Monday Mindset
Tell me if this sounds familiar
You’re on a roll (with a project or building a habit), and then it happens. You smack right into that proverbial wall. The momentum you’d been building is nowhere to be found. You just feel…not into it. Unmotivated, discouraged, and a little flash of worry. Was it for nothing? Was that your chance, and somehow you blew it? Are you doomed to stay stuck and ricochet back to where you were when you started?
Okay, maybe these are just my thoughts and experience. Or my particular flavor of the human experience. Still, my hunch is that you can relate to at least part of it. In that place, in the halt of forward motion, it is easy to compare where we are to what it felt like yesterday. The truth is growth happens in spurts. There is slow, steady blooming, and then there are moments that feel like everything speeds up with ease. Sometimes, there seems to be nothing going on at all.
Growth is still happening, even when things slow down. Even when we experience off days. It’s tempting to want to hang onto positive emotions as proof of growth. But, the truth is, growth happens on the good and the hard days. When we solve problems, make space to rest or pivot, or simply meet ourselves in the needs of the moment, it doesn’t undo what has already been done. We haven’t gone backward.
We are where we are, with all the experiences and effort that have led us here. It is our work to unlearn the mindset that says, That’s it – I’ve reached my limit and there’s no more for me. While we might be used to leaning into defeatist thoughts at the first sign of struggle, the truth is much more gentle. Continued growth requires changing our approach.
As we embrace the grace of it all and allow ourselves to be human — living, breathing, changing creatures — we can lay down harsh expectations of what progress looks like. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing. In fact, healthy progress is never that simple. We do what we can with what we have, and our needs look different at different times. There’s nothing wrong with setting goals and making moves toward them, but it is in our best interest to loosen our approach.
If we don’t have to do it perfectly, then we can explore what good enough looks like.
Perfect growth (as if there were such a thing!) might look like the expectation of: writing for an hour every day, going to the gym five times a week, meeting up with friends every week, getting that promotion at any cost, fill in the blank.
Good enough growth might look like: writing something every day, moving your body a little every day, connecting with friends however you can (a call, text thread, meetups when your schedule allows), doing your best at work and leaving it there when you leave, fill in the blank.
Are you starting to see the difference? The perfectionistic expectations leave little room for the expansions and contractions of life.
There will be plenty of challenges as we journey through this life. We can count on it! These are opportunities to adapt, rather than to give up or shrink back. Equipped with a growth mindset, we can face what comes with both grace and grit. Curiosity and courage. An admission that we don’t know how we’ll get through, but the faith that we will.
There will be challenges we choose — every time we make a decision to find support to change when we don’t know how to do it on our own, learning a new skill, stepping outside of our comfort zones, or traveling somewhere we’ve never been.
There will also be challenges that choose us — health issues, job loss, relationships ending, loss, or grief.
There will be challenges that land somewhere between the two — making a big move based on life changes, transitioning to a new role, etc.
We can’t plan for things we don’t know yet know about. The point of life isn’t to control it. It’s to live it. Life isn’t simple, nor is it easy, but it is worth living. Can we learn to embrace the challenges as opportunities to soften into the living? At the very least, can we try?
If we give up the need to control what growth has to look like, we can allow it to be what it is. There is still effort involved, but there is also rest. Circling back to grace and grit. Both are needed, and both are allowed.
What if we begin to approach ourselves with the opening of the question, What does this feeling, challenge, or day require of me? Grace or grit? Curiosity or courage? Chances are, it will be a bit of both, as well as a third thing we discover as we turn toward it.
But that discovery? The openness to get close and see what is needed? Friend, that is growth.
Seeing the challenge as an opportunity rather than an indictment — that’s how we move through and continue to grow. That’s how we thrive.
Thriving isn’t the absence of pain or challenges. It’s trusting in the midst of them that there’s also beauty and goodness. It’s knowing life is much broader than a singular experience. We can both blossom and shed, and we will. We can squeeze through cracks in sidewalks and still bloom.
Let’s live into it – whatever it is in this moment. Small, incremental change reveals itself from hindsight. We might not notice it day to day, but as we look back, we will see the beauty of our becoming.
“True life is lived when tiny changes occur.”
― Leo Tolstoy
How do you typically handle challenges to your growth?
Use the following as a prompt to either journal, think about, or have a conversation about. If you have the bandwidth, add it to your morning routine as a mindful way to approach challenges to your growth this week:
What does this feeling, challenge, or day require of me? Grace or grit? Curiosity or courage?
Let this be a jumping-off point into what is true, what is close, and what wants to be met in you (meaning, the answer doesn’t have to be grace, grit, curiosity, or courage. It can be anything that comes up for you — this is the practice, always)
On Wednesday, we’ll dive a bit more into what these challenges might look like. If this interests you, upgrade your subscription today!
As always, I love to hear from you! Drop your thoughts, comments, and reactions right here :-)
See ya right here soon,
Sara