Last week I was sitting in a yoga studio, pissed at the lack of progress I feel that I’ve made. At this point, I’ve done over 200 hot yoga sessions and thought it would be easier by now. But it isn’t. Lying there frustrated, I remembered that I actually have a solution for moments like this and knew exactly where to find it.
Something I’ve done over the years is write myself (and my clients) little reminders to turn to in moments of hard. They are wisdom time capsules that I’ve worked hard to refine and even harder to use when I need them.
Below is one that helped me last week and countless other times. I hope it does the same for you.
“Frustration is the chemical response you feel when your expectations collide with reality. No one is immune to it, and if you’re going to achieve anything of any consequence, you must learn to deal with the temporary frustration of not making progress.
The frustration you feel is your attempt to enforce a contract with reality that it never agreed to. You have no authority over reality. You have no leverage. The relationship you have with reality isn’t one of negotiation. It won’t negotiate with you. The relationship you have is one of navigation.
Reality will allow you to navigate yourself through it, but it doesn’t grant you safe passage or quite give a shit about your feelings. The harder question isn’t how to manage the frustration. It’s why you’re surprised by it at all.
Stay in the process. The process is everything. Look for marginal improvements. Remind yourself of how far you’ve come. Sometimes the only way to keep moving forward is to look back and remember how far you’ve come. Keep going.”
live freed,
Jordan
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