Ease vs Easy

One of the main reasons I wanted to write the VIP Mindset book, and indeed to start coaching, was to help busy, overwhelmed people who feel like they are fighting life and losing, to find a sense of ease. However, as the kind of person who has a Goals diary, who enjoys feeling productive, but who also struggles with laziness, I am mindful of not writing a book that is simply about taking the easy route at all times.

In fact, I think often the easy choice in a moment is not the choice that gives us the most ease in our lives. Staying in a bad marriage can be easier than either fixing it or leaving, but it makes the day to day anything but easy. Doing gentle runs each day is pleasant and good for you, but for me, I've learned that pushing myself to do sprints once a week helps the rest of my running to improve, and it makes me feel more accomplished as my running times go down.

Doing hard things doesn't make them easier, it just makes you more capable, and it turns it makes them seem easier. This is the same advice people give when it comes to stepping out of one's comfort zone to try new things. While I don't fully believe in the "fake it 'til you make it" mantra, I do believe that doing something over and over again helps it go from being hard and scary, to being second-nature. This applies whether we are talking about running, public speaking, legal interpretation, drawing, or riding a bike. Learning is about pushing through the discomfort of not knowing so you can get to a place of knowing. I think so much of life is like that.

Now, I'm certainly not saying we should all be pushing ourselves hard at every area of life at all times. That sounds exhausting and like we're setting ourselves up for failure. Rather, I'm of the view that finding one or two areas in life where we want to stretch ourselves can be a great way to feel like we're improving, without being overwhelming. Most people just can't push hard at every area of life all at once, and that's OK!

In my 'Seasons wheel', I ask clients to reflect on what season they are in in each facet of their life. This isn't a 'oh you're retired so you're out of energy' wheel, or an 'oh you're in the prime of your life, push hard everywhere all at once kind of thing either. People just aren't built like that. Rather, it's a chance to reflect on our energy, and to consciously choose where we have energy to spare, and how we want to spend that.

For me, right now, I want to push myself hard in running and in writing, but I know that I don't have as much to give as I did before I had two kids at home. My priorities have shifted, and so have my resources. Expecting myself to achieve as much while loving two growing children has been (and continues to be) a recipe for disaster. I'm used to achieving so much more! And yet I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that trying to fit everything I used to into my new life as a step-parent will only leave me feeling burnt out and dissatisfied. I simply do not have the energy to give all of myself to my job, my family, my writing, my work, my physical health, my friends, and all the other parts of myself that I appreciate, but that require work. If I try, I know I will go back down the burnout route, and that it will be my relationship with my family that suffers.

Expectation management and choosing which areas of our lives we are going to push forward in seems to me to be the way to go. So, for me, does accepting slow progress over no progress. I am picking a few things that I will work slowly on; I'm doing singing lessons once every two weeks, and I've decided I'm going to try and do thirty press ups a day (or dailyish). I'm building writing sprints each Friday into my routine, and running sprints in once a week too, to help me get faster. The things I'm devoting time to at the moment are my family and training for the Kyoto marathon. Work has its own scheduled time so I can focus and be there when I need to, and switch off when I don't. I've also carved out a day for myself to focus on writing and coaching.

It's not all hard work, but some of it means pushing myself in the moment to make things easier further down the track.

I'm certainly not saying that I've nailed this thing entirely. I feel that life is constantly a journey of iteration and learning, but I do at least feel that when I stop to reflect on my priorities, when I take a moment to remind myself of the goals I'm pushing hard for, and the ones that I'm taking more slowly, I can get rid of that sense of overwhelm, of needing to be everywhere at once. It's not easy, but I'm slowly finding that sense of ease.