I Struggle All The Time

I struggle with managing expectations (others' and my own), dealing with judgements (others' and my own), understanding emotions and perspectives (others' and my own), overcoming procrastination and comfort zone...

Yet at the same time, I am constantly receiving feedback on how I make things look easy, it seems so... effortless. I get it. I am also in constant wonder of how some individuals seem to be in a flow state. It is simply amazing and I came to realise that the user-friendliness of one's life is there by design. It required a lot of thought and hard & heart work to make it look so effortless.

Before all that, let's start with Attitude first: our attitude towards anything bad and good - do we cultivate an attitude that empowers us or an attitude that sabotages us?

One of the trainings that my mentor puts me through is

• Level 1: Challenging to me smile particularly when I am not in my best mood - I could be in pain, I could be frustrated, annoyed, angry...
• Level 2: No matter what, I need to put on my best smile, as genuinely as I can.

I recalled one time we went for foot reflexology and oh boy, the masseur was so good that basically, I was in all pain to even think about pleasure. My mentor turned to me and smile, with her sweetest and firmest voice, "Sam, I think you forget to practise smiling."

It is true that not all smiles are genuine expressions of happiness. People smile when they are frightened, flirting, horrified, or mortified. People also smile when they are lying. It’s not unusual for moments of sadness, or even bereavement, to cause a smile. However, it seems that smiling through tough times does a body good (Jaffe, 2011).

Try it, a genuine smile is one of the most powerful weapons we all possess.

Simplicity comes from understanding a complex objective and breaking it down into its most basic parts. The reality is that process involves a lot of thought. It’s counterintuitive because when observing someone that looks so effortless, we do not see the complexity or even recognize that what they are doing is inherently difficult. But that’s only because they have worked through the learning curve to synthesise the task into the most simplified form of action. Simple solutions seem to exist in plain sight and they don’t appear to be that clever (Ford, 2020).

I am not born into a family of wealth and connections. I am not smart. I do not have any striking talents. Thankfully,

I am willing to work hard and put my heart into every piece of work I do.

I hope by now you realised that everything I have shared here does not require any form of monetary investment, yet you can generate enormous value if you set your mind and heart to it. "You have everything you need to succeed." I think this is basically what this sentence really means.

References

Ford, B. (2020, October 5). Making It Look Effortless | Self-Improvement Daily Podcast. Self Improvement Daily. Retrieved May 4, 2023, from https://www.selfimprovementdailytips.com/podcast/making-it-look-effortless

Jaffe, E. (2011, February 11). The Psychological Study of Smiling – Association for Psychological Science – APS. Association for Psychological Science. Retrieved May 4, 2023, from https://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/the-psychological-study-of-smiling

Becoming Irreplaceable?aims to empower fellow professionals to build sustainable and meaningful careers, this is definitely one way for us to increase our own happiness index! It is really about taking the control back.