Can you tell when you are swimming with the tide of your life / work / relationships?
For many years, my attitude to performance and achievement was, 'head down, push on through.'
It helped me (or at least I thought it did) create a lot of success first in my career as an employee, then as a business owner.
In retrospect, the trouble with that stance was that it was often driven by fear.
Fear of failure.
Fear of being found out.
Fear of being rejected.
To counteract those fears, I would really put a shift in, whether I was enjoying it or not.
I noticed, though, that there were times when life felt more effortless. Not that I put no effort in, but that my energy was high, my enjoyment levels were high and my output was high, and of greater quality.
I started getting curious in more recent years, about whether it’s possible to live more of life in that energy of ‘swimming with the tide’ rather than efforting against it.
What I saw was that the more I filled my mind with ideas of how to do things or who I should be, based on others’ concepts, the more I abandoned myself to swimming against the tide of my energy, my own knowing of what was right for me.
Whenever I prioritised a better feeling, more enjoyment came, more flow came, better outputs came with it.
When I ignored the feeling, then things felt heavier, less inspiring. I still got results, but the journey wasn’t particularly enjoyable.
This quote from fellow coach Phil Goddard says this all so succinctly:
“What if your feelings only ever tell you two things?
1 What you are giving your attention to
2 Whether you want that”
Our inner guidance system is so simple and perfectly calibrated when we see that it invites us to seeking more of something or less of it.
A wonderful and easy way to kickstart this exploration, is to find your way into a feeling of appreciation, starting with the smallest things.
The smell of freshly brewed coffee. A hot shower on a cold day. The movement of the trees in the wind. An autumn flower in bloom. The laugh of your children or a loved one.
Whatever it is, orienting yourself to the impulse of appreciation allows you into that better feeling. From there momentum builds and you automatically begin swimming with the tide of your life.
From this place, it is not will-power or brute force that carries you through. It’s the energy of inspiration.