Many of us live by high ideals. The challenge of living with such high ideals is that we often find we don’t live up to them.
We want to be openly generous and yet we accidentally shortchange a waiter.
We want to support our friends and yet another week slides away with no contact.
We believe in the medicine we share with others but don’t always take it ourselves.
We look at what didn’t work out well rather than celebrate what did.
We plan to be productive but wake up unable to focus.
And so on.
Being over-critical about the moments when our actions didn’t match our intentions doesn’t get those moments back. Noticing the gap between our intentions and our actions is important, but dwelling only heightens the missteps and prevents us from practicing in the current moment.
What we often forget is that we learn more from mistakes, failures, and missteps than we do from making the right steps. Even when you “fail” to live up to your intentions, if you’re truly staying present with the practice, you’re still learning how to become the person you want to be. It’s only when you presume that your failure is about capability rather than specific conditions that you undermine your development.
If you’re not occasionally losing your balance, you’re not stretching yourself. The more powerful you become, the more each movement can take you off balance.
Every moment is a moment to practice and cultivate your virtues. Continual cultivation is doable; continual perfect performance isn’t.
What are you cultivating? What prior performance do you need to move past?
Thank you for this insightful and soothing post, Charlie. It’s a timely reminder to take each moment (and each task) as it comes. And to treat ourselves with kindness.
When I woke up this morning, I wanted to be really productive. I had way too many tasks jumbled up in my head, but I found it hard to get started because I had no focus. I wanted to do all of it simultaneously! So I got annoyed with myself and panicked some more.
But I think I’m getting better at slowing down and learning from my mistakes. I broke down my to-do list and chose just a few of the tasks to complete. That felt much better! I’ll get round to those other things some time over the weekend. Hopefully in a calm and peaceful way.
I know how you feel Nicola. My to do lists are always too long. Having too much on your plate can really stress you out and cause you to get less done.
Amen, Charlie! Thank you for this reminder.
One of the places I find myself getting stuck is when I have a crazy fabulous week (like last week, coming back from Lift Off — so really this is all your fault, dude), and then I expect that every week is going to be like that. Hello! Not reasonable.
I’m still learning to ride the waves of my energy cycles. I have some amazingly productive times — I just can’t expect that will be the norm. Thank you for reminding me to stay grounded in the concept of practice.
Onward.
For me, I often feel guilt when I think about all the negative things that happened to me in the past, and all the “bad” things I’ve done to others including myself. But I know I can’t let it affect me, life is too short for that. I know there are dreams to achieve, and contributions to be made.
If you’re not occasionally losing your balance, you’re not stretching yourself. The more powerful you become, the more each movement can take you off balance.
Absolutely…wish more people realized that.
Some people don’t like the fact that it “hurts” to stretch…
Thanks Charlie, I needed to read this today. Sometimes, once you get into that pattern of being hard on yourself, it can be really hard to break it, even as you realize you’re participating in it. Self-care & kindness is something I’m still working on!
Exactly. I get a little over consumed and tend to dwell on missteps instead of trying to just learn from it. I use to wake up in the middle of the night vividly thinking of things I had messed up at work. Which is frightening to think my sub-conscious had been dwelling on it all night.
Now that I’m recently self-employed again, I find it easier to let go and breathe. Only needing my own permission, instead of thinking I need everyone elses, eases some of that burden that I tend to self-inflict.
Thanks for the very timely post. I’ve been feeling a little overwhelmed and frustrated the past few weeks. I spent a little time journaling and thinking it through this morning.
One of the thoughts that occurred to me was the fact that being goal oriented will tend to focus me on the obstacles to get to that goal. I look at the goal list each day and think, “I didn’t make the goal yet. What is getting in the way?” If I am not careful I can end up in a very negative focus quickly.
It’s hard to remember that the things I accomplished yesterday moved me towards my goal. Thanks for the good reminder.
Right on. High achieving people fall down just as often, if not more often, as everyone else. It’s when we find the strength to get back up from a fall that growth happens.
What I am working on is patience to stay the course when the results I’m looking for haven’t yet shown up. Experience has shown me persistence works, but it requires that I fight the inclination to give up before my hard work pays off.
I am so glad I stopped by today, your site is one of my all time faves, and this was so uplifting. We have all had those days. I think I’m going to pat myself on the back today for those few things I actually accomplished rather those that I didn’t. Thanks again .
I occassionally stop in to read your blog but I can’t tell you how much I needed this post today. It has been a rough couple of weeks and reading this almost brought tears to my eyes because it made me think of how awful I’ve been to myself during this most stressful stretch! Thank you, thank you, thank you for posting this!
This is just as good as saying nobody actually practices what they preach, or acts on what they believe in. Actions and intentions do not always coincide. However, I do agree that dwelling on these things will do us any good. It is always better to move one, as what many usually say. But is it really wise to just continue without looking into these things and taking care of it first? If we’ll be engaging into that, won’t we be vulnerable in making the same mistakes all over again? Yes, continual cultivation is doable; but maybe it won’t hurt to also strive for continual perfect performance once in a while.
I definitely try to expect less of myself and let go of outcomes. This takes some of the pressure off.