A father knocks on his son’s door.
“Jaime,” he says, “wake up!”
Jaime answers, “I don’t want to get up, Papa.”
The father shouts, “Get up, you have to go to school.”
Jaime says, “I don’t want to go to school.”
“Why not?” asks the father.
“Three reasons,” says Jaime.
“First, because it’s so dull; second, the kids tease me; and third, I hate school.”
And the father says, “Well, I am going to give you three reasons why you must go to school.
First, because it is your duty.
Second, because you are forty-five years old.
And third, because you are the headmaster!
Wake up! Wake up! You’ve grown up. You’re too big to be asleep. Wake up!”
I recently read this in my local coffee shop, and it made me smile.
It is a segment from the book Awareness by Anthony Du Melo. (Which I highly recommend reading)
If you have recently felt a bit like Jamie
How do you feel more alive? How do you wake up from that daydreaming state?
The first thing, maybe, is to identify what you are chasing and why.
So much of what we are told today promotes the idea that you must be and do more. If you believe in yourself and achieve your goals, you will be happy.
To be a millionaire! To run a marathon in under 4 hours! To own a Ferrari! To be married with kids in a beautiful big home!
My first boss out of college had all these things.
However, he sat me down one afternoon and told me how he spent 30 years in misery trying to achieve them.
We strive to work hard and acquire things to impress others, but we have a terrible understanding of what truly fulfils us.
When we think positively and reach our goals, life seems easy.
But when things don’t go according to plan (which they often don’t), we beat ourselves up; we blame ourselves, our anxiety increases, and we fail to enjoy the moments in between that create the majority of life.
This is what’s wrong with being fixated on our goals.
What system do we rely on during these moments? How do we cope with our day-to-day existence when we fail to reach our expectations?
If you didn’t know, golf has been a huge part of my life.
I first started playing at the age of seven. It sparked something deep inside of me.
As I grew up with the game, I fell into the trap of focusing on audacious goals. I had to win all the time and make the England squads, and If I didn’t meet these expectations, I would beat myself up.
There are things in your life that you are in control of, and there are things in your life that you are not in control.
The only things that you are in control of are your thoughts and actions.
Everything else, what other people do, what they think of you, what happens in their lives, how well others do, the outcome of your goals…you have no control over.
So, when you feel stuck, you can ask yourself, “Is this in my control or outside of my control?”
When we get fixated on our goals (outside of our control), our anxiety naturally accelerates and subsequently, we perform worse.
We create an existence that we are never enough because we are so far away from what we have envisioned achieving.
But if we go into whatever sparks your curiosity with an attitude of:
I will do and give the best I possibly can.
That is in your control, and you will still succeed in your aim.
It is something you can obtain at any moment, not delay five or ten years time.
Ironically, you will also perform better at your curiosity of choice because you will be present, relaxed, and having fun.
And maybe life is like a piece of music, a song, a movie, a game of golf.
We enjoy the journey of life more because of the ups and downs, the twists and turns, and the series of unknown events.
We don’t need to delay our happiness and inform ourselves that we can only be happy when we reach our goals.
You don’t listen to a song, watch a movie or read a book to skip to the end of it; you listen, watch and enjoy them as a whole.
So, how do you feel alive?
How do you feel awake?
How do you feel happy?
Well, maybe the answer is not being fixated on the high expectations you have of yourself.
We do not fear the unknown. You can’t fear something you do not know. What we really fear is the loss of the known.
Naturally, anxiety will surface when we expose ourselves to change.
But with this new attitude, we can use anxiety as a tool and our inner compass to determine what we need to change in our lives.
Without it, we would not have a feedback mechanism to tell us where we are.
You now greet each challenge as an opportunity to be, do, and give your best.
Embracing the difficulty of the task with that inner childlike curiosity.
Enjoying the journey of the process instead of the finish line.
When we do this, happiness rises through us.
We naturally feel alive.
Happiness is not defined at the finish line; it is the byproduct of throwing yourself into the moments of what you do.
The Most Beautiful Game 