Tiny Buddha

Tag: persistence

  • No One Starts Off at Their Best – Why We Need to Keep Going Anyway

    No One Starts Off at Their Best – Why We Need to Keep Going Anyway

    “Others have seen what is and asked why. I have seen what could be and asked why not.” ~Pablo Picasso

    This article is about the day I realized Picasso wasn’t born Picasso.

    If you’re already opening Google to find what his name was at birth, I’ll save you the typing and tell you here…

    He was born Pablo Ruiz Picasso. (His baptized name is wayyyy longer, but you get the point.)

    Okay, so he was always a Picasso.

    But he wasn’t always the Picasso.

    Let me explain by rewinding a few years back…

    I was in Spain for one of my best friend’s weddings, and I decided to spend an extra couple of weeks exploring the country.

    Of course, exploring the narrow winding streets and cultural history of Barcelona was high on my priority list (as well as eating endless tapas and indulging in delicious goblets of the most refreshing gin drinks to ever hit my lips haha).

    So many of the Great Creatives originated from Spain or left their mark in this beautifully complex country in one way or another.

    Put simply, I was in Heaven.

    I still remember the day I stepped foot in the Picasso Museum. With much anticipation I made my way up the stairs, one step at a time, until I was finally beginning my stroll down Picasso Memory Lane.

    Let me tell you… It was NOT what I was expecting.

    Confusion hit me first.

    “Wait, what? THIS is Picasso? Am I in the wrong place? Am I supposed to think these are incredible works of art?”

    Along with confusion, I was questioning my previous knowledge and what I thought I knew of this famous artist.

    I’m no art buff, but I’d like to think I know a thing or two about a thing or two.

    I weaved in and out of many more rooms, continuing to feel confused, kind of let down, and like there might be something wrong with me and my memory.

    I walked into the next room, almost feeling bored but trying to put on a super interested face by slightly tilting my head and nodding slowly as I took everything in.

    Then BOOM.

    There it was.

    The classic Picasso style we all know. The famous cube-like strokes and surrealistic images he was known for.

    I remember standing there in complete awe. It was a jaw-dropping moment for me, but it wasn’t because of the famous art I was staring at.

    It was because of all the not-so-famous art I had wandered past to get here.

    That’s when it hit me.

    PICASSO wasn’t born Picasso.

    He didn’t come out of the womb a world-famous painter, forging the way into a new era of art. He worked for it. Every. Single. Day.

    He was dedicated to his art.

    He was dedicated to the process, to the doing, to the journey of becoming the artist we all know today.

    In that instant, my perspective on the previous rooms and walls of art suddenly changed. I now saw those previous works of art as badges of honor. Of hours upon hours of self-exploration… Learning new techniques, putting images to thoughts, feelings, experiences, and words.

    Those paintings were a testament to his will and dedication not only to his art, but to himself.

    He didn’t give up just because he wasn’t acknowledged or celebrated right away.

    In fact, there were almost as many years of his work not being put on a pedestal as there were of his glory years.

    As a self-proclaimed perfectionist who has been afraid of “getting it wrong” or not being “good enough,” I’m letting go of the need to get it right.

    Yup, I’m doing it right now as I type. Eeks!

    This is a pivotal moment for me.

    I’ve realized I’ll never have the opportunity to “get it right” if I’m not willing to be okay with “getting it wrong.”

    And let’s be honest, the whole concept of “getting it right” is something that we all need to throw out the door ASAP.

    Let the “getting it wrong” begin and cheers to all of the ugly badges of honor I’ll create along the way.

    I’m realizing more than ever that like art, the exploration of self and quite simply, just living our lives, should be focused on what fuels our souls, what makes our heart sing, what makes us feel good, what makes us glow from the inside out—not how we’ll be received.

    Focusing on what feels good and true for us should be our number one priority.

    Of course, life comes with challenges, and there will always be tough times we need to wade through, but just imagine how much easier it would be to move through these times if we stayed committed to doing what brings us joy while we figure out the rest?

    This is what I think Picasso did.

    No matter what he was experiencing, he took paint to brush and brush to paper. It was his exploration, his self-expression, his therapy.

    He was the painter of his life, and he never stopped painting.

    I’m moving forward with a re-ignited, deepened knowing that while I may not be a painter, I am still the painter or rather, the creator, of my life.

    I get to paint the next picture, and there’s something very liberating and exciting about this.

    So, my question to you is simple….

    What’s the next picture you want to paint? And what would you try if you stopped worrying about doing your best work and simply followed your heart

  • How Life’s Daily Challenges Can Actually Be Gifts in Disguise

    How Life’s Daily Challenges Can Actually Be Gifts in Disguise

    “Smile at your patterns.” ~Tsoknyi Rinpoche

    Partway through Eckhart Tolle’s Conscious Manifestation course, I furiously jotted down his teachings about challenges and obstacles to remind myself that they’re not only a normal part of the human experience but necessary for spiritual growth. “Yes!!!!” I wrote in agreement.

    When faced with difficulty, the human tendency is to react and resist, and when we do this, we add suffering to an already difficult situation. This tendency is reflexive within me, and my mindfulness practice has enabled me to either observe the cascading habit pattern as it unfolds, which disentangles me from its snare, or to gently accept what is happening and proceed with calm action and a quiet mind.

    When we can practice acceptance and equanimity, when we can say, “Okay, this is my present moment experience, and I can allow it because it’s already here,” we soften and open in the most tender way. And with this opening, we can receive a bounty of lessons and wisdom that our obstinance so often obscures.

    A few days after listening to Eckhart’s talk, I had to see several doctors and get lab work done to address symptoms I’d been experiencing. The entire week was pockmarked with small difficulties.

