Better Than Yesterday

What is it with more?

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*Personal points for reflection included below post.

While there have been periods of my life when I’ve been diligent about a regular meditation practice, now is simply not one of them. Try as I might, I cannot seem to consistently make the time and space for the quiet.

The coach in me would say I’m not making it a priority.

And she’d be right.

So where I’ve landed instead is a pseudo mindfulness habit where I listen to subliminal affirmations (read: statements designed to shape my mindset, layered with calming music) upon rising in the morning. I do this via buds in my ears while I tend to the typical morning chores of making the bed, preparing coffee, etc.

It works for me for several reasons, largely because it’s practical and accessible, and also because the one requirement I hold for it is that it occurs before checking email, news or any other notifications on my phone. So regardless of whether or not the words I’m absorbing are actually affecting my psyche, the notion of starting my day in peace always manages to pay off.

“Is perfect the only qualifier for progress? I mean, surely we’re all allowed a day off?”

But the other day, upon opening my meditation app, sleep still in my eyes, hair at all angles, I was greeted with an alert:

“Protect your streak!” it said, asking me if I had made time for my headspace yesterday, because apparently, I did not.

I stared at the screen, still groggy, attempting to process what I was reading, equal parts proud that I had apparently been maintaining this ritual for nearly 100 days (!), and disarmed by the fact that it was giving me the chance to protect said streak by inputting another non-app related mindfulness activity for credit.

And I’m not gonna lie, I thought about fibbing there for a second. It even tempted me with suggestions; surely I took some deep breaths that could count?

But what struck me the most was the inherent hypocrisy of gamifying a meditation practice. If the carrot on the stick are the metrics, isn’t that defeating the premise of why you should want to show up?

And furthermore, is perfect the only qualifier for progress? I mean, surely we’re all allowed – and could afford – a day off?

These questions are part of my ever-evolving journey to live by the notion to be better than we were yesterday, words that hang large in my office, challenging me every day to reassess what they mean. Does being better mean being more? Being consistent? Checking boxes just to be able to say you did so?

Or can being better be rooted in believing you’re already actually enough?

To be clear, I am firmly on team Life is for Growing, and contend that the capacity for change and transformation is one of the most magical aspects of our human experience. But what I’m recognizing is that some of the biggest avenues for progress are the ones we stumble down in less than desirable circumstances.

The ones that are far from perfect and require us to pick ourselves up and dust ourselves off.

So in a world that prioritizes productivity and instant gratification, I personally think we need to be very careful to not expect self-improvement to follow the same parameters. After all, the very definition of evolution is “the gradual development of something, especially from a simple to a more complex form.”

In other words, if we asked AI to summarize, it would say good things take time.

Now, of course, this doesn’t mean we get to sit back and put our feet up. Goals and aspirations are achieved; they don’t just occur. But perhaps if we stepped away from the metrics and noise (i.e. social media) that like to qualify success and greatness, we could relearn how to self-assess.

We could rehab the self-empowerment muscle that we’ve all atrophied in a scroll of judgment and influential soundbites.

Because maybe — just maybe — the pursuit of being better than yesterday starts at having the courage to stand at the intersection of more and enough.

Gratitude for where we are with intent on where we are going.

A headspace that allows us to Lighten Up.

Write them, think them, talk them. There is no right or wrong way to navigate these prompts. Except to go into them without judgment or expectation. Be curious. And honest. Have the courage to sit with yourself.

• Think of ways you measure your progress (or lack thereof). These can include metrics (i.e. your iwatch, the scale, or any apps that “award” you), or external forms of validation (i.e. like counts, verbal praise, etc.). Is it possible that any of them are actually interfering with your forward momentum by making you feel worse? Is there one you can go without and instead lean on yourself for acknowledging a job well done?

• What are your parameters for a successful day (or however you would choose to define a day well spent)? What are you doing to ensure these act as your guide post? Do you find it challenging or uncomfortable to truly do you?

• Give yourself credit for something that has occurred in the past couple of days. Use these requirements in your thought process: 1) You played an active role in making it happen and 2) It brought you closer to a way you want to think/feel/live more.

• And conversely, what’s one area of your existence where you know you need to make some edits? Pick only ONE area and then get as specific as possible with what you want to do differently.

• Finally, what’s one immediate action step you can take to move towards addressing your answer from the last question (hint: think of something — however small — you can start doing right now).