Latest / The Humanistic Leader Podcast- Dr. Craig Nathanson / This Is Good Enough: Choosing Peace Over the Scoreboard

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This Is Good Enough: Choosing Peace Over the Scoreboard · The Humanistic Leader Podcast- Dr. Craig Nathanson

• 0:00
  There are two words I've been thinking about a lot this week. Good enough.
• 0:06
  And I know those words don't sound particularly inspiring. We live in a world
• 0:11
  that, you know, celebrates extraordinary.
• 0:14
  You know, be extraordinary.
• 0:16
  Build something extraordinary. Have an extraordinary career.
• 0:21
  Live an extraordinary life.
• 0:24
  Even our ordinary Tuesday mornings somehow need to become extraordinary. ordinary.
• 0:29
  But this week, I had a very small experience that made me wonder whether we're
• 0:34
  overlooking something.
• 0:36
  Maybe there's something, and maybe, you know, maybe comes a moment when good
• 0:40
  enough becomes, you know, enough.
• 0:43
  Maybe that's not giving up. Maybe that's freedom. A few days ago,
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  for example, I was at the gym.
• 0:50
  I wasn't doing anything particularly impressive. I was lifting fairly light
• 0:54
  weights like I usually do, you know, doing my exercises, taking my time.
• 1:00
  And there were some other people around me who were much younger,
• 1:02
  you know, than I was, stronger. Some of them were lifting considerably more weight than I was.
• 1:08
  And I noticed something. I wasn't comparing myself with them.
• 1:13
  I wasn't wishing I could lift what they were lifting. I wasn't looking at someone
• 1:17
  else's body and thinking, I needed to look like that.
• 1:21
  I was just happy I liked the way I felt I liked the way I looked I liked being there.
• 1:30
  Somewhere during that workout I remember having this very simple thought This is good enough for me,
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  You know, years ago I would go to the gym And of course, I have a different
• 1:40
  set of thoughts Why can't I live like that person? Why can't I look like that person?
• 1:47
  Why does my effort seem so weak Compared to the other people at the gym?
• 1:51
  But I don't feel that, you know, that way anymore. Talking about going to the
• 1:55
  gym, lately I've been going to the gym without my phone and without listening to a podcast.
• 2:00
  Without looking at, you know, all the younger, fitter people around me, you know.
• 2:06
  With my lightweights, I wasn't feeling jealous or competitive.
• 2:10
  You know, I decided I'm, in fact, you know what, the sentence that came to me
• 2:14
  was, I'm conducting my own orchestra.
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  You know, it was such a small thought. Good enough for me.
• 2:21
  But it stayed with me Because for much of our lives We're taught almost exactly
• 2:25
  the opposite We're taught to measure, to compare, to improve,
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  To achieve And there's, you know, nothing inherently wrong With any of those
• 2:34
  things I've spent much of my life doing them I built a career I went to school,
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  I earned degrees I wrote books I taught thousands of students I started businesses
• 2:47
  I traveled I tried new things and I'm still trying new things.
• 2:53
  I'm sitting here recording podcasts, after all.
• 2:57
  So this isn't an argument against ambition. It's something different.
• 3:02
  It's a realization that ambition can become a treadmill if we never decide where
• 3:07
  we were trying to go in the first place.
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  You get somewhere and immediately the mind says, okay, what's next?
• 3:15
  Come on, Craig, you can accomplish something better.
• 3:18
  Could it have been better? Someone likes what you created. Why didn't more people like it?
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  You reach a goal, right? And before you've even had time to enjoy it,
• 3:29
  you've created another goal. It's exhausting.
• 3:33
  And the strangest part is that sometimes nobody is making us do it anymore.
• 3:37
  We're doing it to ourselves.
• 3:39
  So all of us, I found, tend to carry this score, this imaginary scoreboard around with us in our mind.
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  Sometimes we carry the scoreboard even when we're not competing against anyone.
