“This year will be different.” —says everyone ever.
January is filled with resolve for the coming year. Winding down from the holidays, we have all that stress energy to carry us into the first week of resolutions. By the second week, most of us are running out of steam.
By the third week, many people just plain give up entirely.
So what makes this year (or month, or day) any different from any other? When making changes in our lives, the #1 most repeated element I’ve heard is how easy the tasks are to implement—the easier, the better. ‘Make it easy to do the thing,’ they say, by creating an environment that makes it harder to do anything else. And that’s sound advice for some things, but it has its limitations. For instance, when it comes to creating the goals themselves. Sometimes impossible goals are better than reasonable ones.
Let’s Get Impossible
Lately, I’ve been enjoying this awesome book called Feel-Good Productivity. The few concepts I’ve been focused on from the last article have been helping quite a lot— to the point I wrote over 10k words in that week without having a plan at all. As my motivation began to slow, another perspective shifted into view.
Jessica McCabe, the host of YouTube channel, How to ADHD, made a good point in favor of adopting “impossible goals:”
(Watch the whole thing here.)
As I’m reading through how to be more productive (and be happy rather than stressed about it), this perspective seems pretty spot-on. The more “realistic” my goals have gotten, the less energy I seem to have to actually do them. It’s as if I need some wild aspiration to get moving at all sometimes! So one of the habits I’m going to focus on this year is actually un-doing the realism in goal crafting.
Realism is overrated anyway. 😉
As much as I wanted to keep that 10K pace going, it just isn’t possible on its own. Even reducing it to 5K, or just 1K —that’s only one article a week— has proven completely undoable for me. There’s something broken in my brain that makes the possible impossible.
But, maybe the reverse is sort of true as well. If I can stop being so rigid about the plan and find childish joy in the journey…
Be Ye As Little Children
Ok, so that’s apparently not the actual quote from the King James, but that’s ok. We’re not getting religious here (not in this article anyway), so I’m taking a liberty. And really, that’s kind of the whole point I’m making here—we gotta stop being so serious!
Life was meant to be lived, and there are a lot of moments we might be taking for granted along the way.
The ‘Feel-Good Productivity’ book by Ali Abdaal encourages us to look at life more like a child would in much the same way that quote from the Bible suggests. Most of us lost that curious wonder of youth somewhere along the line that’s vital to personal growth. Remember when things felt so easy? Back in the day when we seemed to have unlimited effort to expend on the most ridiculous-but fun- activities? Reclaiming the natural fun in everyday moments is vital for finding the same wealth of energy we had back then.
Harnessing your inner child’s wonderment is its own kind of quest. I like to think of it as mining the soulsphere. There’s a right and wrong way to do it—and you’ll know which one you’re doing by how much energy you’ve got!
Don’t worry, though. Mining your soulsphere for curious joy the wrong way is pretty much what you’ve been doing already. There’s no risk to trying to do it right!
How I’m Mining My SoulSphere
First thing’s first—removing the obstacles. So much of my energy is spent on judging myself for what I didn’t do, or what I should have done instead. One of the most important tips Ali has to offer (right in the first chapter, too), is reframing failures as “data points.” Nothing is bad, nothing is truly a fail.
Everything is something.
The fact that I haven’t posted anything on Substack or Medium for nearly two weeks isn’t a fail. Looking at the absence of something—in this case, the lack of posts—isn’t itself a data point. So what did I do?
For one, I had a reserve of articles from that super productive 10K week. A couple of them I was able to get scheduled out to fill in some of that time, but a couple stuck around waiting on publications I’m not yet a writer for. Data point: waiting.
Another data point was mostly maintaining a few minutes of leg exercises every other day. Data point #3 was taking my supplements most of the days to stay relatively balanced.
Identifying these data points turns the focus back where it belongs: on what actually happened. If I’m misusing my time, it’ll be apparent in the data points. I won’t have to look for a lack of doing things to find where to make changes—and making those changes frees up space for the other plans to take root.
Changing My Life View
The “normal” way of looking at life hasn’t been all that helpful for me. So, perhaps it’s time to start seeing my life as a story—perhaps even the hero’s story.
Ali talks about enjoying the process, rather than the outcome of things. Back in the day, mortal and I would talk about The Way of The Peaceful Warrior’s view that it’s all about the journey, not the destination. But then the other day, I found an article talking about how it can actually be beneficial to think about our lives in the context of the hero’s journey—as if we’re all at one of the points of a looping character arc in our own personal tale.
But…how???
That’s the million dollar question. I think we can find many plotlines in the history of our lives pretty easily. The article I linked above suggests going with a simplified 7 point version:
Protagonist (daily life)
Shift
Quest
Allies
Challenge
Transformation
Legacy
Some stories we’re taking part in are still at the first stage, while others are in the middle. Many might even have completed, leaving legacies of accomplishments we aren’t even aware of!
Each day, week, month, or year can be another journey. While it might seem beneficial to tailor the stories to a particular goal or theme, it might be best just to discover whatever stories are easiest to fit into the 7 stage narrative. Because practice makes it easier, and the result of any “storyification” will bring about more soulsphere energy. Just focus on the habit of seeing life as a story in which you are the main character overcoming odds to come out on top. Apparently the research says that’s enough to bring meaning to our lives.
But I think it also makes living a little easier. Our spirits will be a little higher, curiosity a bit deeper, and energy reserves that much more full with each arc.
What is the easiest story in your life to identify as the hero’s journey? Is it a romance, a thriller, a mystery plot? Maybe you’re living a real-life fantasy adventure and haven’t even realized it! Let me know what your journey looks like!
Until next time, remember to follow yourself, always!
I love this concept you're talking about, here! :D I would say that the hero's journey I can most easily see for myself right now is my journey to self-love. I feel like I'm in the middle of some sort of training montage after determining what I need to work on to address the big bad from a place of confidence. Maybe within the first 1/5 of the montage, cause I still feel like I have a long way to go. lol.
Thanks for sharing, TAM, and I hope you find smiles!! <3
I love this idea of shifting the perspective. I feel like this is something we kind of talked about when I mentioned that I play my professional life kind of like a game. Strategically trying to figure out how to one up myself is fun for me...although maybe weird or stressful for others. Either way, I know when I have to be serious, but I also enjoy those moments when I can just be silly and free. All about the balance I suppose. Loved this article ❤️