A common theme across my clients right now is their struggle to stay on top of everything. Annual reviews are being held in many organizations, they are managing instability of their staff with the ongoing pandemic, all while dealing with the everyday challenges of business. At the core of their frustration seems to be the constant question:
Where am I going wrong?
As if the circumstances around them are a direct reflection of some magic wand they are waving to cause chaos. And every time they continue to ask themselves this question, then search for evidence, their suffering increases. So they interpret it to mean that yes, they are doing something wrong and continue to make it a problem.
What if it’s not the answer that’s the problem, it’s the question itself? By asking it, we give our brain the direction to find all the answers. Since we all have very healthy and smart brains, they will likely do as told and go off searching for all the evidence of wrongdoing and then continue to serve it up on a regular basis.
Isn’t it fascinating how the brain works?!
And then, since asking the same question just a few times isn’t enough, it becomes a habit and then simply part of our fabric. It’s as if this constant questioning helps keep us in line and prevents us from getting too “soft”. As long as we always ask the question, we can avoid any blindspots and missteps and inadvertently control our future. Sounds great, right?! Except it feels terrible because our mind is working overtime constantly seeking information about our own wrongdoing before anyone else sees it.
There has to be another way.
What if we simply trusted that what we are doing is enough? It doesn’t even have to be deemed right or wrong, it could simply be the best of what’s available to us right in that moment. Even if tomorrow or next week, we choose differently.
There are going to be many times in life where we all question whether what we did was “right”. But we can take note of it when it happens, realize that we don’t have to hang onto the question for dear life, repeating it over and over, and decide to support the perfectly imperfect human we all are instead. We can trust that in each moment, we are making decisions on actions and approaches intuitively, and to the best of our ability.
Many of your brains will resist this and say “it’s not that easy”. And that’s true, it won’t be easy as long as you are resistant to the idea. It requires trusting your intuition. You’ll know when you get there because trusting yourself will stop feeling like stress and start feeling a whole lot more like love.