• 3:53
  Especially ourselves, we seem to be competing against people who don't even
• 3:55
  know they're in the competition.
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  For example, we see someone's career, someone's house, someone's vacation,
• 4:02
  someone's body, someone else's success, someone's book, someone's number of
• 4:09
  followers that they have.
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  And suddenly we've created this imaginary scoreboard in our mind,
• 4:15
  but nobody really handed it to us. Nobody asked us to keep score,
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  but there we are, checking it anyway.
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  And of course, we're usually comparing the messiness of our own life with that
• 4:26
  little piece of someone else's life that we can see.
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  Maybe one of the quietest forms then of freedom is simply deciding.
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  I don't need to keep score today.
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  You know, I've noticed this recently in my own work.
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  So, you know, what happens when you stop keeping score?
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  Think about that. What do you start to feel? What do you reflect on?
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  What do you see? What do you notice? It's important.
• 4:53
  And I've noticed this in my own creative work. You know, I'll write something
• 4:57
  in the morning or I'll finish one of these podcasts and I'll look at it and
• 5:00
  I'll think, maybe this needs another page.
• 5:03
  Maybe the podcast needs another minute.
• 5:07
  Maybe I should make it more sophisticated Maybe I should have a guest on my
• 5:11
  podcast Maybe I should polish it one more time Maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe,
• 5:18
  And I've begun lately to catch myself Sometimes it doesn't need another paragraph
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  Sometimes the podcast doesn't need another minute Sometimes a story has already said what it came to say,
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  So lately I've been sort of trusting the empty spaces in my life Whether I'm
• 5:33
  sitting on a park bench near my house,
• 5:37
  or I'm just, you know, thinking to myself about what I'm thinking.
• 5:43
  In other words, taking that empty space and reflecting.
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  And when I do this, I notice that new stories start to emerge instead of filling
• 5:52
  every inch of my thought process.
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  So maybe creativity needs to be good enough, too.
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  Because perfection has an interesting way of, you know, disguising itself as
• 6:01
  excellence. But they're not the same thing.
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  Excellence, you see, can help us, you know, being excellent can help us create.
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  And perfection can help us and keep us from, you know, ever being satisfied with what we created.
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  I wonder how often that happens outside of, you know, just creative work.
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  Like how much money is really enough? How successful do we have to become?
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  How many people need to know my name? How many followers? How many likes do
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  I really need to have? How many promotions at work?
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  How big a house do I have to have?
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  How impressive a job title.
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  How fit a body. How interesting a life.
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  At what point do we get permission to say, I like my life?
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  Not because everything is perfect. Not because there aren't things that,
• 6:50
  you know, we'd like to change.
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  But because, you know, what we have right now is worth being lived as it is.
• 6:57
  You know, I want to be careful here because good enough can become an excuse.
• 7:02
  There are times when we know we're, you know, capable of more There are times
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  when we need to work harder There are relationships that sometimes need attention,
• 7:12
  There are dreams that, you know, deserve another attempt,
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  And there are uncomfortable things that we need to face rather than hide from,
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  So good enough shouldn't become a hiding place But neither should not enough
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  become a permanent way of living.
• 7:27
  So that's a distinction I've been thinking about recently. There's a big difference
• 7:31
  between saying, I don't care anymore, and saying, I don't need to prove anything right now.
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  One feels like resignation, and the other feels like, well, you know, peace.
• 7:42
  I think to a younger version of myself, when good enough was almost,
• 7:46
  you know, impossible to accept.
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  My life in, you know, the corporate world, you know, trying to build a business,
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  you know, getting degrees, writing books, doing career coaching, and so on.
