I just completed a two-week project sprint, which I finished feeling further away from the outcome and less motivated than when I started. It felt like two weeks of running in place.
I realize that the more I attach to the impact I know is possible from this work or the magnitude of my calling, the heavier it feels.
I set an intention to consider how I can bring more lightness and playfulness to my work.
Looking Through the Lens of Success
This intention led to an invitation to consider:
How can I view my work and life through the lens of “every endeavor has been successful” and “every undertaking has paid off”?
What if I am moving in perfect timing?
I certainly don’t feel that every endeavor has been successful and every undertaking has paid off.
This is the invitation: take it as fact that every undertaking has paid off, every endeavor has been successful. I am moving in perfect timing.
What shifts if I view my work and my life through this lens?
What might I harvest that wasn’t available to me before?
What came to me immediately was TRUST.
Deeper trust in myself. Deeper trust in the universe.
Expanded confidence.
Embodying my inner Queen archetype. Owning my place on my throne.
Perhaps every effort has been successful because it brought me to where I am. Even the “failures” provide information by showing me the paths that don’t work.
Taking a Cue from Improv
This feels related to a conversation I had with a friend about improv.
Improv requires you to let go of where you thought the story would go, the path it would take. You must let go of your desires for what might unfold and any vision you have about how it might unfold.
Improv is about working with what is.
It strikes me that, in this way, it’s like a meditation of sorts. Being in the moment. Letting go of what came before and any expectation about what will come next.
Improv requires us to let go of our attachment to the outcome and to the process.
Maybe we get to a different place than we thought we’d go and maybe we’ll get there a different way than we thought we would get there.
Perhaps the secret to keeping my work light and playful is to let go.
Let go of my story of what it means to be successful. Release the expectation for how it looks when an effort has “paid off.”
Accept that I will never know what is in “perfect timing” because I don’t get to see the full picture.
Maybe the whole idea of a sprint is misplaced.
Where am I running to, anyway?
Perhaps the way to bring more playfulness to my work is to stop trying to get somewhere and simply play.
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