Have you ever thought: "sure, this is great, but it's not perfect yet" or "yea, I guess, but there's always room for improvement"? This fear of 'complacency' can also show up as: "I will celebrate when... X thing has happened... or when Y person says Z" or "'yea, okay, it's good for now. Let's see how long it lasts!"
What if this fear of complacency is rooted in the belief that, no matter what you do, it's never enough because you could always technically do better? The thing about never being good enough as the starting point is that, on some level, there's always fear at the root of it. There's fear of staying still and missing an opportunity, of the rug being pulled from under you while you were out there honouring how far you've come, or of somehow not being prepared for when things fall apart.
Today's invitation is to reframe the starting point. What if you're already enough *and* your efforts to 'continuously improve' are built on that foundation of enoughness? What might change for you if you started building on your enoughness instead of fearing that, no matter what you do, there will always be more that could be done better? What might become available to you by starting from a foundation of being enough?
The first part of this invitation is predicated on the idea that enoughness and growth are *not* mutually exclusive. You can be enough now *and* still grow. The nuance is the difference between tuning into a growth mindset because you're never good enough versus tuning into a growth mindset because you *are* enough *and* you want to build or expand on that enoughness. How might this starting point free you?
The second part of this invitation views celebrating or honouring wins as a key tool in cultivating the stamina to withstand hard choices while also making the most out of really complex leadership decisions. In this case, leadership can refer to self-leadership, team leadership, community leadership, and/or business leadership, for example. Here are 8 questions to consider:
1. What does 'complacency' mean to you?
2. What's so frightening or undesirable about it, from your perspective?3. Where do those assumptions come from *and* how do they serve you?
4. Do these belong to you *and* do you want to keep them?
5. How might you separate or differentiate between celebration or honouring how far you've come and 'complacency' when it comes to how much further you want to go?
6. How might moments of celebration, recognition, and rest help you develop the nervous system flexibility to adapt to moments of change, challenge, and opportunity?
7. What if honouring your wins, both 'big' and 'small', actually makes the path to 'continuos improvement' more sustainable and enjoyable?
8. How might a more sustainable and enjoyable path of building on enoughness support your community's morale?
As leader in your own life, in your team, in your community, or in your business, you're at choice. You're at choice when deciding what your starting point is. Yes, shifting to a starting point of building on enoughness is counter-cultural and, honestly, counter to most of our neural pathways. And. It's an adventure well worth taking.