    First, the doctor’s office lost my lab sample, so I had to go back and give another one. Then the lab work process got delayed, and in an attempt to access my results, I spent two hours getting transferred between multiple staff members who ultimately said they couldn’t help me.

    At the end of the week, I confronted my last hurdle: I arrived for a follow-up appointment, only to be told that the automated system had canceled it and that the doctor was not available.

    After I explained my situation and expressed my discontent, the medical assistant managed to rebook me with another doctor. I softened, thanked her, and sat down, acutely aware that I’d lost my (spiritual) way.

    With each setback, I was upset and resistant. Like a snake releasing venom, I texted my husband flurries of frustrations, spoke exasperatingly to hospital staff, and felt my body tighten with stress.

    I realized that I only softened to the medical assistant because she told me what I wanted to hear, and within moments, this insight allowed me to look back on the entire series of events with a compassionate and non-judgmental eye. 

    I saw with clarity that in cloying for ease, I only created more difficulty. I saw that I had been behaving as if everything were a threat—like the healthcare system was out to get me—and that the real predator was my own mind. Immediately, I felt an internal release, like a nearly bursting balloon slowly deflating with the prick of a pin. I realized I could stop fighting. I realized that I could choose to surrender.

    After my appointment, I had to go to the lab, and I arrived at what felt like a crowded DMV: people everywhere, red ticket numbers glaring overhead, and a wait that seemed unending. I took a deep breath, pulled a number, and decided that I was going to use the wait—which I now perceived as an opportunity, not a threat—for mindfulness, presence, and spiritual practice.

    I looked around me at all the people. I watched as children caringly pushed their elderly parents in wheelchairs, as a pregnant woman patiently engaged her three children, and as a person laboringly limped to the ticket machine, burdened by a massive leg brace.

    I thought: Everyone is here because they are experiencing some difficulty; everyone has health scares; everyone is taking time out of their days to be here; everyone is waiting.

    I was so touched by the kindness and patience I witnessed. Suddenly, my story became enveloped in everyone’s story. I was them and they were me. I felt a deep kinship—a tenderness that made me feel enveloped in, rather than targeted by, the human experience. 

    As my awareness expanded further and further outside myself, I began connecting with those around me. I told the pregnant woman sitting beside me that I admired her patience, and when she shared that she was fasting for a half day of pregnancy-related lab work, I became even more aware that mindset is a choice.

    I made eye contact with a man whose gentleness I perceived underneath his masked face. We didn’t say anything, but we said everything.

    I kept scanning the room, and I noticed it had transformed from a chaotic, undesirable place, to somewhere I wanted to stay, somewhere I felt deep meaning and connection. Then I noticed that the space did not transform; I simply changed my relationship to it.

    When I left the lab, I was buoyant. I felt energized, connected, and light. I was overwhelmed with the experiential realization that the entire week was a skillfully designed lesson on challenges. I saw what happens when I fight to make them go away, and then I saw what happens when I invite them in, with an open heart and an open mind.

    “Challenges as gifts” left the theoretical world of quotes and concepts and burrowed into my lived experience. It stays there, and reminds me of itself, when I allow it to shine its light.

  • The Six Ps: What to Do and Not to Do When Dealing with Setbacks and Failure

    The Six Ps: What to Do and Not to Do When Dealing with Setbacks and Failure

    “Sometimes you get what you want. Other times, you get a lesson in patience, timing, alignment, empathy, compassion, faith, perseverance, resilience, humility, trust, meaning, awareness, resistance, purpose, clarity, grief, beauty, and life. Either way, you win.” ~Brianna Wiest

    “Good as gold,” the cab driver replied as I nervously handed him the $20 bill and asked, “Okay?” He jumped in his cab and drove off.

    I was pleasantly surprised by his politeness, as I was expecting him to argue with me for extra money because we’d gone around in circles searching for the address that I had given him at the airport. These were the pre-GPS days, of course!

    This was the start of my emotional rollercoaster upon arrival in New Zealand as a new migrant.

    The first few days were filled with excitement and happiness. Discovering a new country, meeting friendly people, learning new things—all these experiences made me a wide-eyed migrant seduced by the charms of my new surroundings.

    After a few weeks, the rollercoaster took a downward dive as I started getting frustrated with a spate of rejections. All my job applications brought forth polite rejection letters. The message I was getting was that my lack of local experience made me very unappealing to prospective employers. Nobody was willing to even interview me.

    How was I going to break out of this Catch-22 situation? I couldn’t get local experience without a job, but I couldn’t get a job without local experience!

    After months of fruitless searching, the rollercoaster finally took an upward turn. Driven to despair by the unwillingness of employers to grant me an interview, I decided to enroll in a university to acquire a local qualification in the hope that it might open a door for me. This out-of-the-box thinking got me my first job through a contact from the university. At last, a feeling of joy!

    I felt that my problems had ended, and now I was set for a long and successful career in my adopted country. How wrong I was! It was time for the emotional rollercoaster to start its downward journey again.

    Within a few months, my joy turned to confusion when my employer went from being very pleased with me to finding fault with everything I did almost overnight. I struggled to understand what had changed.

    A little while later I realized that my employer had hired me only to take advantage of a government scheme that subsidized (for a fixed term) employers who hired new migrants.

    My employer blamed me for things that had nothing to do with me and attributed other people’s mistakes to me. His cunning plan was to make my life so difficult that I would quit. That way there wouldn’t be any awkward questions from the government department about hiring me and then firing me within a few months.

