Naming the struggle

While guiding a group with mentoring advice recently, the most common statement in their questions and sentences was, ‘I’m struggling with…'

Learning, growing, changing and adapting is indeed a struggle. 

And it’s being magnified further in these times! 

Struggling - in less violent terms - is about doing one’s best, but I wonder, what is it that we are doing in struggling?

Are we :
- Getting used to ...
- Annoyed or frustrated with ...
- Trying to understand ...
- Debating or weighing up...
- Confused about ...
- Taking longer than we expected?

All of these situations could indeed be a struggle. And I wonder if that feeing of ‘I’m struggling with…’ is worth redefining or renaming, rather than bundling it all up as struggling. 

Acknowledge it is a struggle. Yes. 

And then explore what else it is: whether it’s a frustration, an obstacle, a question, or just another a step along a path of change. 

Perhaps it’s more challenging than we’d liked, hoped or expected. 

On expectations and standards

Expecting something to be different than it is? 
Wanting someone to reach higher standards? 
Expecting more of yourself? 

Expectations and standards are often invisible and internalized.

We notice when standards we have aren’t reached and people we work (and live) with may have little clue what our expectations and standards are ... until they’ve not reached them. 

Standards and expectations can be a tricky part of a perfectionist mindset. And we all have a little bit of perfectionist in us !

Our pursuit of more, better and higher can have no end. 

To make the perfectionist take a seat, declare and define what you’re actually going for and what you’re expecting. 

And if you’re a leader of a team, offer up your standards and expectations so people don’t have to guess, worry, overwork and lose sleep trying to deliver you the unreachable perfect. 

In 2019, I wrote the book ‘ish: The problem with our pursuit for perfection and the life changing practice of good enough’ - to help combat the ongoing rise in perfectionism the world over. 

Know what your good enough is and perfectionism won’t stand a chance. 

Minute by minute - hour by hour

It’s how we make sense when nothing seems to make sense. 

As facts change and there is new data, we know more. As more information comes to light, the situation changes and we learn more. 

Then we act again. 

As we learn more from those actions, we act again. 

It’s one of the best reasons for getting into action sooner. Sooner than you think you should. 

You’ll get hindsight and be able to look back on what happened, on how it went. We can’t know everything before taking action, but we can make adjustments once we’re in action. 

Get going on that project or task. Things will look different again once you’re underway. 

Accelerate your decision making

We’ve all got plenty on the go. Our crowded to do list may not be just a sign of a lot happening in our life. 

It can also be a sign of some decisions yet to be made. 

Maybe we’re waiting on someone or some more information, or another piece of the puzzle to fall in to place. 

Other times we’re waiting for the “right time”. When is that exactly? 

It’s good to decide, to:
Choose the colour.
Set the date. 
Decide between the options. 
Select who to invite. 
Come up with the name or title. 

Many of our tasks require a decision first ... then action. 

Check through your to do list: which things are there because we haven’t yet made a decision about them? 

A decision made can ease some of our overwhelm and overload. 

We won’t need to carry the indecision around with us anymore. 

The decision is made. 

Owning the book doesn’t make it read

As better ways of doing things evolve, we have other ways to read books than actually holding printed paper in our hands, as glorious as it is! 

We can listen, read a summary abstract, talk about it in a club, on an app, or have someone read it to us. 

We can skim and scan and not even read the entire thing!

Oh, yes we can. 

Or do we think we have to read each book the ‘proper’ way ... word after word, cover to cover?

Some people give a book an hour (I prefer a day) to explore and get familiar with it. And then dive in further, for longer, if it’s a match. 

I have no guilt about books piling up, unread. It’s ‘Tsundoku’ in Japanese - acquiring reading materials but letting them pile up without reading them. 

Our pile o’books may signal what we hope or intend, but our action makes it so. Having the unread book on my shelf doesn’t give me the learning that’s in it. 

A book a week, a month or a year ... or 100+ books a year; whatever your appetite, satisfy it. 

Me? 
I go for a Spanish Tapas style:

Tasty morsels in small doses. Perhaps several in one sitting. Happy to return to my favorites. Some hard copy. Some digital. Some sound bites.