Like fish, we typically grow in proportion to the size of our environment.
Put into a bowl, and we’ll grow bowl-size.
Put into the ocean, and we’ll grow ocean-size.
If you find yourself feeling stuck at “bowl-size,” try swimming into bigger environments. Or focus so much on growing yourself that the bowl-size simply is no longer a good fit.
There’s a whole ocean out there. For all of us. In every field and life dimension.
The question is… what size feels Goldilocks right to you?
I played 3 hours of intense basketball today.
Afterwards, I was spent.
…Walking to my car even felt like a chore.
And as I was driving home, I remembered I still needed to mow the lawn.
…And it felt like pushing a weighted sled at the gym for 45 minutes after running a half marathon.
But what’s interesting is later that night, I watched a legendary DJ set on YouTube that I’ve been meaning to watch for months.
…And for two hours, I danced in front of my TV without so much as a grimace—in fact, it flew by and left me feeling light as a cloud.
It was an incredible reminder that energy follows alignment. And if you’re fighting with yourself for energy, maybe it isn’t your energy levels so much as it’s your energy inhibitors and drains.
…And worth meditating on is how alignment can help fix both.
In order for yesterday’s strategy to work, however, there needs to be some honest conversation and inner work done around “living my best life.”
Because if “living my best life” is used as an excuse to live your most comfortable, distracted, instant-gratification-style life… then not only do I think you won’t find the best relationship of your life… but I don’t think you’ll find your best life.
Living your best life should actually look much like the opposite of the above.
It should look a little scary—like skydiving, or signing up for a dance class, or going up and talking to the person you find attractive. It should look present—like dinner with friends minus the phones, or walks surrounded by nature, or time spent alone meditating or creating or reading. It should look like an ongoing investment into the future—like healthy eating, or mindful movement, or skill-building from a place of beginner’s mind.
When you lean into that zone of discomfort and can keep your nervous system calm and ego quiet enough to proceed forward from that space consistently…
…Then, yes.
…The rest, I imagine, will take care of itself.
I do this thing where I’ll purposely leave a dish or two unwashed in the sink after washing the rest.
It reminds me that the dishes will never be done. And to be okay with that. And to just keep showing up to do them at the designated time each day.
No surprises. No frustrations. Just an expected chore.
Might sound stupid, but it works for me.
…To illustrate this, watch this video of a guy interact with his dogs at a low vibration and then at a high vibration.
The dogs have no idea what he’s saying (and neither do we)… but there’s definitely a version that both the dogs and I (and maybe you) would prefer to be around… who we’d prefer to give back to… who we’d prefer to help out and present opportunities to…
Two questions to consider: what helps you raise your vibration better than just about anything else? How can you increase the frequency of this in your life?