The intention of this blog is simple: help people feel better, so they can work better and live better.

It is exceptionally difficult to think clearly, be creative, communicate and collaborate effectively, and be productive when one is stressed out, burned out, upset, angry, worried, afraid, ashamed, or hurt.

We cannot be our best selves from a state of suffering. It negatively impacts our work and our relationships, and we know it.

Unfortunately, the world does not slow down just because we are struggling. The demands of work and life are not reduced, and we begin to fall behind and feel overwhelmed.

Stress increases, our suffering increases, and around and around we go.

Good Advice

We must find ways to interrupt this vicious cycle, and to that end I have some advice:

• You should practice mindfulness.
• You should practice gratitude.
• You should practice healthy eating.
• You should practice forgiveness, minimalism, and discipline.
• You should practice patience and tolerance.
• You should practice self-acceptance.

At this point, you have either picked up on my deliberately facetious intent, or started to hate me a little. Maybe both.

Your reaction is to be expected, and you are certainly not alone. That predictable hint of ire or cynicism almost certainly stems from my repeated use of the word “should.”

The "S" Word

“Should-ing” all over people rarely goes well, for understandable reasons. It implies judgment or criticism.

It suggests that there is a right way for you to be, that I know what that way is, and that you obviously don’t.

“Should” applies pressure. If you choose not to do what I said and it goes badly, well, I told you so.

None of this feels good, and thus you should use “should” with caution.

The Trap

If we are not careful, all these “shoulds” can create a Catch-22.

Practicing gratitude, for example, can become just another expectation, another thing to get right, another way we fail to measure up. The potential solution becomes part of the problem.

You should be more self-accepting. But what if the thing I need to accept about myself is that I’m not very self-accepting? The pitfalls are everywhere.

Well-intended advice can put us in a real bind.

Still, all those recommendations really are potential solutions. That laundry-list of good ideas really can reduce our suffering. But to find benefit, we must avoid the trap.

A Different Word

Since “should” seems to take us in the wrong direction, let’s focus on a different word instead: practice.

To practice is “to do something regularly or repeatedly to improve your skill.”

In this context, practice is a verb, not a noun. Practice is a process, not a state. It is something you do “regularly or repeatedly,” and the reason you do it is to improve your skill.

We practice because we want to get better. The word implies a journey, not a destination. If we had already arrived, practice would not be necessary.

We are works in progress. A work in progress can have flaws. In fact, it is expected, because we know it is not a finished product.

Practice Vs. Performance

Anyone who has ever played a musical instrument or a sport knows that practice and performance are two very different activities.

In practice, we make mistakes. We struggle. We get it wrong. We are imperfect. We try again. We take a break when we get exhausted and further effort is counterproductive.

We don’t need to forgive ourselves for imperfections because it doesn’t even occur to us that there is anything to forgive.

Practice has no endpoint. No one watches the athletes in the Paris Olympics and thinks “I wonder when they got good enough to stop practicing.”

The good advice we started with really can reduce suffering.

Each of those tools can help us feel better, so we can work better and live better, but only if we give up viewing them as endpoints.

Instead, we must understand them as practices that we regularly and repeatedly do to improve our skill.

Verbs, not nouns. Processes, not states.

When you take up these, or any other practices, here are three ideas that can help:

1. Stick to it.

The diet that works is the one you can adhere to consistently over time. Which practice you choose is often less important than staying with it over the long run.

When you stumble, get back up. If your intent is to meditate daily and you miss a day, there is only one right action: meditate tomorrow.

2. Progress, not endpoints.

Progress is your metric, not an external standard, and certainly not a comparison to someone else.

If you are practicing mindfulness because you want to be less reactive, comparing yourself to the Buddha is counterproductive. Instead, simply ask yourself if you are less reactive than you were yesterday, or a month ago, or last year.

Your only point of comparison is yourself.

There is one caveat, however: If you are not making progress, you have to notice and try something else. It's okay to get stuck. It's not okay to stay stuck.

3. You have to choose it.

To practice is “to do something regularly or repeatedly to improve your skill.” You have to authentically want to improve your skill. Although it sounds obvious, we often fail to understand our own motives. 

You are unlikely to sustain the effort because someone else thinks you should. Likewise, you are unlikely to spend hours on the driving range if you have no real desire to play golf.

Paradoxically, an authentic choice to get better usually starts with accepting yourself as you are. To be more tolerant, for example, we must first accept the reality that we aren’t.

Practice has to be an authentic choice, and it has to be yours.

Practice Makes Progress

Reframing our personal growth as practice liberates us from the burden of perfection. It gives us permission to be works in progress, to make mistakes, and to keep moving forward.

By choosing to practice—be it mindfulness, gratitude, or any other skill—we can feel better so we can work better and live better. Doing so is not only a gift to yourself but also an act of generosity to those around you.

Until next time,

Greg