    I felt an overarching sense of sadness and disappointment when I realized that my initial thoughts of everyone in my new country being friendly was just an illusion. I learned the lesson that people were people, some good and some not-so-good, no matter what part of the world they were in. I parted ways with my first employer in rather unpleasant circumstances.

    The long period of unemployment that followed created self-doubts in my mind.

    “Did I do the right thing by moving to another country?”

    “Will I ever succeed in finding decent employment?”

    Feelings of regret began to run riot in my mind.

    “Why didn’t I find out more about my employment prospects in this country before deciding to move here lock, stock, and barrel?”

    “I shouldn’t have taken such a big risk.”

    Every time I heard about someone that I knew doing well back home, I felt sorry for myself. I started feeling like I’d made a mistake by moving to New Zealand. As I had burned bridges before migrating, I felt there was no way of going back and restarting from where I had left off.

    By the time the rollercoaster took another upward turn, I had already been in the country for quite a while. It took four to five years for my career to stabilize and for me to start feeling satisfied with my decision to move. When you migrate to a new country, it’s not just the flight that is long-haul!

    I’ve shared the story of my emotional rollercoaster so I can also share my consequent learnings with you. My hope is that if you ever find yourself in a similar situation, you might be able to alleviate your feelings of hopelessness with the realization that you’re not alone and you can get out of any difficult situation with the right mindset.

    THE SIX Ps

    I’d like to encapsulate this journey of going from where you are to where you want to be in terms of “The Six Ps”—three Ps for what one shouldn’t do, and three Ps for what one should do.

    Let’s first take a look at the three Ps to avoid.

    1. Don’t take setbacks or adversities PERSONALLY.

    It’s important to separate your failures from your identity.

    If we take every rejection, setback, and problem personally, our self-esteem takes a beating and we can easily go down the rabbit holes of despair and depression.

    I was rejected over 200 times, without even getting an interview, before I got my first job. While I would never want to be in that situation again, or ever wish that upon anyone, I realize that I was fortunate not to allow myself to get dragged deep into the swamp of feeling worthless. In hindsight, I believe that this tough phase played a key role in building my resilience.

    2. Don’t allow a failure to become all-PERVASIVE.

    A failure or setback in one area of your life should remain contained to that area and not spill over into other areas.

    When my emotional rollercoaster was on a downward slope, it felt natural for me to start linking my failure in landing a job to every other aspect of life in the new country. Negative thoughts started doing the rounds in my mind.

    “I’m a misfit here.”

    “This place is not right for me.”

    “I am doomed.”

    The unfortunate consequence of such pervasive thinking is that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy unless you stop this vicious cycle before it becomes too late. Enrolling in a course was the best step I took at that time as it gave my mind something else to focus on.

    3. Don’t think of any adversity as PERMANENT.

    Every crisis in the history of the world has ended. However difficult your challenge might seem, there will always be light at the end of the tunnel. You may not be able to see it from where you are now, but take comfort in the history of the world and assure yourself that your crisis will also have an end.

    My challenge with finding a job as a migrant went on for a long time, but eventually, it did end. If I had adopted a mindset of permanence with thoughts like “I’m never going to succeed here,” my efforts would have waned. When our efforts start to taper off, the desired results start moving further away from us.

    Now for the three Ps to adopt!

    1. Have PATIENCE.

    I’m sure you’ve heard the expression “good things take time.” Have faith in that!

    Some things take longer than we would like. That’s just life. Have the willingness to wait as you keep following the process. Dedicate yourself to the process and allow the results to happen.

    2. Develop PERSEVERANCE.

    Too often people give up just before they’re about to crack the code. The ability to continue our efforts in the face of difficulty or forge through delay in the way of their success is what separates the winners from the also-rans.

    Life is like an obstacle race. Get better at tackling the obstacles and continuing your journey toward your objectives. Take help, reach out for support—do whatever it takes to keep going.

    3. Find your PURPOSE.

    I believe that this third P underpins the other two Ps that you should do to achieve success.

    Without a strong purpose, it becomes easy to give up when the going gets tough. Purpose provides the fuel for motivation.

    Figure out why you want what you want. What is driving you? Go deep, look beneath the surface—sometimes your real WHY can be hidden under superficial WHYs.

    It can be difficult to have patience and perseverance if you don’t know the true purpose behind your goals.

    —

    Life is a journey of ups and downs. Realizing and accepting this fact puts us in a much better position to handle adversities. Most of our disappointment in life comes from having unrealistic expectations.

    If you’re ready to handle the ups and downs of this rollercoaster of life, buckle yourself in and enjoy the ride!

  • How We Can Overcome Our Obstacles When We Don’t Believe It’s Possible

    How We Can Overcome Our Obstacles When We Don’t Believe It’s Possible

    “If we can see past perceived limitations, then the possibilities are endless.” ~Amy Purdy

    Nature inspires me. There are hidden messages consistently on display. On my daily walks, I find myself interpreting these messages in relation to my life.

    One day, near the end of my walk, I was paying attention to the trees. A giant one caught my eye. Its magnificence was portrayed as morning sunlight peeked through the branches and bright green leaves.

    I noticed the enormity of its trunk, and then I saw the crooked fence.

    The giant tree trunk had grown so big that it pushed a section of the fence up off the ground. The fence barely had any balance left and looked as if it could topple over at any moment.

    As I watched all of this, I remembered another tree I had seen on one of my walks. The tree’s branches had grown so long and so thick, they struck through the slats on a metal fence. Big brown wooden knobs stuck out, encapsulating the thin wires. I was in such awe, I reached out and touched the chunky parts of the tree, thinking I could unwrap it from the fence. Not a chance. The fence had become a part of the tree.

