Photo by love_child_kyoto
There’s no such thing as all or nothingness; you can never do all – and believe it or not – you can never do nothing. Your efforts always fall somewhere in between.
So then what’s optimal?
Optimal is the continual immersion in your goal. It’s a state of mind. Success is always going to be measured in degrees. Granted, sometimes we fail, and sometimes we succeed. But, the process of getting where we want to be is vastly enhanced if we stay immersed in our goal at all times; instead of falling victim to the all or nothing mentality. To get from point Z. to point A. may require that you traverse all 26 letters without skipping even one. What prevents us from getting stuck at one of the letters? The answer: immersion.
Immersion is great because at any given point, you can plug into deeper and deeper levels — but all or nothingness isn’t about levels.
There are always ups and downs along the way, but there is no need to give up as the ups and downs equate to the process. This stream of energy will keep you in good stead.
All or nothingness leads to procrastination. If you’re unwilling to do it all, you do nothing. Doing nothing over and over again produces much of nothing, missed opportunities and nothing to build upon.
By being all or nothing — you’re constantly trying to be all, all over again. By being immersed you can rebound at any time — you’re not endlessly coming off an occurrence where you fell short of the all. You’re simply immersed.
Photo by DanieVDM
Immersion allows you to be on the train at all times. All or nothingness keeps you on the sidelines expressionless as the train whizzes by.
Be the person you dream of being, one large, medium or small step of the way.
At the end of the day, the real question is: are you in the game or not?
This reminds me of my 3-part note I keep close by. It is on goals, and the gradual transience towards them:
1. Baby Steps. Think of mailmen. Postal workers have to feed 100′s or 1000′s of mailboxes per day. They can only do it *1 at a time,* but at the end of every day, they get to look back on their accomplishment.
2. Keeping Going (also, Moving Forward). Think of Jean-luc Picard in that episode where he lives a life inside a machine-created re-creation. He has a flute. He is horrible at it, but he keeps it up, and it pays off. If one doesn’t keep going with something, then they stay at the same point, or even degrade, until they pick back up again.
3. Perseverance. Much like “Keeping Going,” but perseverance is especial to times of difficulty. Perseverance is what’s needed along the way to a goal whenever things get tough. To explicate, one without perseverance will give up without trying after understanding the difficulty. On the other hand, one with perseverance pushes and pushes until either they achieve their goal, or are stopped along the way by something *out of their power*
4?. Immersion. This can mean that you let your goal pervade every part of your life. If running is your goal, you don’t just run, but you buy running magazines, you hang out with runners, you talk on running forums.
Stay up!
Wesli: Wonderful examples Wesli. Thanks for sharing.
Yep. Totally! And I like that you tied this to procrastination–it’s definitely true. It’s often better to take some baby steps, or even some missteps, than no steps. (Not always, but often.) In the case of blogging, it’s usually easier to edit an “eh” piece than to stare at a blank page.
Have you heard of the author Sark? She writes books like “A Creative Companion – How to Free Your Creative Spirit”. She does something micromovements, which are basically tiny, tiny steps. For example, if you need to organize your closet, micromovement number one is opening the closet doors. I love this idea. Oh, and I like your post
[...] Why not exchange your addiction to perfectionism with good old fashioned persistence? Sara, owner of the blog “On Simplicity”, will teach you how in her post “Persistence, A Reasonable Stand-In for Perfectionism”. In a related post which Sara suggests to her readers, over at the “Pun Intended” blog there’s a post which recommends that you drop the all-or-nothing approach and instead adopt an immersion approach. The post is called “The Immersion Attitude”. [...]
As I come off night shift, read this article, i think first of my sweatheart and the pleasure he gives me, then my thoughts drift to my work and I wonder how to stay immersed in both to a more satisfactory level….and I come back to the thought of “being true to one’s self ” in the process, whatever the process, the endeavor, the goal is. This becomes difficult at times when there are so many such aparitions surrounding one. Staying immerse to me is watching my thoughts, getting them out in the open if need be – whether it feels completely safe or not and then see if some clarification is gained. Sometimes just really talking honestly with one’s self is the best , to really be open to what thee has to say and be frank and compassionate in thou response. Then the Thee and Thou in one’s self can have an authentic conversation and be one.
@ Sara: Excellent point about about procrastination.
@ Marelisa: That is a very interesting idea, “micromovements.” Thanks!
@ Greg: Interesting ideas.
I have started some baby-steps in the last couple of months. They involve health, creativity, work and relationships. A very wise friend of mine once told me that I don’t have to live my life “all at once”. As much as I want to, I can’t anyway. Yes, in reflection on what he said and what the all or nothing attitude obtains, I have to agree that persistence, no matter how slow, does eventually get the job done !