500 Words a Week - Enriching vs Controlling our Life

My hobby and sport of choice is weightlifting. Last year I hit some numbers that I was proud of and when I started, never thought I would get. Currently, I am far from those numbers.

I read recently in Adam Grant’s new book “Hidden Potential”, about changing our outlook on we view the practice we do for trying to achieve what we would like to achieve. We change from viewing this practice from controlling our life to enriching our life. The process actively enriches our life.

I took this thought into a recent training session. Performance wise, I didn’t have a great session. If I were to view practice/ training as controlling my life, I would have been feeling negative and disheartened. Those old numbers I want to get back to would feel even further away. However, as throughout the session I kept reminding myself I train because it enriches my life. Overall, I had an enjoyable session. I got to spend two hours doing something I like with people I like.

This expands beyond training, to anything that we are pursuing. If we don’t view it as enriching our life, what’s the point. If we don’t get some enjoyment or satisfaction from doing something, what’s the point?

The context in which Adam talks about the above point is from a section where he describes how elite musicians are rarely driven by obsessive compulsion, but rather by harmonious passion. This is the outlook of taking joy in the process rather than feeling pressure to achieve an outcome. It’s changing that feeling of “I should be practicing” to “I feel like practicing”. It’s doing something for no other reason than for the sake of enjoyment, for the sake of enriching our life.

That’s why I like to write a weekly blog, and why I intend to keep writing. It enriches my life, and it makes me a better person. I think too often we do the things we do because of other people’s expectations.

Too often we live by other people’s scoreboard. Allowing them to set the rules of our life, and to determine what success and failure for us looks like. We feel obliged to pursue certain goals or aspects as that is what people around us are.

This reminds me of an idea from Nassim Taleb:

“In refusing to run to catch trains, I have felt the true value of elegance and aesthetics in behaviour, a sense of being in control of my time, my schedule and my life. Missing a train is only painful if you run after it! Likewise, not matching the idea of success others expect from you is only painful if that’s what you are seeking.”

When we begin to define success by our own metrics, we quickly see we may have been chasing the wrong ideals.