Harnessing the Evolutionary Pulse of Desire and Doubt

Do you ever grapple with the nagging sense that you're just not doing enough, even when you're pouring your heart into your endeavors? Join us as we unpack this all-too-common sensation and explore the continuous cycle of self-improvement and the evolutionary pulse of desire that drives us forward. 

And then, we address the opposite end of the spectrum—complacency. It's a tricky beast that creeps up when we plateau, mistaking it for the summit of our aspirations. We dissect the importance of continuous self-evaluation and setting intentions for growth. 

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• How to better help your student stay engaged, motivated, and resilient by focusing on learning, improving, and expanding their capacity.
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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:38

Welcome back to the show team. It is a Monday, it is January 22nd 2024. And I woke up this morning with this feeling like I'm not doing enough, like I'm falling short. Have you ever felt that where, no matter what you do, you always feel like you're leaving something on the table that you could have done better? You could have done more, that you're just not doing enough?

Speaker 1: 1:07

Now here's the thing I've come to realize when you're somebody who's really trying to create value, you're on a personal mission to be your best, you're really working on growing and seeing how you can improve in different areas of life. That part of the process that we are on in that experience is desire, and desire is this evolutionary pulse, which means we always kind of want something to be different. We're always kind of looking at how can we change and improve and get better, which that is a good thing. It's good to have desire. It helps us to move forward in life. But we have to be able to accept and to allow for there to be this experience. When you're somebody who is always looking for growth, that you're gonna feel like you're kind of at base camp, looking at the peak of the mountain, going oh my goodness, how am I gonna get to the top of that? And there's just so much to do. Am I doing enough? Am I doing it right? What could I be doing better? Am I good enough for this? And figuring that piece out to understand that that is part of the process. Because you're somebody who's leaning in and wanting to get better and wanting to create value and wanting to produce, it's feeling like you're not doing enough. And it's not a bad thing, it's just there it is. So don't allow for those ebbs and flows that come in to derail you. Allow for the ebbs and flows of a moment of incredible motivation in one day. The next kind of feeling like man, I don't even know if I'm doing this right or if I'm doing enough. What could I be doing different? There's things I don't know or understand, and that is just absolutely part of the process.

Speaker 1: 2:59

Now here's a thing I would also say on the other side of that. It's a wonderful inspection point, because we go through these ebbs and these flows and these cycles and our seasons of life where we're really maybe intentionally, pushing into the resistance and growing and expanding and creating value in our lives, and it's challenging us. The other side of that is when, because we know our brain is wired to try to conserve energy, to seek comfort and avoid pain. This would tell me that if we aren't waking up occasionally and then kind of on a regular basis to a certain degree, of this feeling like we're not quite doing enough, then that would be an inspection point for me to say mm, I'm getting complacent. The reality is that we're never on firm ground so we can be improving and working to find what lights us up and working towards a worthy ideal of ourselves and working towards creating more value for the world around us. We can be doing that and we can come to a place that feel like, oh, wow, I've kind of made it, I'm at this plateau, I'm at this sense of arrival, I feel like I've done it, like things are going well. This can create a moment where we can reflect, and that's a good thing. It's good to come to a plateau or a quote unquote, false summit and enjoy that for just a moment. The moment will pass and a moment of contentment can easily turn into a moment in a life of complacency. If you aren't, if it's been a while since you have woke up with this feeling of like gosh desire, this need for change, this need for growth. Something else has to be different. You've got to create more than creating that feeling of like am I doing enough? I'm not sure I could be doing better, I could be doing more. In this constant cycle of self-evaluation, of setting intention and leaning in when that goes away, be careful, because you're on slippery ground and you're either growing or you're dying.

Speaker 1: 5:12

One of my favorite quotes one of my favorite quotes from the movie Young Guns by Billy LeKid, who was played by Emilio Estevez, he says you got to test yourself every day, men. When you stop testing yourself, that's when you get slow and that's when they kill you. He's talking about this idea that every single day we're either leaning in and we're growing and expanding our capacity, or that is shrinking. So embrace this feeling that sometimes we wake up on a Monday morning with where the week feels like man, there's so much to do, or the weekend maybe feels like am I doing this right? Am I doing enough? Am I really being present? It could be all the way down to what you want to create within your own family, right In the business, within sports life, whatever it is. So that's going to be part of the process as well as the inspection point. The inspection point and recognize.

Speaker 1: 6:24

It's been a while since I felt that desire for change, for something to be different. It's been a while since I woke up feeling like am I doing enough? Can I be doing more? That tells me I'm in the river. It tells me I'm in the river of change and I'm working on the climb, what we call the climb in the cycle of transformation. I'm in that. I'm in that space where things are uncomfortable. I'm expanding my capacity, I'm out of my comfort zone.

Speaker 1: 6:58

So if we have been a while since we have felt that we need to take a look and recognize that there might be the need to take on a new challenge, what we call a worthy challenge I'm not going to talk about worthy challenges here Maybe that'll be the next episode that I'll drop but a worthy challenge is this intentional challenge that we identify in a specific area of our life that we know is going to expand your capacity. You know it's going to take trials and tribulations. You know it's going to potentially take you learning something new about yourself or the world. It's going to take mentorship. So we'll talk more about that in another episode.

Speaker 1: 7:48

But so two sides. I'm going to reiterate one more time. The first side accept that you are somebody who's growing, evolving, changing, creating. If you are, then you're going to feel like you're at base camp and you're not sure if you're ever doing enough. On the other side of that is, if you haven't felt that in a while, it might be time to settle worthy challenge. So thank you for your time. I hope this sparks of thought. Share it with somebody If you enjoyed it or if you thought it could be helpful for somebody else, and we'll see you on the next show.