Generally, I feel like a “create the flow” approach to life has worked well for me. When I think about my life and accomplishments, I feel like a lot of it has to do with the fact that I have actively pursued whatever I was after. I don’t think the same things would have happened if I had a “go with the flow” approach, but there is no way I will ever know that.
There is a downside to this mentality. If I am being honest, part of what I like about it is a sense of control over my life. The problem is that most of life is not in our control. At best, we only have influence, but not often real control over most of what happens. Life is too complex. There are too many factors at play in most cases. I do think we can control our mindset and the energy we put out in the world. However, we can’t control what happens from there. My challenge is that my “create the flow” approach causes me to forget this at times and then I get frustrated and am hard on myself when things don’t work out. Sound familiar to anyone?
What if I told you there is a better way. Something I have been working on. I will call it the “whitewater rafting approach”. My family and I have been whitewater rafting several times. What becomes obvious pretty fast the first time you go rafting is that the river is in control. In our case we have always gone with a guide that had a lot of experience on whatever river we were on. After being down the river so many times, the guide knows when you need to row and when you need to let the river take you. When you can improve your chances of success by actively moving to a different part of the current and when it is counterproductive to try and row.
Life is like this in many ways. If we are self-aware enough to be our own guides, we will know when to row and know when to let the current take us. Self-awareness is the key. We have to take the time to reflect on our experiences, both good and bad, to benefit from that experience when we come across something similar around the next bend in the river.
We also have to realize there are going to be times when we slam into a rock and get knocked out of the boat. This happened to my son when we were on one of our trips. I am not going to lie, as a parent it was terrifying. However, I pulled him back in the boat and we got right back to rowing over the next rapid. We didn’t have a choice. We have all had this experience in life as well.
Sometimes, no matter how well we navigate, we are going to slam into a rock. You just have to get back in the boat and keep on rowing until you can get to a calm spot where you can gather yourself, learn from it and keep on going. If you just slammed into a rock, know that all you need to do right now is get back in the boat, and many times that requires us allowing somebody to pull us back in.
One Small Step
This month, think about the rivers of life you are navigating right now. Is there an area where you are “rowing” and that effort is only making things worse? Is there an area where a little more rowing could improve your chances of success? Can you draw on a past experience to give you some insight?
Find this month’s recommendations here.
As always, if you have any feedback or questions, I would love to hear them.
Thanks for reading!