    In seeing this tree, I thought, “Trees just do what they do. They continue to grow despite any objects that happen to be next to them.”

    These objects could appear as obstacles, but that does not stop the tree from growing. The tree adapts to its surroundings and keeps on keeping on. Depending on the barrier, the tree either continues to grow around it, or the tree ends up wiping out whatever is in its way.

    How is this symbolic in the life of a human?

    The nature of our true essence is to grow. Life seems to contain many events that are beyond our control. We find ourselves in situations where it seems we are being tested. Obstacles show up on our path, and we are faced with the question, “What do I do now?”

    But it really isn’t the obstacle that is in our way. It’s our beliefs about the obstacle that can stop us in our tracks. The tree doesn’t come up against the fence and stop growing. It just keeps doing what it’s supposed to do.

    Here is how this relates to an experience I went through in my early twenties. It was a true test of following my inner guidance instead of listening to the doubts of others around me, as well as my own uncertainties.

    At the age of twenty-two, I found myself pregnant, single, and living back at home with my mother. I was working an office job forty hours a week, making ten dollars an hour. Luckily, I had good health insurance, but what I didn’t have was a lot of self-confidence. I carried around shame.

    This was in the year 2001. Times had changed, right? Why was I so ashamed of being a young, pregnant, unwed girl?

    Because even in current times, that stigma was carried around deep in the trenches of society. And my own mother and older sisters had been through it, too. You could say the feeling of shame was passed down in many generations.

    After my son was born, I knew I had to do something different with my life. I received government help for food and baby formula, and my son was on government health insurance. Again, this only added to my shame because of the looks I would get at the checkout counter in the stores.

    But I knew I wanted to provide a better life for my son, and I knew there was something inside of me that wanted to grow beyond what I thought my potential was.

    I felt an inner calling to go into the medical field. So I decided to go back to college. Many obstacles showed up on my path once I decided to go for it.

    I hadn’t even enrolled in college yet, but when I began speaking aloud about my plan, fear set in, and people’s opinions fueled that fear.

    How would I attend college full-time with a four-month-old baby, work to provide for us, and find childcare in the meantime? Could I do it?

    Some people didn’t think so. They told me it would be too hard. They told me my son was too little, that I should wait until he was older.

    Attending college and raising my son would be too stressful. How did I plan to pay for tuition? Could I even get accepted into the highly competitive program, especially since I was already on academic probation?

    Right out of high school, I proved to lack ambition, and along with poor grades, I ended up dropping out of college after just two years of study. Now, how in the world was I going to get the university to accept me back, especially as a newly single parent?

    The obstacles kept appearing, left and right. A university advisor even told me that the program I wanted into was extremely challenging. He asked me, “Do you have family who can help you with your son? Because this program is rigorous and requires a lot of time.”

    Imagine, all of these stumbling blocks could have made me believe that I was not capable of pulling it off. I could have chosen to believe what I was hearing.

    I could have formed beliefs telling me my plan wouldn’t work. I had the choice to follow my inner guidance, my true essence, which pushed me ahead to grow, or I could believe my thoughts about it all being too hard. I could buy into the shame and the collective idea that I had no future.

    But there was something deep inside of me that knew I was meant to do this. I was meant to challenge all of the belief systems put in place that could hold me back.

    Back then, I did not know the power of positive thinking. I had never heard of manifestation. There were no tools in my toolbox to help push through any doubts. All I had was my inner guidance system and the strong desire to grow and show myself that I could do something really challenging.

    Four years later, after a lot of hard work, I graduated from college with a bachelor’s degree in respiratory therapy and was already employed at a local trauma hospital. I was living out on my own with my son and supporting us with my single income. I had found my passion for life, too. I was helping people who were sick.

    Our lives are a reflection of what we believe is true and possible. The belief systems we have in place guide our thoughts, desires, and the actions we take or do not take to make things happen.

    Instead of letting your beliefs hold you back, use this process to grow around them.

    How To See Through Your Belief System

    1. Choose a specific goal you would like to meet or choose a current situation you would like to change.

    2. Write down every belief you have about that goal or situation, specifically, any beliefs you sense are holding you back.

    These beliefs include:

    “I don’t have enough time.”

    “I’m not smart enough.”

    “I’m too old.”

    “I don’t have enough experience yet.”

    “My family would never approve.”

    3. Take some quiet time to engage with these beliefs. Sometimes I find it helpful to think about these during walks, while driving, or while I’m out in nature.

    4. Question where these beliefs came from. Usually, you will see the restrictive beliefs come from somewhere outside of you. They are ingrained from childhood, simply adopted from your parents and caregivers. You will even see a lot of beliefs come from society on a collective level.

    5. Once you can see where the beliefs come from, you have a choice whether to keep believing in them. What worked for me was not to try to change my beliefs into the opposite but to keep identifying that the belief was outside myself. The belief was not a part of my inner guidance. And then I would choose to move past it, not allowing it to hold me back.

    Forward Movement

    Seeing through your belief system is not an overnight process. More than likely, the systems have been with you for a long time. It can take discipline and effort to recognize them when they arise.

    Recognition of your inner guidance during this process is vital. It will not fail you.

    Keep listening to your inner guidance, your true essence. It will take you beyond your wildest dreams. It will be the tree that grows through fences.

  • How to Stop Sabotaging Yourself and Feel Like a Success Even If You Fail

    How to Stop Sabotaging Yourself and Feel Like a Success Even If You Fail

    “If you love yourself it doesn’t matter if other people don’t like you because you don’t need their approval to feel good about yourself.” ~Lori Deschene

    In 2010, after a surge of post-ten-day-meditation-course inspiration, I publicly announced to the world that I was going to make a film about me winning the kayak world championships.

