personal life.
Trying to become good fast makes you impatient. And impatience may well stop you from ever becoming good in the first place.
Because the only way to become good is by understanding that in today’s practice session, you likely won’t be perfect anyway.
That you likely won’t write your most insightful words.
That you likely won’t run an all-time best.
That you’ll likely spend a large part of your yoga session stumbling and losing balance.
When you go into your practice session with that mindset…
Suddenly it makes sense to focus hard on getting that one sentence right.
Now it makes sense to focus on rhythmic breathing while running instead of pushing for a better time.
Now it makes sense to focus on a tiny part of your body during an entire yoga session to train your awareness instead of trying to chase poses because “they look professional.”
Even if there is not much time to “become good,” it still makes sense to assume there is time.
Because that gives you the freedom to focus on the small adjustments that prepare you for when the time comes, and you truly need to perform.
Since I’m always practicing anyway, I don’t have to be good at this today.
Starting a new habit seems to come with three universal “self-trust issues”:
Trust in my Intentions. “Do I even have the time for this? Does making time for this make me selfish… Is it even good for me to spend time on this, out of all the priorities in life? Will this do me in any good in the long term?”
Trust in my Ability to follow through. “I’ll probably give up at the first opportunity, and then beat myself up again for not following through.”
Trust in my Skills. “Am I even good enough? I don’t notice any improvement, I don’t think this is working for me. I don’t think I can do this.”
(Source: Eben Pagan)
And even though I’ve slowly been gaining trust across all three dimensions in the past two years…
Whenever I start something new – like publishing a daily insight – the same trust issues resurface.
“Trust in my ability to follow through” is a particularly tough cookie. Not a day goes by without a self-defeating and endlessly annoying voice whispering in my ear: “Go ahead, try me. See how long you last before you return with another habit you gave up on…”
Which leads me to the Completion Paradox:
Trust in my ability to complete things is not a prerequisite to get started. It’s earned through getting started in the first place and then, slowly, but surely, day by day, following through. Completing something every single day. Proving to myself that I can, in fact, trust myself to follow through. Building up that self-trust every day through tiny trust builders.
So… the questions I keep in mind today:
Taking it one step further:
And with those questions in mind, I realize a simple thought can put my mind at ease…
“It’s all fine… I’ve been through this before.”
Because when my dreams start drowning in doubts
And desire turns into despair
When I suddenly see what I always had in me
Who I could be
Yet my thoughts already declare defeat
I step back
Look back
Feel back
And when at last I notice
That day by day,
I’m finally unleashing the calling I’ve always ignored
I remind myself
It’s all fine. I’ve been through this before.
Performance gap: the frustrating gap between how you know something should be done in an ideal world and how you currently do it.
One implication of the performance gap: you don’t have to master this skill today.
Another implication, maybe even more important: your idea of how something “should be done” is probably wrong anyway.
Because as you practice and gain mastery, you’ll also gain progressive insight: a more nuanced intellectual understanding of the skill you’re practicing.
What I thought was a “good” yoga session six months ago, I now see as a session full of misalignment and cramped muscles.
What I thought of as a solid piece of writing six months ago, I now see as an argument full of holes and points of improvement.
Sometimes, progressive insight is just about more nuances.
Sometimes, progressive insight shows that your initial intellectual understanding completely missed the mark.
There’s only one way to find out: practice: Sculpt away, day by day.
