strive for progress not perfection |
It's a sad truth... But it happens. As much as I love a good plan with timelines and milestones, one of the most difficult yet important skills to develop is the ability to adjust. We don't live in a vacuum and unfortunately the world often does not bend to our will nor is willing to acknowledge our set timelines and plans.
Flexibility often does not come easily. With it comes so much fear - fear of not reaching your goal, fear of making mistakes and appearing foolish, fear of the unknown.
So what to do with this? The best way I've found to think of it is to equate mental flexibility with physical flexibility. Training to do the splits does not mean just throw yourself down there - that's guaranteed to be super painful!! Plus you're probably never going to want to do THAT again 😱... Start with small actions
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Store out of your favourite flavour of coffee creamer? Reframe your thoughts and try to view this as a chance to try a new flavour that looks interesting - a taste adventure rather than a blow to your routine.
It's date night and you've been thinking about that fantastic Italian restaurant all day - only to discover your partner had Italian for lunch and really wants to try that new Turkish place that just opened up. Reframe your thoughts from anger (did you warn your partner you wanted Italian?) to find compromise on something completely different - how about Thai?
The point is to perform mindful repetitions with your mental flexibility muscle as often as possible in small one-off situations and scale up as you get more skilled. And much like physical flexibility, keep repeating even when you think you're all good - mental muscles stiffen up and atrophy just like your physical muscles if you don't keep up with the maintenance 💪. Remember to strive for progress, not perfection!
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