Tag: Self-Improvement

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Just Show Up!

Eighty percent of success in life is just showing up.

—Woody Allen

There is much to consider when navigating this thing called life. Education, fitness, skills, socializing, and so forth. We are born without any of these, and it is only through learning about them, then learning how to do them, and then practicing that we come to a place where they are second-nature, and we do them without much thought. Anyone who has learned how to play a musical instrument, or learned another language can identify with that. At first, the process is exciting, as we have entered a new world where we know little to nothing, and each step, from learning basic piano chords, to being able to hold a conversation in Spanish is a little triumph for us. We have exponentially expanded our own universe and how we see it. As we continue to learn whatever has captured our attention, certain things become rote, and we cease to think about them, sometimes to the point of not paying attention.

The point where any activity becomes routine, and doesn’t require quite as much attention as it did when we were still novices, sometimes becomes the most important part of doing that special something. As any musician will tell you, practicing scales, from A to G, major and minor, is not likely the most interesting thing at times, but they will all tell you that this exercise is vital to their being able to play more difficult things: to create jazz riffs, to playing more difficult pieces. While they may feel they are moving through their exercises thoughtlessly, their mind is fully engaged, perhaps more so in these bedrock movements than in others. Here, they are not only improving their motor skills, but they are allowing themselves to move to another level of understanding altogether; perhaps a level they did not engineer, but reached nonetheless, thanks to these exercises. This is when these moments can become the most transformational to their growth as a musician. 

Life is complex as it is, and there are so many things we will never completely understand. Conversely, there will also be many things we perceive and can help others see and absorb new ideas. Trying things, especially things new to us, keeps us excited about learning. Each time we attempt something different, we not only learn new facts and skills, but we begin to link them to what we already know and begin to see new relationships and uses. Noticing these connections leads us to ask questions and seek answers, opening entire new worlds of knowledge to us. This, in turn, enables us to better understand how our world works, and how we can better use that knowledge as we navigate our way through life.

Transformation comes to us in many different ways. Often, we actively seek it by study, practice, and hard work, which is great. Sometimes, however, transformation sneaks up on us in the quiet, repeated movement and words; when we are not thinking too hard about what we are doing, when there is not a particular goal. Just by showing up, doing the work, and letting it guide us.

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Sacred Cows

photo: D. Barr

‘If you realize that all things change, there is nothing you will try to hold on to.’

—Lao Tzu                       

We all have ‘sacred cows,’ those items, actions, or ideas that are unassailable, untouchable, that we associate with the good things in our lives. They may give us structure, and help us make decisions. While religiously associated with Hinduism and Buddhism, secularly, the term has come to signify things in our lives that not only cannot be touched, but that cannot be changed in any way. Churches find it difficult to update their Prayer Books, because so many know the current edition, and see the change as nearly blasphemous. It is not, of course, but usually a needed change to better reflect our society, as opposed to the world for which it was written twenty-five, fifty, or two-hundred years ago. At a personal level, we develop habits that become automatic behaviors and allow us to do somewhat mundane things, like preparing the morning coffee, or brushing our teeth, without having to put a lot of thought into them, freeing our minds for other things.

Change…can be scary. When change is required, we slow down considerably, trying to remember the new method, the new words, the new steps to accomplish something we’d come to take for granted. And, like learning anything new or complicated, it can be frustrating. A running coach trying to improve an athlete’s stride to make it more efficient, faster, and less tiring, faces difficult days, as the runner attempts to internalize the coach’s advice to become better. It. Is. Difficult. And it is frustrating to both parties, as our prior knowledge and experience with a particular activity has informed our intelligence and we feel more comfortable with the ‘old way.’ It is when we are presented with new possibilities, however, difficult as they may be to conceive at first, that allows us to thrive, and to do things we never thought possible.

The opportunity to see and experience things from a different perspective presents us a new way to navigate our lives. The old church prayers may still mean a lot to us, but words of the new Prayer Book may help us to see things in a novel way, leading us to other thoughts that enhance our understanding of what we already know, and letting us build our knowledge to help others understand as well. The slight changes the running coach proposed may take stress off our legs, or other groups of muscles we use when running, leading to a smoother, easier stride, a faster pace, and less soreness afterward, leaving the runner able to better recover from her training sessions, and to then prepare for the next session or competition. Taken in tiny bites, tiny steps, the path to changing our minds, our thoughts, our habits, becomes easier, and eliminates much of the fear of change we have. Mastering each small step, and taking the time we need to do so, allows us to build confidence in the process, and the ultimate change becomes less scary and more desirable.

When we open ourselves to new possibilities, uncomfortable or unexpected as they may be, our ‘sacred cows’ can calmly reside within our hearts and thoughts. When we learn new things, and they begin to become a part of our thoughts, we can begin to see how our sacred cows helped pave the way to new understanding. It is being open to the unexpected and the novel that allows us to grow, to understand, and to better recognize how we can come together to create a world that needs this kind of unity to exist.

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The Power of Saying ‘Yes’

Photo: 22563/Pixabay

We’re currently living in a world of caution, of isolation, of fear. Some of this, of course, is caused by the Novel Coronavirus Pandemic we are experiencing at some level, but that is an exacerbation of what was there already. When new opportunities present themselves, how do we react? If we feel comfortable with what has been suggested, we will generally say ‘yes’ to friends, co-workers, and family. And if the suggestion is unfamiliar to us? Then the questions begin, most having to do with how far out of our personal comfort zone is this going to take us. The thing with this, though, is to keep an open mind, and focus on what we might learn.

Saying yes to a new thing may mean we find ourselves in unfamiliar surroundings with people we don’t know. What we don’t realize in many situations like this, is that most of the people there are in the same boat, as novices. Our tension levels increase with the level of difference from what we know to where we are now. If we simply approach this with a ‘what am I going to learn now’ outlook, the magic of these situations begins to reveal itself, usually in the form of a helping hand. You might realize something familiar in the new activity, and are able to help out someone else better understand it. Conversely, you might be comforted by someone’s story that the first time they did this felt so awkward they felt they might never do it again, yet here they are, helping you.

Okay. We said ‘yes’ to something, and it worked out. Perhaps not perfectly, but we now feel more confident about doing it again, and perhaps improving our skill there. The ‘scared’ feeling is replaced by a growing confidence. Now we know more about this, we’re not complete neophytes, and we know people who might help us when we have questions or run into difficulties. All of a sudden, the ‘F’ word—failure—becomes less important as we learn to navigate our way through, feeling less scared, and more willing to take the risks we need to succeed.

Most of us are not experts at everything we try. Some of us, of course, have natural aptitudes at golf, computer science, music, and the like, and we tend to do very well early on in our efforts to learn about these things. Likely, though, when we show up at the driving range several times a week, take a lesson every so often, and get out on the golf course to learn how the actual game is played, we improve. We improve our physical skills, our understanding of what we are doing wrong, how to correct and improve our skills overall, and we begin to enjoy this no-longer-new game of golf. Looking back at the scared beginner, who was more concerned with looking and feeling foolish, we said ‘yes,’ and can now see how our journey progressed, and opened a new world we enjoy.

Saying yes to new things, situations, people offers us the chance to learn something new. With this new mindset, we begin to create new opportunities, projects, and adventures that contribute to our overall health, as we’re now in a position to help others, as well as better understand the world in which we live. Stepping out of our comfort zone—for ourselves and others—allows us to become more comfortable with our own vulnerability, which opens us to learn and experience life as it comes to us.