    A very bad idea in retrospect. But at the time I felt invincible and inspired.

    I had super high expectations of myself and of the film and thought it was all possible.

    Coming out of a four-year competition retirement meant a rigorous six-hour-a-day training schedule, while simultaneously documenting the journey, alone.

    I put an insane amount of self-imposed pressure on myself not only to be the best in the entire world, but also make an award-winning documentary at the same time, without a coach.

    To make a long story short, it was a disaster.

    Three days before the competition, my back went into spasm. I was so stressed out I couldn’t move.

    Jessie, a good kayaking friend, knocked on the door of my Bavarian hotel room.

    “Polly, take this, it’s ibuprofen and will help your back relax. Remember why you are here, you can do this,” she said.

    The morning of the competition I felt okay. I did my normal warm up and had good practice rides. “Okay. Maybe I can do this,” I thought.

    My first ride was okay, but not great. All I had to do was the same thing again and my score would be enough to make it through the preliminary cut to the quarter finals.

    Someone in the crowd shouted at me, “Smile, Polly!”

    I lost my focus, had a disastrous second ride, and made a mistake that I wasn’t able to recover from.

    The worst thing happened, and it all went wrong.

    Humiliated, embarrassed, and disappointed, I went on a long walk and cried.

    My lifelong dream of being a world champion athlete just vanished, and my heartbreak was compounded even more by the public humiliation I’d created for myself.

    I pulled it together and continued to film the rest of the competition and felt some protection by hiding behind my camera.

    “So, what’s next Polly? Are you going to keep training for the next World Championships?” Claire, the woman who won, asked me at the end of the event.

    “No,” I replied without even thinking. “I need to go to India.”

    India had been calling me for years, like a little voice that connected a string to my heart.

    “Being the world champion isn’t going to give me what I thought I wanted. There is more for me to learn. I want to approve of myself whether I win or lose. I want my thoughts to support me rather than sabotage me. I want to feel connected to something bigger than myself,” I told her.

    A year later, I went to the equivalent of the world championships of yoga.

    Three months of intensive Ashtanga yoga study with R. Sharath Jois, in the bustling city of Mysore, India.

    Practicing at 4:15 am every day on my little space of yoga mat, surrounded by sixty other people, with nowhere to run and nowhere to hide, I began the journey of facing my internal world.

    The toxic energy emitting from my mind, in the form of constant internal commentary of judgment and drama, looked and felt like an actual smokestack.

    I felt like a dog chasing its tail and was in a total creative block with editing my film.

    A yoga friend said, “Polly, even if your film helps only one person it is worth finishing it.”

    This was not what my ego wanted to hear.

    My ego wanted to inspire the world and had visions of, if not the Academy Awards, well then at least getting into the Sundance Film Festival.

    It took three years, and I finished the film. However, releasing it to the world brought up all of my insecurities. I felt exposed and like a huge fraud.

    How could I have made such a bold statement, failed, and then remind everyone about my failure three years later?

    I released the film and ran to North India, high in the Himalayas where there was no internet.

    Like leaving your baby on the doorstep of a stranger’s house, I birthed it and bolted.

    Even though Outside Magazine did a great article about the film, in my eyes it was a failure.

    It didn’t get into the big festivals I wanted it to get into and I didn’t bother submitting it to the kayaking film festivals it would have done well in.

    In 2019 I left India and returned to Montana to teach kayaking for the summer.

    It was the twenty-year anniversary of the kayak school where I spent over ten years teaching.

    The school had hired a young woman paddler named Darby.

    She told me, “You know, Polly, I watched your film about training for the Worlds, and it inspired me to train too. I made the USA Junior team and came second at the 2015 Junior World Championships. Thank you for making that film.”

    Humble tears of disbelief welled in my eyes.

    My film helped one person, and I was meeting her.

    The takeaway was that my ego and perfectionism got in the way of possibly helping even more people.

    I shot myself and my film in the foot so that my ego could continue to tell me I was not worthy.

    But this simply is not true.

    Hiding and running to keep my ego feeling safe no longer cuts it.

    The world is in a deep spiritual crisis right now.

    My ego would love to be in a cave in the Himalayas meditating away from it all.

    However, that is not what I have been called to do.

    Putting myself out there still feels uncomfortable, but I know that hiding is not going to help people. I have decided that good is good enough and am now taking small steps in the direction of my discomfort.

    I have learned a huge, humble lesson in self-acceptance, self-love, and self-compassion.

    The top fourteen lessons I now live by:

    1. Listen to the inner voice that whispers and tugs at your heart. If you’re passionate about something, don’t let anyone or anything convince you not to give it a go.

    2. Do the thing first. Enlist support from someone you trust but share about it publicly after you have done it so that you don’t create unnecessary pressure and feel like a failure if you struggle.

    3. Do things one small step at a time so you don’t feel overwhelmed and tempted to quit.

    4. Helping one person is a massive win.

    5. Drop all expectations—the outcome doesn’t have to be anything specific for the experience to be valuable.

    6. Do your best and let go of the results. If you’ve done your best, you’ve succeeded.

    7. Celebrate every small success along the way to boost your confidence and motivate yourself to keep going.

    8. Be proud of yourself every day for these small successes.

    9. Approve of yourself without needing the ego-stroking that comes with massive success and know that the results of this one undertaking don’t define you.

    10. True success is inner fulfillment. If you’ve followed your dream and done your best, give yourself permission to feel good about that.

