The Looking Glass is a weekly newsletter of timeless wisdom for you to ponder on your journey of growth. I hope you find great value here.
#14 – 29 Jul 2022
Hello friends,
Thanks again for being here!
Here’s an insight, a question, and a quote I reflected on over the last week.
💡 Ambition vs Appreciation
I heard the entrepreneur and creator Sahil Bloom reflecting on the insight that one of the downsides of being an ambitious individual constantly striving to improve and succeed is that you often don’t appreciate what you already have.
Ambitious individuals often don’t appreciate what they have.
I have felt this, particularly over the last year, as I have worked hard to carve out a new path. I am forever chasing that improvement. I achieve one thing, but then I am straight onto the next thing on the horizon. On the one hand, this is great as we constantly grow and reach new levels of success, but it can also leave us feeling miserable.
What good is all this success at the expense of our wellbeing? It would be nice to feel some happiness for what we have achieved.
This is where gratitude comes in. Positive psychology science has repeatedly shown that building a sense of gratitude is a critical ingredient to wellbeing.
Recently, I got busy as a father and starting a business, and I fell off the bandwagon in my gratitude practice, which has also corresponded with a dip in wellbeing. It seems strange, doesn’t it, how on the one hand, we could be pursuing our business dream and starting a family, which comes with all kinds of meaning, but we can still feel down because of where we are choosing to focus.
I used to do the Five Minute Journal each day, a simple way to jot down three things you are grateful for at the beginning of the day and then reflect on three amazing things that happened at the end of the day. These tiny shifts in focus toward what we appreciate can have remarkable impacts over time.
I will be restarting my Five Minute Journal habit, and I challenge you to start your own daily gratitude practice!
That grounded sense of gratitude supports us on a sustainable path toward success.
❔What are you working on below the surface?
You’ve seen a duck on a pond before, right? Well, they look so peaceful on the surface, just putting along enjoying the day. But in reality, they might be peddling like crazy underneath. You just don’t see it.
This got me thinking, don’t we also do this with our passion projects?
At face value, we might be one thing, e.g. an architect, a lawyer, a doctor, a sales executive. It’s what the world sees and knows us for.
However, underneath, we could be hustling like crazy, after hours on and on weekends on the thing that really lights us up, e.g. cooking slow BBQ, composing music, drawing sketches, growing organic vegetables, recycling timber into furniture, or writing blogs.
But no one ever sees this work.
What if you started to share this with the world? New possibilities might emerge.
I was (and partly still am) an accountant for many years. This was my career identity. But below the surface, I was following my curiosity and reading, listening, and writing while going deep on my journey of personal growth. Eventually, I worked up the courage to start sharing my thoughts online, and it’s beginning to change my life positively. I get really excited about what I do, and I feel a sense of pride and relief that it is no longer this hidden struggle in the background. It pushes me to grow faster as I get real-time feedback in public. It’s leading to new opportunities as I build my coaching practice. These openings wouldn’t be there if I didn’t start sharing.
A key thing here is to start sharing before you are ready. Otherwise, you will probably never start.
So what are you working on below the surface that you could start sharing?
💬A Quote to Ponder – Making work enjoyable
“Sensible people get paid for doing what they enjoy doing.”
Alan Watts
Cheers!