Do you feel like you are behind in life?

At the start of the new school year in September, my daughter’s music teacher handed her a recorder. One of the skills she is mastering this year in Grade 4, is learning to play the recorder. She loves music and loves learning.

Since September she has practiced every single day. And every time she masters a new song, she receives a new colour belt. The goal, I’m told, is to first get her first black belt, then reach three gold belts, which will unlock the ultimate prize – a rainbow-coloured belt. She is obsessed with rainbows, so of course a rainbow-coloured belt is the ultimate coveted item right now. I’ll be honest, there have been days where I have had to remind myself that the noise is part of the journey, and that she can’t improve her skill without practice.

Then one day it occurred to me that I hadn’t heard her play in a while. A curious question as to why I haven’t heard her play, resulted in tears. “All my friends have moved on to black belts, and I’m still stuck at purple. I’m so far behind…”

 

And there it was. The cry I’ve heard so many times from friends, loved ones, and especially from clients – they fear that they are behind in some way. This is not a new phenomenon, and my daughter certainly isn’t the only one experiencing the feeling of being behind in life. In fact, it saddens me that she is already feeling behind at such a young age.

Feeling like we are behind in life seems to be a symptom of living in a manic society that prioritizes busyness, productivity, and accomplishment at the cost of everything else. I’ve been reading Oliver Burkeman’s book, Meditations for Mortals, and I feel he captures the essence of this incessant drive to do more and do it faster so succinctly.

What I also see is how we are not pausing to question the sanity of any of this? For example, in my daughter’s case, if we simply opted to compare how many belts she had earned compared to her friends, then it could be argued that she was indeed behind. However, I don’t feel like that paints the whole picture. It diminishes her as a person, what’s important to her, and her journey, and it only highlights the external result (i.e., earning a black belt), above everything else that is going on.

You see, while her friends were practicing the recorder, my daughter was participating in a School District Challenge for Gifted Children which involved being pulled out of school once a week for two and a half hours at a time to participate in an advanced and more challenging curriculum for gifted students. Being pulled out of school during school hours also meant she was missing work at school, and we had met with her teachers to create agreements about the timelines and requirements for her to catch up on schoolwork she was missing.

So, when her friends were practicing the recording, she was catching up on schoolwork, or she was choosing to go outside for recess to have some downtime during particularly busy school days. As a recovering over-functioner, I have encouraged her to give herself breaks and to not feel guilty about needing breaks or taking breaks. We have prioritized her being over her doing. When she has needed play or rest, she has taken time for rest and play, instead of dismissing her very real needs, and pushing through to “get more done”.

So, I slowed her down and pointed out all the other things she had been engaged with, and how unfair, and even non-sensical it is to compare herself to her friends. And yet, how often do we all do that? I remember starting my coaching business and wanting to be further along than I was – feeling so much shame about just starting out – as if there was something wrong with starting something new. I was looking at other coaches who were further along, and beating up on myself for not being where they were, without any real acknowledgement or appreciation for why I was where I was at that particular point in my journey.

The older we get, the more we tend to expect ourselves to already know stuff or already be good at stuff, without acknowledging that we can’t possibly ever know everything, and that no-one is good at everything. We also feel shame about having to begin again, start over, or reinvent ourselves, even though most of us will have to do that multiple times in our lifetimes.

We expect ourselves to be excellent with everything, without truly appreciating just how much time and energy is required to get really good at just one particular thing. Like, Oliver Burkman, states, the trouble with being a finite human, is that you will only ever get to a handful of the things you truly want to do. That’s what it means to be a finite human being. You have finite time. You are never going to arrive at place where you are on top of everything, and your life can finally begin.

No, your life is right now. And every day you will get to a handful of the things you care about, and a whole lot of things will stay undone, simply because you have finite time and energy. The most liberating choice we can make, is to accept that, and then consciously choose the things we want to be spending our time and energy on, knowing that being present for those few things, is ultimately more valuable than scurrying about from one thing to another, not really being present to any of it.

And in any given moment, you always have a choice. I pointed out to my daughter that she has choices, and that there is no right choice. One option is to give back the recorder and decide that she doesn’t want to play anymore, or that she doesn’t have the bandwidth to play it anymore.

Another option would be to accept that perhaps she hasn’t given it the attention she has wanted to, and to come back to the practice if it truly matters to her. It would require the courage to begin again, to continue getting better, and to be brave enough to admit where she is and ask for help.

Another option is to choose to suck at the recorder, own that she is choosing to spend her time in a different way, and come back to it when she has the bandwidth. It would require dropping the shame and comparison, and allowing herself to suck at it, because it’s simply not that important.

I told her that I couldn’t make the choice for her, since she is the only one who knows what she truly wants.  I invited her to make the choice that has her feel proud of herself, and feel good about herself.

AND, and this is a very important AND. If the only thing that will make us feel proud or good, is excelling, we want to slow that down. What has you deciding that you MUST be good at everything? What has you putting that level of expectation on yourself?

The truth is, it’s possible to make any of these choices and feel good about yourself and proud of yourself. It’s not about the external choice, it’s about the relationship you have with that choice and with yourself. It’s about how much you actually expect of yourself. It’s about the agreements you either have or don’t have with yourself. It’s about whether you see and honour YOU, the human, or whether you simply see and value your doing, your achievements, your accomplishments and results.

If your self-worth is tied to what you achieve and accomplish, you have lost connection with you – the real you. My daughter isn’t less of a human if she sucks at playing the recorder, or if she chooses to stop playing the recorder. She is not a better human if she chooses to continue playing the recorder, and if she gets her black belt, three gold belts, and the coveted rainbow belt. She doesn’t become more lovable and more acceptable to me when she earns her rainbow belt. I could not care less about the belts on her recorder. The little human in front of me is valuable because of who she is. Her outside accomplishments and/or failures don’t affect her worth. They are just evidence of things she is doing out in the world.

So, dear reader, I want to invite you to slow down and consider how you are being with yourself when it comes to accomplishments and to starting something new, or doing something hard or challenging. Do you love and respect yourself, regardless of whether you succeed or fail, or do you only show yourself love and respect when you meet your expectations and achieve what you set out to achieve?

How do you treat yourself when you fail? Are you able to meet yourself with compassion and positive regard, or do you become unacceptable and despicable to yourself? How many hoops do you need to jump through before you are willing to show yourself any kindness or compassion; before you become “acceptable”?

If you are reflecting on these questions and realizing that you have held yourself against impossible standards for years, and have been unwilling to show yourself compassion or kindness, I want to let you know there is another way. It’s possible to achieve and create amazing things out in the world, and not feel the constant anxiety and fear of how you will sustain that. It’s possible to fail, fall flat on your face, and still love yourself. It’s possible to experience true freedom in being yourself. It starts with the willingness to want to thrive, instead of just get through your life. It starts with the courage to be yourself, and stop performing yourself.