    11. Do not compare yourself to other people. Set your own goals/intentions that feel achievable for you.

    12. Every “fail” is actually a step in the right direction. It redirects your compass and helps you learn what you need to do or change to get where you want to go.

    13. Growth means getting out of the comfort zone, but you don’t need to push yourself too far. Go to the edge of discomfort, but where it still feels manageable.

    14. If you freak out or feel resistance, take it down a notch. Move forward but in smaller steps.

  • Why We Often Fail When We Set Big Goals and What Actually Works

    Why We Often Fail When We Set Big Goals and What Actually Works

    “You do not rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems.” ~James Clear

    If you pull up any popular motivational video today, you’ll probably hear things like “Set big goals!” and “Aim high and don’t stop until you get there!”

    After watching a video like this, you may get inspired and start mapping out your plan to leave the 99% in the dust.

    And typically, because you’re riding a wave of motivation, you’ll write out these monstrous, Mount-Everest-like goals. These goals paint a picture of your life that is so exciting that you can’t wait to wake up and get to work the next morning. But when you roll out of bed and take a look at the goals you set the day before, reality hits you like a truck.

    Instead of being motivated to take action, you feel a massive wall of internal resistance. You want to take action. You know you need to take action. But for some reason you just can’t force yourself to muster up the discipline necessary to make progress.

    So instead, you choose the path of least resistance. You retreat to the comfortable and the familiar, and then decide that you’re going to wait “just one more day.” One day turns into two, two days turn into weeks, and weeks turn into months.

    But luckily, time heals all wounds, and six months later you get another surge of motivation and try it all over again. This is where most people find themselves in life—stuck on the self-improvement hamster wheel.

    How do you stop this vicious cycle? What’s the best way to facilitate lifestyle changes that you actually stick to?

    How Big Goals Ruined My Life

    When I was a sophomore in high school, I had ambitions to become an NBA basketball player. Despite the fact that I was 5 feet 6 inches tall, had below average quickness, and could barely jump over a stack of books, I was determined to prove everyone wrong.

    At this point, I didn’t have my driver’s license yet, so my wonderful mother would get up at 4:30 a.m. and drive me to my school gym early enough to get up shots before class. To make a long story short, I was cut from the team a few months into my sophomore year, and my NBA aspirations died right then and there.

    When I was a freshman in college, my focus had shifted to day trading the stock market. Once again, I had complete confidence that I was going to turn day trading into a full-time income. And once again, I was wrong. The $1,000 I had deposited into my Robinhood account disappeared in about two months, leaving me with no financial flexibility to invest into my dream of becoming a full-time day trader.

    During my sophomore year of college, I made the biggest decision I had ever made in my life up to that point. Despite having good grades, I decided to drop out of school and start my own marketing agency. Let me tell you, that phone call with my parents is undoubtedly the most emotional conversation I’ve ever had in my life.

    I even distinctly remember my own cousin telling me, “I think that you’re going to regret this decision for the rest of your life.” Still, I was unbothered, because I knew in my heart that I needed to give this a shot. A month after telling my parents I wanted to drop out of school, I was on a flight back home to California.

    Yet again, I found myself in a familiar spot—just a kid following his heart with some colossal goals.

    Filled with passion and drive, I set myself a goal to build the agency to $50,000/month in revenue by the following year. To reach that goal, I committed to at least two hours per day of prospecting, and another two hours of educating myself on the real estate marketing industry.

    By now, I think you can see where this is going. For fifteen months, I worked at trying to achieve my goals, but the highest monthly revenue target I was able to achieve was a measly $6,000/month. Despite desperately wanting to taste wealth and success, I had failed yet again.

    It was at this point in my life where I really took a step back and engaged in deep reflection. After all, I had just been following the wisdom that successful people had been preaching for decades—set big goals and don’t stop working until you accomplish them.

    Was it me that was a failure or was it my system? Why is it that so many people including me continually set big goals that they never accomplish? Pondering these questions drove me to explore the world of self-development.

    The Power of Identity

    I had always been passionate about self-improvement, but I had never really delved into the science and research behind what actually facilitates true behavior change. My research eventually led me to reach two life-changing conclusions:

    • Setting big goals does more harm than good for people who want to change their lives.
    • True behavior change occurs when you commit to small, seemingly insignificant shifts in your daily behavior.

    After spending hundreds of hours combing through research on habits, behavior change, and neuroscience, I finally had the “aha” moment that shifted my entire perspective on life. The fatal problem with setting big goals is that they focus on the outcomes we want to achieve as opposed to the type of person we want to become.

    The most powerful force in the human body is the desire to be consistent with who we’ve been in the past. Behavior that is incongruent with the self will not last, which is why big goals are often so hard to accomplish.

    You may have a goal to build a million-dollar business, but if your identity is that of someone who procrastinates on important work, it’s unlikely you’re ever going to hit that goal. You may have a goal to lose weight, but if your identity is consistent with someone who eats fast food regularly and lives a sedentary lifestyle, you’ll continue to be pulled toward actions that sabotage your weight-loss goals.

    You may have some new goals, but you still haven’t changed who you are. I wanted to build a marketing agency even though I was the type of person who procrastinated and refused to get out of my comfort zone. It was the inability to change those underlying beliefs that ultimately led to my failure.

    How to Achieve Your Biggest Goals by Thinking Small

    If big goals aren’t the answer, then what is? The key is to focus on who you want to be as opposed to the outcomes you want to achieve. You need to become the type of person who can reach the standards you have set for yourself.

    Your identity emerges out of your daily habits. You don’t come out of the womb with a preset identity. Whoever you are right now is a direct result of the daily habits that you’ve developed up to this point.

