Source https://zenhabits.net/outcomeless/
By Leo Babauta
You’re starting a project or a new exercise plan, and it’s in shaky new territory for you. You feel doubt about whether you can do it, and so you’re tensely doing everything you can to make sure it will turn out the way you hope.
The stress, fear, doubt and tension here all come from an attachment to the outcome, to how things will turn out. We want to lose weight and get fit (the results of the exercise) or be brilliant at our new project and have everyone think we’re wonderful.
But perhaps we could acknowledge that:
- The outcome isn’t always fully in our control. Sometimes other people get in the way or unintentionally sabotage a project, sometimes things happen that we didn’t expect, sometimes despite our best efforts things just turn out differently than we pictured in our heads. On a training plan, the weather could get worse than we thought, we might come down with a flu for a week, we might get injured or things come up to throw our schedule off.
- There are multiple outcomes that will be OK, if not great. For example, maybe we won’t get six-pack abs if we do our best with this plan, or maybe we won’t finish the marathon we’re training for … but maybe we’ll get healthier despite not meeting the goal? Maybe we’ll enjoy the exercise, maybe we can meet other people trying t…
What Do You Think?