Choose your Challenge
What kind of hard do you want?
No matter what we do, we always have some kind of challenge presented to us, and we can strategize what that is. There is plenty of research showing that our will power depletes during the day, knowing that we can choose our challenge and structure out day so that we get the the results we want.
For example, I know intimately my experience of the challenges of pushing hard, day after day. Asking a lot of my body but also pushing hard in my mind and spirit, driving forward hard and that all came from the pep talks of the mind. It was hard, it was my choice and in a way I thought I had to. Who I was then had an identity of always pushing hard, never failing people, getting sh** done, and some pride around how much that was. It was also hard afterward, the depletion and eventually the burn out, those were hard too and by default I was choosing them too. Not feeling like yourself because you are so deeply tired is hard.
Another type I experienced I believe was in reaction to this above mentioned experience, it was a challenge of resistance. It was saying no, feeling hesitant and feeling like a “no”. My effort went into holding back, not spending and not doing things I actually wanted to do but in an effort to conserve. In the moment it didn’t feel hard, just as pushing myself hard didn’t feel as hard then as the thought of it does now, but it cost me energy. It was depleting in it’s own way and the cycle continued for a while.
What I am experiencing now, playing with, experimenting with is quite different. I guess it is the challenge of balance, that buzz word we are all after. I have made a schedule for myself and the most important part of it is that I only check my emails twice a day. I am working toward only using social media of any kind during those times but, that is phase two. The rest of the schedule sounds good and is also quite challenging for me. What I have been experiencing in the first 10 days of the experiment is that some days I am totally on point and it happens with ease and the next day I feel no motivation. Sometimes it is an open day and I think it would be good writing day but there is no inspiration. Yesterday was one of those days and in my meditation, the thought came about the constructs I have about what makes a productive day. Is it output? Is it quality output? Is it connection with others?
So yesterday I recognized I had choice, a lot of choice really. I could choose to view productivity, even worth and value as tied to output, or at least tied to the input of time and I could pull out my computer and do something. I didn’t want to. I couldn’t think of anything that I was going to do. I have made a deal with myself that I only reach out to make new connections from a place of flow, joy, and abundance. I don’t do it when I am feeling low, scarce or sad. So no new connections, no bookings on the calendar, and no writing inspiration. I chose to let it be. To be okay with BALANCE. To understand that the amount of calls and ‘work’ I had done yesterday was tiring and perhaps today needed to be a day to digest, to integrate, to explore, and to be with myself. To sit in silence, to move my body, to read something and write for myself.
It was hard. Hard to let go of expectations I have (and feel that others have of me) that I am always working, especially on a Tuesday, that I am always at peak state ready to go, that I wake up everyday and jump out of bed. I had to look my past ways in the face and decide to do something different, and that is hard. It takes effort to not fall into the same old patterns and expectations and to be actively cultivating a new set of rules or agreements to live by.