    In order to start forming new beliefs about yourself, you need to start building new habits. The formula for changing your identity is a simple two-step process:

    • Figure out the type of person that you want to become
    • Commit to small changes that align with your ideal self

    First off, you have to decide what kind of person you want to be. When setting goals, most people are guided by the question “What do I want to achieve?” Instead, try asking yourself, “Who is the type of person that can get the kind of outcomes I want?”

    Instead of setting a goal to lose fifty pounds, ask yourself, “Who is the type of person that can lose fifty pounds?” Instead of setting a goal to build a million-dollar business, ask yourself, “Who is the type of person that can build a million-dollar business?”

    The beauty of focusing on identity change is that your success is no longer tied to arbitrary targets. Let’s say that you set a goal to lose fifty pounds in six months. As you pursue this goal, you start walking every day and improve your diet. At the end of six months, you step on the scale and you’ve lost thirty-seven pounds.

    Did you achieve your goal? Nope, you’re thirteen pounds short. However, what if your goal was simply to become a healthy individual? Did you achieve that goal? Absolutely!

    Once you’ve figured out what kind of person you want to become, the next step is to commit to small shifts in your daily behavior. Too often we convince ourselves that massive success requires massive action. This is the principle that guided my life for nineteen years.

    Through constant trial and error, I’ve realized that true behavior change is the product of small, incremental changes compounded over time. We tend to dismiss the effectiveness of small actions because they don’t make an immediate impact.

    If you walk for two minutes per day for a week, you’re not going to see the number on the scale move much. If you meditate for sixty seconds for a few days in a row, you’re not going to turn into the Dalai Lama. However, what you will do is to give your brain concrete evidence that you’re a different person.

    James Clear puts this beautifully when he says, “Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you want to become. No single instance will transform your beliefs, but as the votes build up, so does evidence of your new identity.”

    Once you’ve nailed down your desired identity, come up with a daily habit that you can perform no matter how you feel. When you set big goals, your brain tricks you into thinking that the present level of motivation you feel will carry over to when it’s time to take action. By focusing on shrinking your daily targets, you’re taking motivation and willpower out of the equation.

    Here’s a few practical examples of this concept in action:

    • Meditating for ten minutes per day becomes meditating for sixty seconds per day
    • Walking for thirty minutes per day becomes walking for two minutes per day
    • Reading for thirty minutes per day becomes reading one page
    • Journaling for fifteen minutes every night becomes writing one sentence
    • Writing 1,000 words per day becomes writing fifty words per day

    It really doesn’t matter how successful you are right now, all that matters is that you’re on the right path. Once these small habits are solidified into your daily life, you’ll have mastered the art of showing up and acting in alignment with your desired identity.

    Since your brain now has some new evidence, you’ll be able to stretch yourself and gradually aim higher. That’s the true power of small habits. The same way that money multiplies through compound interest, the positive effects of your habits multiply as they become a part of who you are.

    So, the next time you get motivated to change your life, forget setting huge goals. If you do this, the power of your identity will loom large over you and prevent you from taking action. Harness the power of small, incremental change.

    Have the courage to set the bar low enough and aim at targets that you can actually hit on a daily basis. Solidify this small habit into your life, and then do the same thing with another habit. And then another. And then another.

    Soon enough, you’ll become someone unrecognizable.

  • Working on Impatience and Appreciating Its Gifts

    Working on Impatience and Appreciating Its Gifts

    Man Running

    “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” ~Marcel Proust  

    It’s taken me a while, but I have finally learned to appreciate aspects of my own impatience.

    For a long time I did not like this quality about myself. I am still working on becoming more patient, because impatience and I go way back.

    I was impatient to get out of high school, so I fast tracked that whole experience.

    I was impatient to get working, so I started working when I was fourteen.

    I was impatient to finish university, so I rushed through it, while working up to thirty-five hours a week, not stopping to enjoy myself or have fun.

    My daughter was impatient to be born, so she came early, and so did my son.

    I wanted to move up the corporate ladder fast, so I sprinted and pushed and worked all kinds of crazy hours that come with being in the world of technology consulting for a global fortune 500 organization.

    And then I got sick.

    My body got tired of me pushing, and shoving, and not pausing even for a second to pay attention to its cries for help. Illness forced me to stop everything and pare my life down to the basics.

    I got diagnosed with some fancy labels like chronic fatigue syndrome, depression, fibromyalgia, and eventually an even fancier label, PTSD.

    Even getting dressed and making my kids meals felt like climbing Mount Everest.

    I let shame take over for a little while, and I hid from the world, the career I had worked so hard to build, my family, and even my kids; hiding in bed while they were at school and haphazardly pulling myself together before they came home.

    After a few months, my own innate personality started to come through and my impatience reared its head out of the fatigue, depression, and piles of laundry.

    I wanted my life back. I was not going to write off my future in my early thirties, and be resigned to my couch and bed, while my children were waiting for their tired mother to wake up and play.

    I got myself into therapy. I wanted no part of taking drugs. It was a personal choice that to this day, I don’t regret. It’s not for everyone. It felt right for me.

    I worked with therapists, healers, and naturopathic/homeopathic doctors; I tried Chinese medicine, acupuncture, all kinds of massage and bodywork and energy treatments, and spent thousands of dollars on nutritional supplements and testing.

    I worked with shamans and took trips to silent retreats, meditated, wrote, drew and doodled in my journal, danced to 5Rhythms, moved with hula hoops and even travelled to the Amazon looking for answers.

    The thing is, during much this time, I felt a huge amount of shame for my impatience. My healer/teacher/therapist and every other practitioner would smile with understanding for my impatience to get healthy and feel better.

