Do What You Can

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This episode of the Quit Playing Small podcast is brought to you by I quit playing small.com, where you can get your copy of the Quit Playing Small companion book to this pod. It's filled with daily inspiration you didn't know you needed. Hello, most awesome one. I'm a Ahyiana Angel and you are listening to the Quit Playing Small podcast.

Your space for inspired thinking, encouragement, and goodness. Today, let's get into a real topic, what we expect from ourselves. Let's get real about it. Are you ready? Can I say this to you with love and support? Do what you can. Do what you can. It's okay to slow down. Slowing down is not about completely relieving yourself of ambition, but rather reminding yourself that it's okay to allow yourself the time that you need to do what you can to process, and also to live. You don't have to act like you're a bionic person. You're a superwoman, superman, and you can do it all. We no longer need that energy in our lives. We need a realistic energy around us now. You don't have to put this extreme pressure on yourself to accomplish a myriad of things in one day, in one week, in one month even.

You may not realize this, but you can overcomplicate your process and make it seem overwhelming for you when you put pressure on yourself to figure it all out immediately. This beautiful thing called life. It's ever evolving. Only a very, very small percentage of people have it all figured out, and they're completely living their lives stress free because they have it all figured out.

We look at people around us and we think their success is an indication of their knowing, of their understanding of their skill set and skill level. Yes, it may be. Partially a representation of that, but to think that everyone around you has it figured out to some grand level that you don't is just unrealistic.

The more you start to talk to people and really pay attention to where their head is. And the cues that they're giving you within the things that they're saying, you'll start to realize the majority of people are feeling their way through life daily, constantly learning and striving to accomplish things that are on their list.

Even the people you look up to or. They would probably confess in a moment of sheer vulnerability that they're winging it most of the time, too. One of the keys to making progress toward your aspirations and goals is to break your challenges down into smaller pieces so that you can realistically see them and tackle.

The constant daily pressure that you put on yourself can really cause you to actually get stuck versus making progress that you're expecting of yourself. Have you ever had so much on your plate that you know you need to do, or that's swirling around in your head that you look up at the end of the day and you've actually accomplished or completed?

Nothing significant. It can be production paralysis. Everything you have to do is so overwhelming and potentially intimidating that you stall and you produce nothing. You don't move any closer to your goals or achieving the things that you wanted to achieve. This happened to me recently, actually. In one moment during the day, one of those days, what I realized is that I just had to stop, pay attention to what I was doing in that moment, that little thing that was giving me joy.

I mean, it could have been like making myself a snack, right? But it was the joy that I created for myself, and I chose to focus on that versus. The things that I needed to do that could potentially stress me out in that moment if I let them continue swirling around my mind the next time that you are feeling overwhelmed by your day, maybe try that.

Find one little thing that you can do. That you know you can do with ease, and that could be cooking for yourself. That could be going for a walk, that could be saying something positive or nice to someone else. Whatever that little thing is that you know you can execute on with little effort or with ease because it's familiar to you.

Do. Be in that moment. Allow yourself joy and appreciation in that moment, and then you can get back to all the other things and tackling them, but allowing yourself that one little moment makes you feel like, or at least it made me feel like everything is not that bad. Everything is not that overwhelming.

I am capable. I needed this moment of joy for my nature loving backpack, hiking people. Have you ever gotten all prepared? You had your water, your snack bar. I don't know what kind of snack bars people use with hiking, but I'm imagining that you use some kind of snack or energy. Replenisher, . You have your new hiking boots all laced up only to get out there and look at the mountain that you chose thinking this is crazy.

Or maybe I am because this seems too high to climb. This is above my skill level. You might not feel like you have the skills, the equipment, or anything else. You need to climb that mountain. You look up and it seems impossible from your perspective on the ground. The mountain may as well be touching the sky.

It's a hundred times bigger than you and than you expected and full of sharp edges and obstacles, and you can't possibly see how you can climb that mountain in front of you, but then you remember it's okay to pace yourself. It's okay to take it. PS this is me. Assuming you've never done this before or you're, you're still learning right?

So what would you do? You would focus on the things that absolutely require your immediate attention while you're on the ground, like learning the fundamentals of rock climbing, acquiring the survival skills and tools that you need, and identifying the gear that you need before you even need to think about getting to the top.

You learn. You prep, you step and you go, and before you know it, you're using your skills to actually climb that monstrous mountain. You got started by using what you learned as a toddler. Put one foot in front of the other so you're not stuck anymore. You're not stuck trying to figure out how to climb the entire mount.

You're in motion now. You're climbing, you're conquering, You're working with what you have and doing the work based on what you know when you need to take life slow. It's reasonable to make sure you are achieving your personal minimum requirements for yourself, but don't aim to please anyone else in your achievements.

Just yourself. And I think that's where we get so bogged down by the stress of the things, and we let life and our goals and our ambitions stress us out because it's not always about us. A lot of times we're stressed because we're incorporating other people's expectations of us. We're incorporating how we can prove something to the outside world instead of worrying about.

What we want to prove to ourselves, what our personal best looks like. And remember, you don't need to try to achieve everything in your days, just something. Thank you so much for spending time with me. As always, I appreciate you. I'm reaching my arms out in a big extension of a virtual hug. I wanna send you big hugs, big love, and I'm wishing you much success in your days to come.

As always, be well.

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