I was sitting in a breakout room during a 2 hour training class with the inimitable Tad Hargrave, the Marketing for Hippies guy. We had been asked to reflect on an individual exercise we had just done, focusing on one sub-aspect of one facet of our businesses. We were in fleas on fleas territory… Someone else was speaking, sharing about all the things they needed to do to improve the state of that one sub-aspect of their business. It was an overwhelming listen.

Let’s not forget, a business run by just one person is a complex little beastie – lots of moving parts and things to juggle in addition to looking after the clients. Generally, there are rarely enough hours in the day for doing all the things, and many people go at it with the same ‘work ethic’ attitudes they were conditioned into at that proper job in corporateland where they got burnt out and picked up mental health injuries. The risk of burning out (again) is often high, unless we learn to do things differently, in rhythm with ourselves, tending to our needs as we go.

The ever expanding task list

Anyway, here this person was, expanding their neverending task list to infinity and beyond. They were not Buzz Lightyear… but they were questing for perfection in a similarly un-grounded Space Cadet sort of a way of that cute little Toy Story character. It was unconvincing. They themselves were unconvinced. And kudos to them for all the great ideas, but they were setting themselves up for eating an elephant in just one sitting… a fall.

They had forgotten a critical qualification in one of the questions that Tad had posed during our exercise:

‘what changes would you need to make to improve the situation by 10%?’

Ten percent! Not ‘make it perfect’, ten percent. Now that’s a very different perspective...

Into the sauna

The next morning I was enjoying the sauna discussion at my local leisure centre and there was an earnest young man, pushing himself to stay in the sauna, pushing through all sorts of pain barriers.

He was being a proper brave boy.  (That's not a compliment, by the way.)

We got talking, and it turns out he is fighting demons on a daily basis. He spoke about the great support he is getting from his circle, the need to learn to love himself and of levels of happiness. He said being happy is one thing, but layer it up with another action to be happier and another one to be happiest.

It was a daily push for him. All or nothing. Black & white.

The amassed wisdom of the older sauna crowd got on to discussing the space for gentleness and kindness in the process. Yes, he conceded, recognising when he is happy-er is enough, and he doesn’t always have to quest for being happy-ist, because that brings a sense of failure, misery and sadness to the happy or happy-er levels. You could see the lightbulb moment! Visibly happier, he said he doesn’t have to be in the -ist, he can be in the -er.

Grim pursuits?

Two situations about 12 hours apart were bringing something about ‘enough’ and ‘The Art of the Possible’. There are pockets that open sometimes in the more mundane levels of achievement, like secret portals to a space of boundless joy. But to have the chance to visit these spaces, first we have to appreciate what we have done, rather than perpetually looking through the lens of failure at how far off the land of perfection still lies and rushing into the next not-yet-done thing.

This isn’t about not stretching into the slightly ouchy places, something that is very good for us, but rather it's about not exhausting ourselves in the grim pursuit of endless growth and development.

Reframe

Where are you more stagnant than you would like? What could you do that would improve things by ten percent? Where could you be in the -er level, without questing for the -ist level?

And how can you rest and appreciate the already-done things in life? What have you got, or what do you do that your eight year old self would be in awe of?

I’ll go first: I can drive a car all by myself.