    They would urge me to be patient and encourage me to honor the timing of my own body.

    They were right. I knew this, too. But the rational part of me wasn’t always the one in charge.

    I often felt like time was running out. I had a life to get back to, and it was passing me by every day that I lacked the energy and the mental clarity to fully live it. The body aches and pains and other physical discomforts didn’t make it any easier either.

    Eventually, the wiser part of me got it.

    Our body does have its own wisdom. It does speak, and we need to pause to listen in order to learn the language that each of our own bodies uses to speak to us. And this is not something that would have typically been taught to us while we were in school.

    While it’s wise to work on our impatience, we can simultaneously appreciate its gifts.

    The biggest gift I received by working with my impatience was perseverance. I didn’t give up. I continued to search for answers to my health conditions. I was obsessed with wanting to know the answers to my many questions. Why did I get sick? What was the root cause? Why did my body start to shut down on me?

    Impatience gave me the drive to keep going, even when it felt like I wasn’t making much progress.

    And impatience gave me hope. Each time I felt like I was taking one step forward, to be brought back ten, I would explore new healing options and get excited about the possibility of it working.

    I used to beat myself up for being impatient with myself, for how long it was all taking, and for finding it difficult to sit and meditate. I wished so many times that I could be more Zen-like and graceful in the way I met my health challenges.

    Many times sitting across therapists and healers and other wise people I had hired to be on my healing team, I would feel like that squirmy little kid in class. You know, the one who sat constantly moving in their seat, waving their hands about the air, hardly able to contain themselves because they had so much to say.

    I was that kid in an adult’s body. I wanted my healing team to know everything I was doing. I wanted them to know everything that I knew, had tried, and discovered so that that there would be no wasting time. All they had to do was tell me what I needed to do next, and I would get on it.

    Seven years later, I’m now better. I don’t identify myself through those same labels I was once diagnosed with. I have learned to tune in and listen to my body, and navigate my inner world and some dark alleys that I never knew existed.

    Through this process, I have transformed my wounds into wisdom, discovered my life’s purpose, and continue to use the insights to course correct, and live my life making conscious choices as best I can.

    I am grateful for the role that impatience played in my journey from illness to wellness. I am enjoying my second chance at life with my children, and doing my best to be a present mother. I am teaching my children these same tools of awareness and self-regulation by the way that I meet life, them, and myself.

    Though I could have done without the restlessness, I truly believe that without the persistence that resulted from my impatience, I might still be lying on a couch in my living room, napping.

    So, here’s my invitation to you: If you are like me and have been beating yourself up over your impatience, take some time to review how your impatience has helped you in your life.

    How has your impatience been a friend or a blessing?

    How has it allowed you not to give up when you desperately wanted to?

    How did it help you to not take ambiguity or “no” for an answer, and propel you to find your own truth?

    You might be surprised and grateful at what you discover!

    Man running via Shutterstock

  • Create Happiness through Honesty, Acceptance and Persistence

    Create Happiness through Honesty, Acceptance and Persistence

    “Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.” -Dalai Lama

    I’ve spent most of my life engaged in “if only” scenarios. I’ve spent hours predicting my ideal future or rehashing the past, imagining what life would be like now if only I had done X, Y, and Z when I was 15.

    When not lost in imaginations of my own making I would be cursing myself, telling myself that I should have achieved certain things by now.

    Of course this only led to misery and dejection. By focusing on what I didn’t have, or what I felt I should have, I was playing the victim, abdicating responsibility to external forces.

    Not once did I stop and think that things weren’t happening for me because I was doing nothing to make things happen.

    I was caught in a rut of working hard Monday to Friday, drinking hard Friday and Saturday, and spending Sundays wrapped in a blanket on the couch, hung over, laptop open trying to fill the void in me. I was in danger of becoming an overweight, unattractive slob.

    I had all the trappings of success. I was earning very good money for someone my age. I could buy all the clothes, DVDs, and CDs that I wanted.

    Holidays were no problem; at the drop of a hat I could go on a weekend to London or a week-long trip to New York.

    However, like so many stories you read, I was only using material goods to fill the gap in my soul, looking for temporary joy while neglecting long-term happiness.

    Things came to a head for me in autumn of 2008. I was working hard on a project for work. I knew it was slipping away from me and wouldn’t turn out as expected, yet I was too proud to ask for help and just internalized all the stress. (more…)

  • How the Word No Can Help You Achieve Your Goals

    How the Word No Can Help You Achieve Your Goals

    “If you lose today, win tomorrow.” ~Daisaku Ikeda

    From the moment we learn to walk and touch things, we hear the word no far more than we will ever hear the word yes.

    “No, don’t touch that.” “No, that’s not for you.” “No, you shouldn’t eat paint chips.” OK, maybe that last one was just me, but you get the picture.

    We are told no so much more than we are ever told yes during the course of growing up, so why is it as adults that hearing the word no can be so devastating? Shouldn’t we be used to it by now?

    As a rookie salesmen every time I heard the word no I got discouraged and thought I must be doing something wrong. I would constantly beat myself up.

    “What am I doing wrong?” “What can I do different?”

    These were great questions to ask myself; however, it’s the answers I supplied myself that turned out to be misleading.

    I figured that if people were saying no, it was because the process was failing me. How wrong I was.

    With sales, as in many aspects of life, there is a process—a start and a finish. Whether it’s setting and achieving goals, getting dressed, or cooking dinner, everything has a process, whether we consciously think about it or not.

    Like a naïve cocky rookie, I decided to abandon the process and started to do things my own way. Much to my surprise, I now heard no twice as many times.

    I just could not understand what was going on, so I got even harder on myself. (more…)