Finding both inner and outer success

It’s always a struggle to find both “outer success” and “inner success”.

Outer success being following what the world/other people think and value i.e. the “world’s KPIs”. This maybe status, big house, nice cars, private schools etc. It’s not wrong to have these. It’s just “one type of KPIs” and not the complete picture.

Inner success being following our own principles and values/inner KPIs despite what the world thinks/feels. This may represent our “passion project”. The stuff that we would do for free or even pay to do. It’s the stuff that makes us happy, inspired or simply just content.

Following one will come at the cost of the other is the usual. It’s the struggle that most of my counseling patients have. It’s a struggle that all/most of us have consciously or unconsciously.

It’s like a Venn Diagram.

You may have to find the common overlap of the two. It’s your own “sweet spot”. It’s different for different people.

Life is a balance between certainty and uncertainty

Life is a balancing act between certainty and uncertainty.

Too much certainty and we may feel stagnant and bored and then seek uncertainty.

Too much uncertainty and we may feel tense/anxious and then seek certainty.

It’s a “feeling” that one has to manage. It’s often harder to do this well on one’s own due to our biases and blindspots.

If one has a partner, often that helps because they are often the opposite to help us regulate.

If you seek too much uncertainty/newness/progress, then your partner are often the one that seek certainty/stability/routine to keep the system in balance. Of course this can also a common source of conflict, and emotional literacy/self awareness are important here to move the partnership forward in healthier ways. 

Honesty with self is required for both critical thinking and critical feeling

Internal critical thinking and processing requires one to be honest with one’s objective truths and thinking.

Internal “critical feeling” and emotional processing requires one to feel safe enough to be honest with one’s own feelings and emotions.

The challenge in counseling work is to create an environment/context for our patients to be “vulnerable” and feel safe enough to express these. If we cannot be honest with those, it’s going to be very hard to process them.

The problem is, some may have deeper challenges where they may find it very hard to recognize their own feelings.

Emotional literacy may help with these.

I wonder if you can relate….

The thinking mind, feeling mind and the observing mind

In a nutshell, counseling/coaching work can be framed as helping folks to integrate their “feeling mind” with their “thinking mind” by centering in the “observing mind” space.

Some folks are great with the “feeling mind”, okay with the “thinking mind” but terrible with the observing mind.

Some are great with the “thinking mind”, okay with the “feeling mind”, but terrible with the “observing mind”.

Some are great with the “observing mind” but not so great with the “feeling mind” or “thinking mind”.

There is usually a “blindspot” or “Achilles’ heel” in all of us isn’t there? It would be helpful to reflect on those.

Once we have clarity around those, we can have high expectation for our strengths but have more realistic expectation for our blindspots.

Be careful to not judge ourselves too harshly on our “blindspots” as these may lead to unhealthy self worth or shame.