I’m writing this from my seat on Amtrak’s Pacific Surfliner train as it winds its way along the coast towards Los Angeles. There are occasional jostles, but in general it glides along.
I love traveling by train. Especially along the coast, and especially in the early morning. Watching the sun rise over the ocean, transitioning from almost-colorless pastel mist of sea and sky, to watching clusters of surfers out on their boards catching the first waves of the day, there’s something soothing and magical about train travel.
It gives one time and space to think.
It brings one closer to one’s destination with no effort on one’s part. All you have to do is show up and catch that train. The train does all the rest, and it does so with a glorious and beautiful glide ride across sea, land and sky all at the same time.
It gets me thinking about accomplishments.
We tend to think that there are things we must set out to do, with driving force. Go write that book. Go build that business. Go land those clients. Go grow your Twitter followers. Do these things and then maybe, just maybe, you’ll have something.
But the train is showing me otherwise.
The train is showing me that all I have to do, really, is know where I want to go and then simply get on board. It is happy to do the heavy lifting for me to get me there.
I don’t need to get out and push the train.
I don’t need to go up to the conductor and tell them how to run their train to get me where I’m going.
They’ve got this. And I trust that I’ll get where I need to go.
So why can’t it be the same for my business?
Why can’t I stop “pushing” my train”?
I recently read a quote from Doreen Virtue, which said that all pressure is self-imposed.
Think about this for a moment.
That feeling of our work being “so hard”? That comes from us.
That overwhelming always-busy-ness that we live in day-in and day-out? That comes from us.
That constant view of “I’m trying to” get something done? That comes from us.
We are so good at creating pressure for ourselves, it’s easy to believe we are victims of it. . . that this pressure is out of control. It’s tempting to cry out to the heavens while raising our hands to the sky: “This is too much! I can’t handle it! What is to become of me?!”
To stop this feeling, simply flip the question.
When I am frustrated and afraid and angry and sick and tired of pushing my train, when I am ready to go to the printers to print up formal invitations to my pity party for one (oh poor me, sad little victim of all this pressure and non-stop work!), I catch myself and flip the question.
This stops me in my tracks. It’s one thing to tell myself that I’m a victim and that all this stuff is out of my control. But it’s another thing altogether to own that I am the one who is turning myself into something else. Typically, in these moments, who I am and how I feel is NOT what I want to become. Rather, it’s what I want to break free from.
So the next time you feel like you are “pushing your train” and there’s just too much pressure on you, stop.
Stop.
Look out the window for a moment.
And then ask yourself: what are you to become?
I don’t want to be a pusher. I choose to be a happy traveller.
What kind of a traveler are you?
In travel and in your business, how do you roll?
What are your assumptions around your journey and what you need to do to get you
where you want to go?
How easy or difficult does it have to be to get you there?
And how would you like to travel?
Just as the train gets us where we need to go without extra effort on our part, and the caterpillar turns into the butterfly with no additional effort on its part, we can ease up (even just a wee bit) on our self-imposed efforts and see how our journey continues.
You may even find that the view on your journey’s something remarkable.
I cannot wait to see what you draw forth,
