Would you climb a mountain with a backpack full of rocks?
You would probably stop and remove the rocks first -- even if this means you don't start your climb right away. Or, if you couldn't remove the rocks, you would still understand that you don't need to climb as fast as someone who isn't weighed down.
For some reason, we don't apply this same logic to self-improvement.
We might be weighed down by social anxiety, or past trauma, or an empty bank account, or problems with physical or mental health, or by a schedule that is jam packed with commitments -- the rocks that we carry can look very different.
But our response to them is unfortunately very similar. Either we try to ignore them and push ourselves towards incredibly ambitious goals (and then pay the cost in burnout and shame when our burdens block us from those goals), or we give up and say "I can't even try to climb this mountain -- my rocks are too heavy."
I'd like to propose a different way.Read More