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  And I was always looking forward to the next accomplishment But,
• 8:01
  you know, I don't want to criticize the younger version of myself You know,
• 8:04
  he got me here I notice him And I don't regret that part of myself But,
• 8:10
  you know, that person carried me, like you, a long way But maybe we just need
• 8:14
  different things at different points in our lives,
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  You know, there are seasons for striving There are seasons for building And
• 8:21
  there are seasons to proving to ourselves that we can do something we weren't sure we can do,
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  But perhaps, just perhaps, there should be seasons when we stop long enough
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  to notice what all this striving created.
• 8:34
  Here's the part I find interesting I don't think this really has much to do
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  with age You could be 20 years old and desperately need to hear that you're
• 8:42
  good enough You could be 40 and spend every day comparing your career with somebody else,
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  You could be 60 and wonder whether you've accomplished enough So you could be
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  any age and look at someone else's life through a little different glowing screen
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  And conclude that somehow they're doing life better than you,
• 9:02
  So comparison doesn't seem to care how old we are And neither does enough,
• 9:07
  Maybe people can be good enough too And I've been wondering whether this idea
• 9:14
  applies to more than just, you know, accomplishments.
• 9:17
  Maybe it applies to people in our lives. We carry pictures of how people are supposed to be.
• 9:23
  Our spouse or partner should respond this way. Our children should do that.
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  Our friends should come more often.
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  Our colleagues should really understand us better.
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  And, you know, sometimes I find that those expectations are important,
• 9:36
  but relationships require care.
• 9:39
  But, you know, sometimes we can become so focused on the person we wish someone
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  would be that we stop seeing the person who's actually standing in front of us.
• 9:47
  Maybe part of loving another human being is occasionally allowing them to be,
• 9:53
  good enough, imperfect, a little bit complicated, sometimes frustrating,
• 9:59
  and most important, just like us.
• 10:02
  I know in my life, I prejudge people, only to be embarrassed to find out later I was wrong.
• 10:08
  Most of the time, as I tell my students, how we perceive others in the world is usually incorrect.
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  That's why sitting on this park bench is so important for reflection.
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  And these perceptions could be wrong about work, college, family members,
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  friend, or someone from a long time ago.
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  Think of a moment when you stopped expecting someone to behave exactly as you
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  wanted and simply just appreciated who they were.
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  Or maybe reverse it, a moment when someone gave you the gift of being good enough
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  without requiring you to prove anything.
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  That's a special gift to receive from someone.
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  Maybe that's why I keep returning to this imaginary park bench because the park
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  bench doesn't ask you for your resume.
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  It doesn't, you know, it doesn't care what kind of car you drove there.
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  Doesn't doesn't know how many followers you have. The park bench doesn't know
• 11:00
  your job title, doesn't know whether the person who just walked past,
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  walked past you, makes you twice as much money as you do. It's just just a bench.
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  You sit down and for a few minutes, all the scoreboards disappear.
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  I like that So perhaps there's a question worth sitting with this week Where
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  in your life might good enough actually be enough?
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  Maybe, you know, it's your career Maybe it's your body Maybe it's your house,
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  Maybe it's something you created Maybe it's the parent you've been trying to be,
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  Maybe it's the life that you're building Or maybe it's just simply who you are.
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  Doesn't mean you stop growing. I hope I never stopped growing.
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  It doesn't mean you stop being curious.
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  It doesn't mean you stop dreaming. It simply means that growth doesn't always
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  have to begin with dissatisfaction.
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  And that's a big difference.
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  You know, we can change because we're curious about, you know,
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  what comes next, not because there's something wrong with where we are, where we are now.
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  So just be comfortable with yourself. Be your own best friend,
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  Not your own worst critic And you'll start to appreciate you and others around
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  you In a much different way,
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  So maybe today You don't need to become extraordinary After all Maybe you don't
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  need another achievement And maybe you don't need to win Whatever race you've
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  accidentally Entered, right?
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  Maybe you could just sit for a minute Look around Notice the life you already have,
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  And quietly say This is good I'm still growing I'm still becoming But right
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  now This is good enough for me,
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  And maybe at least for today That's enough I'll see you next time On the park bench.