Can you be content and yet motivated for change?

Again and again

At this point I feel my life is going round in circles. I’ve just finished another book on productivity, come to make notes about it and seen notes from the last two books I’ve previously read on productivity. Needless to say, their sentiment is the same and yet I’ve been no more measurably productive since finishing all three!

The thing is though, my life is changing, my family is growing. Therefore I can’t call it circles but it must be more of a spiral and I fear the trajectory is gradually down, rather than up. I’m aging, my finances continue to be precarious, my energy levels are lower than they used to be… I feel like I need some kind of intervention.

On the one hand my life philosophy encourages me to be accepting of each moment and look for the things to be grateful for each day. Fortunately there is a lot to give thanks for – I am relatively healthy and my immediate family seem to be too. If my imminent house move completes, many pressures at home could be relieved.

However, on the other hand I have this whole thing about wanting to be more assertive and take more control, essentially to get more out of life. There is this sense that I am sitting back too much and succumbing to something. That something is vague and undefinable, but I think it’s the easy route and the one I may regret taking.

A certifiable conundrum

The two positions seem so adverse. Can one be satisfied and driven? Content and yet motivated for change? It certainly seems that by practicing so much acceptance a person might end up comfortably numb.

We are, in large part, what we tell ourselves we are. I have been psychologically reinforcing that I am an easy going, relaxed and likeable person for so long now that I’ve lost my bite. I’ve blunted my metaphorical teeth and calmed my appetite for change and adventure. How swiftly and how much I’ve mellowed with age it seems.

I have these eight life goals which I set two years ago and they just seem an almost fanciful wish-list now. For example, a high salary expectation, and becoming fluent in Chinese, both within a five year window.

One of the recently read productivity books, The Road Less Stupid, encourages readers to turn goals into non-negotiable standards to live by. I can see the sense in this and it resonates throughout a different book that I just finished. In Indestractible, Nir Eyal talks about the importance of identifying with changes one wishes to make. Embodying the difference as it were. If one sees oneself as a non-smoker it will be easier to give up smoking. If a person truly identifies as a vegetarian (or vegan) it will be easier to resist the temptations of eating meat.

So long self-help, thanks for all the tips

This will be the last productivity book I read. Along with Atomic Habits, this trio of behaviour-changing and hope-evoking texts must provide me with a platform to sort myself out. The intervention must come from within. Change won’t happen over night, it rarely does. The old saying about reaping what you sow comes to mind. By sowing amiable emotions and borderline apathy, I’m reaping a somewhat calm, but somehow unfulfilled outcome.

There is an argument against letting each day roll over and over without taking advantage. There is a reason why there is a need to push back on circumstances, on other people, on the forces of the world. Given the importance of habits, there is a danger in totally assuming an Eastern philosophy. This is that one becomes too accepting and puts the emphasis on tolerance.

A new beginning?

I shall reignite. I shall restart. I don’t want to completely forget those unrealistic goals of a couple of years ago. Incorporating them into life as structured practices in the form of habits would certainly represent committing to change. The identity element is something else to be worked on.

I have a significant life event this week. A new person that I’m responsible for will come into the world. The next few months may be turbulent, they may be up in the air. Yet when the dust settles I am keen that I start to build something more positive and proactive in terms of my own persona.