Newsletter: Try being gentle
Every week, I do a community check in on Instagram, asking people what they need help with. Without fail, every week, I get many permutations of the same question: "How can I achieve my goals as quickly as possible?"
These questions sounds like:
· How can I make myself more consistent?
· How do I push myself more?
· How can I do well on this project?
· How do I optimize my day?
· What's the best way to plan out my life?
I've been there. I know how hard it is when you want something or feel the deep urge to achieve a goal, and want to find the perfect solution to making that happen.
Goals are wonderful ways to facilitate happiness. But the way we tend to pursue them is not-so-wonderful. Old Happy culture has taught us to be absolutely brutal with ourselves in our pursuit of achievement, and that turns our goals from well-being assets into well-being liabilities.
In response to these questions, I always want to counsel a counterproductive approach to achieving your goals: gentleness.
On first glance, gentleness might seem like a synonym for slacking, giving up, or being lazy. Far from it. Gentleness simply means 'freedom from harshness and violence.' Isn't it a worthy aim, to pursue our goals in a way that isn't harsh or violent? Achieving with encouragement, care, and peace.
It's possible to be gentle with yourself, and at the same time to be actively and purposefully moving towards what matters to you. Gentleness is a way of being that facilitates growth.
What if just for this week, instead, you tried gentleness? You might be surprised to discover that the thing you're trying to achieve is a lot easier when you're tender with it.
With love,
Stephanie Harrison, founder of The New Happy
This Week
The belief that achievement and gentleness are incompatible runs deep. This week, start proving it incorrect to yourself.
Try This
Choose a task or project that you regularly do (like a weekly email or meeting, a specific chore, a report or presentation.) Before you jump into it in the same way as always, pause and ask yourself: what would it look like if I brought some gentleness to this?
Whatever answer you get, bring it to bear upon the task. Once it's done, compare: how did it feel to you, in comparison to normal? Were you more effective, peaceful, creative? Did it help you to move forward?
If it works for you, try it with another activity, and then another. Slowly, you can expand this sense gentleness throughout your life's activities.
More Tips and Tools
1. How to accept help (Podcast)
2. Be kind anyways (Instagram, TikTok)
3. Zoom in and out (Instagram)
4. What's in your control? (Instagram)
5. Love yourself through change (Instagram)
6. Sometimes you fall down (Instagram)
7. Serenity (Instagram)
Community
How are you being gentle with yourself?
"Prioritizing sleep over getting up earlier to work. My body needs sleep over money at the moment."
"I just accept my feelings instead of being my worst enemy and judging them."
"Letting myself rest and giving myself time to process my emotions"
"Not letting procrastination guide me"
"Resting when my body tells me to slow down."
"Journaling lets me carefully reflect on how I feel during the day, rather than dismissing that."
"Listening to classical music radio and vacuuming my room."
"Allowing myself to be angry."
"Setting tiny goals. Focusing on the moment rather than long term range."
"Celebrating small wins."
Read more
As our community teaches us, there are many ways to be gentle with yourself, in every different domain of life. Gentleness is not the enemy of fulfillment; it is a way of being that can help you along the way.
Inspiration
1. Choose your own adventure (New Yorker) — This history of the iconic adventure format is fascinating.
2. You can save the birds (NYT) — Why you should turn out your lights: "At our best as a species, this is what we do: We change our ways to protect others, and then we adjust to the new ways."
3. This guy deserves all the awards (TikTok) — This teacher turned what could have been a normal moment into a spectacular experience: part one, part two, part three.
Before You Go
Thank you for reading
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