When I was little, I had a surefire tactic for cleaning my room. I’d throw everything in the closet and pronounce myself done!
“Done” is good advice as we get to the end of the year. But being done is just as hard for grown-ups as it is for little kids. You could say there’s an art to it.
“Done” isn’t ignoring a problem, hoping it will go away or walking away in body but staying involved with your emotions. So, we’ll take on the challenge of finding healthy ways to release and surrender behaviors that hold us back in the November series, The Art of Done.
The guys ahead of me in line were dressed head to toe in gear from the neighborhood high school. As we waited for our sandwiches, the coaches talked about their chances for a winning basketball season.
“Manish has so much talent. He’s going to be a real superstar for us this year,” Coach #1 said enthusiastically.
“I don’t know,” Coach #2 interjected. “He’s a natural, but I wish he would have the same interest for the rest of the program. He hates conditioning at the gym and gets bored talking about the playbook.”
Coach #1 frowned and gave a gruff reply. “Well, we need to make him a success.”
I shook my head as I listened, thinking back to a friend who once told me: “If you own this problem, it will own you.”
To be clear, we all have responsibilities. Sometimes those are responsibilities we’ve created, like signing a mortgage for a house. Other times, we’ve accepted surprise responsibilities, such as helping a sick family member. But there’s a big difference between stepping into the gap vs. trying to live someone else’s life for them.
Let’s tick through the coaches’ conversation again to understand this distinction. Who needed to hit the gym? Manish. Who had to understand the playbook? Manish. Who needed to listen to coaching? Manish. No wonder Coach #2 got nervous when his boss told him he was responsible for Manish living up to his potential!
You are accidentally owning someone else’s responsibility every time you use phrases like “OK, but. . .” or “It’s easier to do it myself”. But you can be done with that behavior by adopting mindfulness. Mindfulness converts your default response to insightful, conscious choices. And when you have that kind of clarity, you’re automatically kind to yourself, a key Soul Boss principle.
Here are three ways to try mindfulness:
Own what is yours to do and do it with gusto. And for anything else, declare that you’re done.