The Paradox of Striving

When I started out building my meditation coaching business, I got caught up in the whirlwind of self-imposed pressure and striving to make my business a success. I needed to get private clients, put on classes, courses and workshops, I needed to write blogs, prepare newsletters, post to social media, build a website and network with other teachers in the space. All the while developing my personal meditation practice and staying authentic to my original reasons for following this path in the first place.

My to-do lists would be longer at the end of the day than at the start, and I felt scattered and overwhelmed.

After spending the previous year doing a fantastic job of calming down my fight-or-flight reactivity, I found myself back in a triggered fear-state for parts of my day, and this was the exact opposite to what I was teaching my clients.

Lucky for me I have my practice to turn to for support and guidance when things are going awry, so I took a close look at my attitude. Was I striving? Was I trying too hard?

I then had an insight – my to-do list will ALWAYS be there, and it will ALWAYS be growing. Like the mythical Hydra, you cut off one head, and two more appear in its place. It is impossible to get EVERYTHING done, so why was I holding myself to an impossible standard?

So I stopped trying so hard. Instead of aiming to clear my to-do list by the end of the day, I instead aimed to listen to the advice I give to my clients and notice whenever I was striving. As soon as I noticed the striving, which more often manifested itself in my body as anxiety (at other times it would reveal itself as fear, judgment, self-criticism or annoyance), I would sit back and pay attention to the uncomfortable feelings. Sometimes for a few seconds, sometimes for a few minutes. I would then go back to the task that I was in the middle of.

I’m doing it right now as I’m writing this blog – I notice the anxiety and self-criticism arising as I search for the right words to use, so I simply stop and observe the sensations, letting go of the search for words. Then I come back to my writing, and I write from a place of calm (or at least a place of less anxiety and judgment). It’s now a habit, and rather than it using up my time, it has created so much more space in my day.

Ironically, spending all this extra time observing my body means that I get so much more done today than I ever have in the past. I’m far more productive, and my stress levels are significantly reduced. I let the day unfold a little more naturally – if I feel inspired to post on social media, I post; if I feel it’s time to work on building my business I build; if I feel it’s time to sit down and do nothing, I do absolutely nothing.

Sometimes we have no choice, and we absolutely positively need to get sh*t done right now! That’s when we kick into action, into doing, striving, achieving mode, but we do so with so many more resources than we might have had in the past because we have reserved our energy for these crucial moments.

Meditation is a structured, safe way of us practising the habit of non-striving. Even though meditation takes concentration and focus, it is ultimately an exercise of non-doing. Our only goal is to be present with whatever comes up, we’re not trying to get anywhere, we’re not trying to do anything, the only thing we’re trying to do is notice without judgement.

When we are aware of our striving, we can pause for a moment, and then we create a little gap between where we are right now, and where we are striving to get to. This has the added benefit of leaving a space for recognising whether we’re heading in the right direction or not, allowing us to let go of the stress and anxiety a little.

It doesn’t matter how fast we’re running if we’re running in the wrong direction. I spent much of my life running in the wrong direction, and consciously adopting an attitude of non-striving has actually improved my performance, rather than slowed me down.

Over the next 24 hours, see if you can notice when you are striving, and pay attention to the negative emotion attached to that striving. Pause for a second, observe what it feels like to strive, and see if you can cultivate an attitude of non-striving at that moment. You can still do whatever it is that you’re aiming to do, but notice what it’s like to let go of that urgency, anxiety and strain. Doing this will help you feel better in that moment, that much I can promise, and who knows, perhaps you’ll even do a better job? Just notice…