Accept where you are

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One of the countless things I love about my wife Maile is that she tends to say really meaningful things without even intending to. She's sort of zen-like like that. We were talking about a few things the other day and she said "well, it's like they say in yoga, first you just have to accept where you are."

Whoa. What?

Apparently in her yoga class, one of the things they teach is that in order to get better at something, the first thing you need to do is accept where you're at. If people can't do a certain pose, bend, stretch, or whatever, the idea certainly isn't to get all frustrated and mad at yourself. Instead, stretch to the point you can get to, and then accept it. There's no good, bad, right or wrong.

That's where you are.

The thing that's cool about this is that it can apply to so many aspects of our lives, whether it be our businesses, jobs, families, or anything else. While maybe obvious for some, this was kind of an epiphany for me and I've really been thinking about it a lot.

Say there's a skill you're working on and you'd like to get better at it. If you're anything like me, you spend a LOT more time looking at how far away you are from where you want to be than you do appreciating where you're at. I don't think this mindset is always bad, because I think it can be really healthy to have goals for ourselves and to want to get better and to improve.

The problem though is that all too often we don't accept where we are at all. We're NEVER satisfied.

And while that mindset may in some ways be the fuel that drives our progress, we should probably be aware that it can blow up in our face if we're not careful.

So something I'm working on right now is accepting where I am.

And interestingly, when I have been able to do this consciously, I'm able to see that I'm actually pretty close to being exactly where I want to be.