I would like to explore the difference between living a deliberate life and one that is ‘controlled’. I have a feeling based on my experiences so far that control is the well known tool we all reach for when we want to achieve something. Whereas being deliberate about our decisions is a more liberated and probably realistic approach to being ‘in control’ of things. I’ve never been one to fully plan out my life and work hard towards a specific goal, other than the time I decided to go back to uni and study Psychology. This isn’t because I don’t appreciate goal setting, it’s more because I understand through my personal experience that there is a lot of uncertainties in life and there is only so much you can plan for. When you have a plan, you create parameters and visions that define ‘should’ be’s and expectations that you measure yourself, your success and joy on. If your plan is written with ink, then it’s going to limit you. But you can draw up a plan with pencil so that you can erase and re-iterate as you go. That type of plan, is a plan that is going to expand you.
I was talking to a life coach recently who said to me that you need to be committed to your goals no matter what your life circumstance is. I just don’t know if I would agree with this, because we change as we go through our journey’s and sometimes we need to take a step back and review our goals to assess if they’re actually the right ones for the new versions of us to commit to. If you get too preoccupied by chasing dreams your old version has set you can be blinded to the warnings, truths and changes your new version is trying to flag with you.
I’ve never been a quitter but then again I don’t really believe in commitment in the same way that most people do. I’ve come to appreciate that quitting can be healing and necessary sometimes, because sometimes quitting is the most powerful thing you can do to remain true to yourself. Commitment, is something I’m still exploring and trying to unpack for myself. I don’t know if I believe in commitment as much as I do a promise. Commitment to me has too much obligation attached to it, but promise is more of a free will concept in my mind. Promise, is something that you pledge with your heart and commitment is something you force with your mind.
Being dedicated to something in the form of commitment is usually helpful but again, there are circumstances where it can be to your detriment; so valuing commitment over what you’re committing to, can be self-destructive. A tangible example of this is making the choice between staying in a toxic marriage because you place more value in committing to something that no longer is healthy or serves you and your partner well, or recognising that quitting is the most powerful thing you can do in that scenario. Where it can get messy is if people quit the moment things get hard and or challenging. Knowing when to exit a situation is a skill, you need to know yourself well enough to know if you’re doing it out of fear or out of healing. If you’re quitting because you’re afraid or even lazy, then it’s not going to bring you expansion, if you do it out of deliberate thought and reflection, then you have simply recognised your wisdom that is guiding you to the next chapter of your life.
Perhaps quitting has a bad connotation because it’s associated with failure, which itself has a bad connotation because it’s associated with being good at something which often equates to a degree of self-worth. But self-worth from the eyes of others, is expectations that one can never meet, to have inner self-worth, means to always honour your authenticity and for that, you have to know when to quit. I have slowly rewritten the beliefs attached to quitting, failure and assigning self-worth. I have a long way to go before the new beliefs start replacing the old ones, but I do know that the simple act of rewriting them and learning more about these new found beliefs, has liberated me and set me free from so many chains.
I would like to be more deliberate about my life, where I explore what it means to set intentions and to set habits and routines that allow me to grow, instead of going through the motions. I want to know how to maintain a balance between being focused on building myself and not becoming obsessed with achieving my goals. This is a dance and a balance that needs to be explored. It’s not something that I can get right in one go and or something I know enough about. All the while, I have to nurture my perfectionist tendencies so they don’t take control, I have to drive these motivations from a place of curiosity and not ego. No doubt this will require a lot of trial and error. Bring it on.
Love yourself.
Love Always,
M
Souloom™ 