What Works For You? What Doesn’t?
What serves you and what doesn’t? At first it might seem like a strange question, but behind it is a simple premise. Are the things that you do, that you think, that you follow, making you better, or are they making your life worse? Are they holding you back, or are they propelling you forward?
Is that morning pastry a benefit or is it stopping you from being the version of yourself that you would like to be. Sure, when you started that little daily tradition it was something of comfort that you needed during a difficult time, but / a year or two later, when your waistline is a little bit bigger than it needs to be, and the initial need for that instant gratification is gone, is this daily practice still rewarding you in the right ways?
Does your daily diet of news help you find peace throughout the day, or does it feed your anxiety? After all these years are your superstitions delivering any benefit? Is your practice of not opening your bills and bank statements really the best way to tackle your day-to-day responsibilities?
Are all the actions that you engage in, the hiding, the complaining, the treats and the rewards, benefiting you or harming you? Some of these things are obvious – the run around the block, the green smoothie, the weekly digital detox. But others not so much. Avoiding the difficult conversations at work. That daily after work beer. The two-hour diet of soap operas that you devour every night when you could be reading, writing, thinking or talking.
Our lives are full. Every minute accounted for. But not always in things that are beneficial to us. Some of these things bloat our attention, distract us, or drag us down. Other things propel us forwards like a strong tail wind, and others stop us drifting into waters we never planned to navigate.
When we look at what we do, undertaking an audit of our daily actions, we can find and release the things that don’t serve us. Those moments where we dwell on the past, those avoidance techniques that stop us dealing with our problems, the little obstacles that would crumble if we could just find the courage to look at them.
We must give energy to the things that serve us and remove it from those things that do not. We must find the courage to be who we would want to be, if only we had it together. And when we try, and do, and be, and embrace that uncertainty, we find ourselves more together than we thought we were.
What would you do if you were the best version of yourself? Do that.