As a freelance editor, it’s hard to find time to relax and enjoy where I am. When I’m working, I’m thinking of all the things I want to do when I’m on hiatus. But when I’m on hiatus, I’m spending all my time and energy trying to find the next job. I’m always looking ahead to the next stage of life and completely missing the moment I am in. This is the fast path to stress, anxiety and unhappiness. Recently, I’ve decided to take a new tactic. I’ve begun to practice mindfulness and fill my brain with positive thoughts, words, and content.
Happiness. Success. Flow.
These have become the big buzz words in the online community, blog world, and podcast arenas. And I fall, hook, line, and sinker every time I come across any of those words. I am a huge fan of The Tim Ferriss Podcast where he digs deep into the habits and behaviors of experts and world class performers. I can’t get enough of the Happier Podcast with Gretchen Rubin and Elizabeth Craft. I absolutely adore Adventures in Happiness with Jessica Ortner especially the podcast where she interviewed Stephen Kotler, founder of the Flow Genome Project and expert in human performance and hacking flow. My Instagram feed is filled with positive affirmations , inspirational quotes, and photographs from the likes of Deepak Chopra, Huffington Post, Mother World, NatGeo and countless others. I love forwarding little inspirations to friends and family who might be needing it at the time. I even took an online course called A Life of Happiness and Fulfillment on Coursera that teaches all about the science behind human happiness and how we can achieve more of it. I believe that the more positive, actionable content you can ingest, the more you will begin to feel and act that way. And I have to say that this belief system has been working. I am happier. I am feeling more inspired. I am getting into “the flow” more often. I am actually setting goals for myself and taking steps in order to achieve them.
But what happens when you lose the flow?
What happens when you are doing all those little habits and behaviors, but you can’t find the motivation to push to the next level or take the next step to advance yourself? What happens when you think you’re doing all the right things and then you test yourself only to discover that you’re not really making progress toward the goal you set for yourself?
Well, for one thing, maybe it’s time to reassess your goals. What sent me down this rabbit hole yesterday was a surprise time trial at my swim practice. I underperformed by minutes in this time trial, which in swimming, is a long time. I was crushed. For some reason, this unexpected time trial “failure” sent me into a black hole of despair wondering why I’m bothering with any of this and if any of my “good habits” are actually making a difference in my life.
And then I did some math.
I calculated my 100YD pace in this 1000YD time trial and it was the exact same pace that I swam a month earlier for my 500YD time trial. Oh! Okay, maybe I’m not so bad off. While of course it would be great if that pace time had gone down, but I swam twice the distance and sustained the same pace. In my mind, that’s progress. So when I suggest reassessing your goals, this is what I mean. I had arbitrarily come up with a number that I wanted to swim my 1000YD time trial in. This is a number that I’ve never hit except for one time in a race in the ocean when I had the current in my favor. So while I believe I am capable of getting to this time goal, I really haven’t fairly assessed just how much work I need to put in and how much time, practice, and consistency it might take to get me there. I just saw that I was minutes away from achieving it and immediately felt defeated. When I stepped back to truly evaluate my pace, I discovered that I actually am making progress. It just might be slower than I like. At the same time, I also had to take into account that I’ve only been swimming a couple of times a week. I can’t expect incredible speed increases with only 2 hours of swimming per week. That’s just not realistic.
Assess your goals objectively.
When you’re setting goals for yourself, make sure you assess just what it will take to reach those goals. We often expect far too much out of ourselves and want results far quicker and with far less effort than they will actually take. When we set our goals we have to step into the role of a coach. A coach is going to be able to objectively assess what their student/athlete can achieve. And the coach will be able to reasonably estimate how much time, practice, and dedication will be necessary to achieving that goal. We have to be able to be that objective coach to ourselves. And if we can’t be objective with ourselves then we should hire an actual coach to help us. Far too often, we expect and demand more out of ourselves than we would expect out of a friend or our own child, for instance. Demanding too much too soon, will only lead to discouragement and disappointment and eventually we’ll give up all together. So treat yourself like you would treat your own child or a good friend. Be patient, encouraging, and supportive. And above all be realistic. Be able to objectively examine your goals and whether you’ve actually been doing the amount of work it takes to achieve said goal.
What about those times when we do everything right and we still miss our goal?
There will be times when we have assessed our goals, given ourselves realistic time frames, put the work in and still don’t see the progress we hoped for. This is the time we step back into that role of the objective coach. We have to be supportive in times of disappointment, discouragement and lack of motivation. We have to think what we would say to our best friend if they were feeling this way. We wouldn’t tell our friend to give up. We would tell him that he has to keep moving forward. We have to remind ourselves that it is in times of our deepest frustrations that we are actually on the right track. The first stage of flow is frustration. Flow comes when we reach beyond our comfort zone and challenge ourselves more than we are used to. Flow is the sweet spot between boredom and biting off more than we can chew. So frustration means we are progressing toward flow. That’s a key point to remember and one that has the power to carry us through our desire to give up when we feel like we’re not making progress.
While goal setting is great and daily habits and good behaviors will get us toward our goals, we have to remember that there will be ups and downs along the way. There will be days when we don’t want to put the work in. There will be days where we feel like it’s not working and it’s all pointless. Everyone has those days! Setbacks happen and as long as we’ve given ourselves realistic goals and time frames then we have to keep pushing through.
Change is subtle and slow.
Have you ever got a hair trim and the people who see you every day don’t notice? That’s because it’s a small change, and it hasn’t profoundly changed the way you look. That’s how small daily habits and behaviors work. It’s like cutting your hair an inch at a time. You don’t notice along the way, until one day your hair is 12 inches shorter and you’ve got a whole new look. This is how you make lasting change. Cutting your hair an inch at a time gives you time to adapt to the small difference it has made. When you have time to adapt and adjust, the changes become a part of you. The behaviors become automatic. And without even realizing it, you’ve transformed into that person you were dreaming to be.
So S L O O O W Down
Celebrate the small successes. Take the time to notice that inch you just cut off your hair. How has that inch changed you? How hard was it to just take that first inch off? Focus is essential for achieving our goals, but laser focus can lead you to miss out on the small wins that come along the way. Be mindful about the behaviors that you are changing and notice how they are creating a new you.
Mindfulness helps to guide us.
Taking time to notice these changes gives us the opportunity to assess whether these are changes that are working for us or whether we need to change course. Have you ever worked really hard to achieve something and when you finally got there, you realized it’s not what you wanted at all? The classic example of this is the up and coming musician or actor who works for years to get her big break. And once it comes, it’s a fast and furious rise to fame and stardom. Look at Amy Winehouse or Kurt Cobain. They didn’t take the time to adapt to the changes that were happening. They weren’t mindful of the experiences that were taking them to the next level. They didn’t have time to notice if the results of their hard work were in line with their initial goals. These are extreme examples and most of us don’t experience this type of overnight success, but we can still miss the signs to adjust course if we are not mindful of the journey along the way. So pay attention when you find your flow, pay attention when you lose your flow, and use that awareness to guide your journey.
As we take another look at those buzz words that we are all striving for:
Happiness. Success. Flow.
Remember these points:
- Assess Your Goals.
- Give yourself realistic time frames.
- Be your own objective coach.
- Celebrate the small wins.
- Let mindfulness guide you to your correct path.
And with these 5 objectives, you will have a solid foundation to achieve your goals, experience the present moment and live a happy life.