Being intentional with your personal growth with gentleness and ease. Finding that center where all life and energy spings from voluntarily. Moving from this center so that our decisions are guided by a power greater than our thinking. Through virtues and practice of humility and trust, we may go through our days with persistent power.
Two opposing thoughts are going on that you might find familiar:
1. “You are ok just the way you are and you will grow as nature intended you to.”
2. “You are motivated to be the version of yourself you desire to be and consciously trekking toward its attainment.”
Number one is acceptance and number two is motivation. Leaning towards either side causes imbalance. Too much acceptance, you will be stagnant, too much motivation you will lose out of touch with what is truly important.
Much like climbing the stairs and riding the bicycle. Sitting still will get you nowhere, moving too fast you’ll end up falling. The key is to find the middle way. In Buddhism the middle way is the understanding f practical life, avoiding the extremes of self denial and self indulgence.
Suzuki expressed it best
Each one of you is perfect the way you are … and you can use a little improvement.
– Shinryu Suzuki
Know your healthy pace
Identify your goals and daily actions towards it. All worthwhile journeys are made of simple specific actions directed to a noble cause. How many of these specific actions can you perform daily without burning out? The beautiful and liberating thing here is you will be the one designing this commitment to forming a certain habit. A healthy pace would be feeling good as you undergo the task. With the right amount of challenge keeping you on the edge but not falling off. Another key aspect of a healthy pace is you feel good about it and at the same time you also have time and attention to listen and learn from others. Key things to remember in knowing your healthy pace;
- You feel good about your progress
- You feel good as you engage in the activity
You can’t do traditional work at a modern pace. Traditional work has traditional rhythms. You need calm. You can be busy, but you must remain calm.
Bill Buford, Heat: An Amateur’s Adventures as Kitchen Slave,
Dig deeper to find the cause of what motivates you
Knowing what motivates you gets you through when initial motivation runs out. Motivation easily wears off and our pursuit turns dull and boring and we end up quitting. If we constantly remind ourselves with “why” we are motivated, then we will runs n energy greater than us. It is the nobility of our goal and the grander scheme will then move through us. So tap into that “why”. You maybe on the verge of resenting the pursuit of an organized countertop, but if you go back to your “why”; “I’m doing this because I am committed to the type of person who has an organized and clean countertop and this is a starting point of how my day will be and my days are what make my months and my months will make my year” So with just a slight shift in perspective you will have then created the direction of your future simply by reminding yourself of your why.
two ways to influence human behavior: you can manipulate it or you can inspire it.”
– Simon Sinek, Start with Why: How Great Leaders
Use motivation to ignite, use persistence to be consistent
Motivation is key to get you up and running, but that excitement dies down easily. Remember when you were excited on taking up a craft, then after a couple of sessions, you have grown tired of it? Take a deeper look into your intentions on why you decided to take up this activity? Maybe it is not that you are not into pottery; maybe you are into using your hands. Knowing this fact about you will be helpful in committing to your next steps. Use motivation to show up, stay persistent on searching until you hit that spot where you can say to yourself “ahhh, this feels right”. Keep on showing up, collect knowledge, pivot as needed, subtract the non essentials.
“As long as we are persistent in our pursuit of our deepest destiny, we will continue to grow. We cannot choose the day or time when we will fully bloom. It happens in its own time.”
– Denis Waitley
You are still on track even if you stop doing
I bet you have heard of the phrase “doing by non doing” and “effortless effort”. These aphorisms may seem contradictory but they stood the test of time because they are true. Be ok with stopping, this is the time to asses and reflect on your energy expenditure. Are you getting results you wanted? Are you just running on inertia and experiencing diminishing returns.
Always remember that goalposts move and change as you gain experience. What served you yesterday might not serve you today. Stop, reflect, plan and deploy.
Getting complacent with a routine is a trap. Stop and think of ways on how to improve your systems and frameworks if things get too easy and you tend to drift from being engaged in what you are doing.
There is no perfectly correct way of doing things. Stop strictly fitting yourself in a mold, only you know what works for you. In stopping, you get to continuously design your path fit for the ever changing you.
In stopping, you take a break from deep focus and shift to expanded focus. Notice things and concepts outside of your plans and aspirations and become aware of the bigger existence of all humans and the planet. How aligned or miss aligned are your perceptions.
The highest virtue does nothing. Yet, nothing needs to be done. The lowest virtue does everything. Yet, much remains to be done.“
– The Dao
Build and sustain centeredness
Stay centered through habitual morning practice. Prime yourself and visualize optimal performance. Make your commitments and agreements with self in your morning practice. An example would be “Today I won’t judge and criticize”, “Today I will remain in this tranquil space despite unfavorable circumstances knowing that it being unfavorable is only my opinion”, “I will have a good relationship with the thoughts that my mind produces for I know they are ever changing”. With these in the center of your being, may you stay undisturbed and at peace. Sustain this peace as you move through segments of your day. It’s all just slight effort moving from this to that and here to there. Imagine people in the park in China town doing Tai chi, that’s you going about your day. Gentle, centered, alert and prepared.
THE secret of life, of abundant life, with its strength, its felicity, and its unbroken peace is to find the Divine Centre within oneself, and to live in and from that, instead of in that outer circumference of disturbances — the clamours, cravings, and argumentations which make up the animal and intellectual man. These selfish elements constitute the mere husks of life, and must be thrown away by him who would penetrate to the Central Heart of things — to Life itself.
– James Allen
Keypoints
We both need to be accepting of what we are right now and motivated in developing in certain ways.
Maintain centeredness so we don’t break down as we pursue our goals. We often times get obsessed with our goals and forget that it is inner nobility that counts rather than outward glory.
Stopping to re-evaluate our causes and effects. Adjusting our efforts and day to day key actions that yield desired results.
Ask what things am I accepting and what things am I working towards.
Hope you found value in today’s entry
Center through breathing
Strengthen through grounding
Refine aim in silence and in communication with the most high
Diligence, watch fulness, energy and effort may be upon you today
Unwavering rectitude, Unselfish Performance of Duty, Unlimited Forgiveness
– Namaste 🙏