Chill AF: My New Approach for Progress

Dec 22, 2017

Glimmering Butterfly Project – Day 02 Post

I’m still early into this little project, but I can feel an unmistakable “calm” within myself. It’s a massive contrast against always feeling like I need to be on the “go,” that I should be doing certain things, that I should have been so far in my life already.

The stress I often experience is because I haven’t accepted the reality of a particular situation or where I’m at in life and expecting that I should be elsewhere.

When the reality is that I am where I am, dealing with what I deal with, am who I am, and so on.

In my last post, I talked about a surreal feeling I experience at every single West Coast Swing event, which I call an updraft, but at the tail end of that post … I reminisced about another feeling I experienced while visiting a cemetery:

“It was this intense … realization of just how little actually “mattered” in my life. … I reflected back on the weekend and the past decades of my life. It became really apparent to me just how much I was focusing on things that didn’t matter, things I couldn’t control, and thoughts and actions that didn’t actually help me at all.”

So much effort has gone into things that don’t matter.

But after those swing events, experiencing the updraft, and the experience I had through the Limitation Game, this new “calm,” that I have…

My inner game feels on point, even if my outside circumstances haven’t changed at all.

The Limitation Game moved me in an unexpected way, but it’s not specifically because of the content I consumed. It was because I finally started doing the work and made the conscious choice to make a change and start living a different way.

Re-reading my musings about the updraft and combined with this new heart-driven project, it’s made me far more aware of what actually “matters,” and what is real versus fabricated in my mind.

I know it seems a little naive to be thinking the way I’m thinking…

But being stressed as fuck for years clearly has not been working.

I’m essentially spending 30 days being intentionally chill AF. No stress. Not worrying about “obligations” (minus a few, because I can’t just neglect all responsibility).

Not stressing over whether or not I ask people to dance at an event or if I just sit out. Rather: I’m not letting myself give myself a hard time when I want to ask someone to dance and don’t. Stressing over that is just not useful.

Not stressing over whether or not I look for new clients. For 30 days I won’t give myself a hard time whether or not I’m looking for new clients or trying to build a business.

Not stressing over whether or not I’m “social” or “shy.”

Not stressed over whether or not you think all this stuff is stupid.

Not stressed over whether or not my goals and visions are ambitious and beyond my scope.

But a funny thing is happening.

In less than a week, I’m already more focused, happier, more relaxed, and more productive than I have been in months. A lot of the things I keep putting off are getting done. I’m going inward, focusing on the reality (and not fabrications), and just … doing.

So. Naive? Maybe.

But naive for 30 days seems to be working out a lot better than worrying about all this other shit I “should” be doing and giving myself a fucking hard time about it when I don’t do it.

At this rate, being chill AF and being kind to myself will pay off far greater than stressing over every single thing when I don’t make the progress I want to make.

So, who knows. 30 days of naivety and bliss is worth a gamble, because I haven’t been doing shit otherwise.

It’s an experiment in pulling from both sides.

Another nod to Gary Vaynerchuk’s Airplane Project, as he articulates this sort of “chill” approach.

AIRPLANE PROJECT – RACK 10: WHY 99% OF THINGS DON’T MATTER

“Did you do it your way, did you die on your sword, … did you listen to yourself?”

“Do not be crippled by the short-term narrative.”