Better - the enemy of good: how to abandon the pursuit of the ideal and to be happy here and now

We are accustomed to thinking that the eternal desire for a better and constant dissatisfaction is necessary for success. But that in general such a success? More and more people suffer from depression and anxiety. Loneliness and social exclusion have reached epidemic proportions. According toEmployee Burnout polls, two-thirds of employees are experiencing emotional burnout. It does not seem to succeed.

There is another approach. As the Vietnamese Zen Buddhist monk Titus Nhat Hanh, the real success is satisfaction with the way your life unfolds. It is "the ability to find happiness in work and life here and now." The essence of this success is not to achieve ideal. It is different: to accept what is, what is "good enough." It is interesting here is that when we stop every minute to strive for the ideal, not only become happier, but also to develop.

With this outlook on life is increased confidence and reduced stress as fading constant feeling that you are not good enough.

And also decreases the risk to undermine the emotional or physical health, because you do not need every day to put a valiant effort to be better than anyone else. You just need to again and again to perform their job well enough. As a result, we are seeing steady progress.

A great example of this philosophy - Eliud Kipchoge, world record holder in the marathon. He is literally the best in the business. But he said that his key to success - not harass yourself in training. He is free from the fanatical desire to always be better than others. Instead of just trying to perform well consistently. According to him, in training he rarely uses more than 80-90% of their maximum capacity. This allows him to regularly week after week. "I want to run with a relaxed mind," - said Eliud.

Unlike many other athletes who have tried and have failed to break the world record for the marathon, Kipchoge never been obsessed with this purpose. For him, running - a "here and now" and does not attempt to justify the ever-growing expectations. "When I run, I feel good. My mind feels good. I I sleep peacefully and enjoy life "- is divided athlete.

The less we strive to be happy, the happier feel. The less try to show the best score, the better we get.

Think of your own experience. In the moments when you were happiest and showed the best results, you are chasing something or how Kipchoge, were calm and happy with what you get? Of course, this does not mean that in general do not need to try to get better. On the contrary. Just use it for other principles.

1. Take your starting point

"Train, assuming the form in which you are now. Not because of the form in which you think you should be or what you want to be, or to what you were before, "- he advises ultramarafonets Rich Roll.

We often tell ourselves that our state is better than it actually is. Distract yourself with other things and ignore the present state of affairs. It protects against the pain in the short term, but long-does not lead to anything good, because we do not solve the problem and avoid it. The problem may be the lack of sports training, the feeling of loneliness in the relationship or burnout at work. In any area of ​​progress is required to see and accept their point of reference.

"Acceptance does not mean passivity and resignation, - writes Jon Kabat-Zinn, professor of medicine and author of books about meditation. - Not at all. This means that you need to understand the situation and accept it as completely as it turns out, no matter how difficult or terrible it may be. And to understand that events are what they are, regardless of whether we like them or not. " According to him, only then can improve their situation.

2. Be patient

We want to get the results right away, but usually it does not happen. Take weight loss. Many change a trendy diet to another, try the high carbohydrate diet, the paleodietu, the interval starvation. But this does not help, but only gets to lose weight. The researchers compared theEffect of Low-Fat vs Low-Carbohydrate Diet on 12-Month Weight Loss in Overweight Adults and the Association With Genotype Pattern or Insulin Secretion a diet low in fat and low in carbohydrates, watching the participants in the experiment for a year. More important was not that what a human diet, but how he holds her.

In the long-term success depends on small but incremental changes.

The same can be said about other areas of life, whether it's sports performance or happiness. If too fast or too soon to expect results, you again and you will be disappointed again.

3. Be in the present

Today's society glorifies optimization. Naturally, we want to optimize and themselves. But our brain does not work the same way as a computer. When we try to perform multiple tasks at the same time, it either quickly switched from one case to another, or trying to handle several things at once, pointing to each small amount of mental abilities. Although we believe that we are doing twice as much, in fact, our effectiveness is reducedMultitasking: Switching costs almost half.

Moreover, we feel less happy. scientists have provenA Wandering Mind Is an Unhappy MindThat we are happier when fully immersed in what we do, and not be distracted by extraneous thoughts.

Unfortunately, we have always something distracting. It seems to us that we miss something importantIf we are not online 24 hours a day - and here we go into social networks, check e-mail, open the news. But perhaps everything is exactly the opposite: to be permanently online, we miss the real life.

4. Be vulnerable

In social networks, people try to imagine my life perfect. But this illusion is far from harmless. As a result, most think that only they have problems - and therefore with them that something is wrong. This misconception leads to additional stress. Moreover, attempts to conform to the image that we cultivate in social networks causeDo You «Like» My Photo? Facebook Use Maintains Eating Disorder Risk anxiety and cognitive dissonance - a contradiction between the two views of themselves, the public and the personal.

Stop so hard to strive for invulnerability and be yourself.

how He speaks sociologist Brene Brown, when we put all of himself into what we do, we feel better about themselves. We not only get rid of dissonance exhausting, but also create a more genuine connection with people, get more support. Trust arises when you relax and are not afraid to appear vulnerable. Then others can do the same.

5. Maintain a range of offline friends

Perhaps one of the most harmful consequences of the proliferation of digital technologies - is an illusion due to other people. It seems that time, you can quickly write a tweet, a message in the messenger or blog post, it means that everything is in order. Digital communication saves time and effort needed to spend to make a real meeting at a convenient time for everyone. And it allows us to be giperproduktivnymi - at least that's what we say to ourselves.

But nothing can replace personal communicationAnd, renouncing it, we ourselves harm. As they say psychiatrists Jacqueline Olds (Jacqueline Olds) and Richard Schwartz (Richard Schwartz) in the book "Lonely American» (The Lonely American), growing obsession with the "cult of productivity and employment" has led to a sharp reduction in the communities, the growth of social exclusion and related affective disorders. We need personal contact and touch, they affectTouch for socioemotional and physical well-being: A review on happiness, peace of mind and even removedThe role of touch in regulating inter-partner physiological coupling during empathy for pain pain.

Personal contact and a positive impact on our efficiency. When you need to change habits, technology can not be compared with real friends. For example, a past champion of the New York Marathon Shalane Flanagan has repeatedly said that its success help to the people with whom she and trains. "I do not think I would have continued to run, if not for my training partner - she said. - They support me during the ups and downs. " So that the effort needed to regularly live communication, are worth it.