Stop Trying So Hard to Make It Happen

Have you ever tried really hard to fall asleep?

It’s a remarkably effective way to stay awake.

You get comfortable. Close your eyes. Take a few deep breaths.

Then check the clock.

11:47.

Okay. Plenty of time.

Close your eyes again.

12:13.

Now you begin doing sleep math.

If I fall asleep in the next seven minutes, I can still get six hours and 42 minutes.

Nothing creates peaceful sleep like an aggressive deadline.

Some things just don’t respond well to being forced.

The Best Things Often Happen Sideways

Try forcing yourself to be creative.

Come on. Have an interesting idea.

Try ordering yourself to relax.

RELAX.

Try telling you girlfriend to calm down.

CALM DOWN

Try demanding you enjoy a vacation (a la Clark Griswold) because you paid good money for it.

We are making memories, damn it.

Sometimes we become so focused on forcing an outcome that we interfere with the conditions that will produced it naturally.

You can't force sleep, but you can create a superior routine and clean sleep hygiene.

You can't demand creativity, but you can take a walk, read something interesting, or create enough quiet for an idea to show up.

You can't order yourself into flow, but you can remove distractions, choose a meaningful challenge, and take action.

Our job isn't to manufacture the result.

Our job is to set the table.

Then Something Starts Moving

One good choice influences another.

A walk improves your mood, which changes how you respond to someone, which changes the conversation, which changes your evening.

Going to bed earlier makes tomorrow's workout more likely. The workout improves your energy. Better energy changes how you approach the day.

No single choice looks particularly impressive.

There may never be a moment when you can point and say:

Right there. That's when everything changed.

Things simply begin moving.

The trouble is, we get impatient.

We exercised three times. Where are my abs?

We meditated for four days. Where is my eternal enlightenment?

We wrote two pages. Where is my book deal?

Create the Conditions

Maybe, just maybe, instead of obsessing over the outcome, we ask a different question:

What conditions make the outcome most likely?

Protect your attention.

Move your body.

Spend time with people you care about.

Create some quiet.

Do meaningful work.

Get enough sleep.

Plant something worthwhile.

Then resist the urge to dig it up every morning to see if it's working.

You don't control everything that grows from those choices.

That's the point.

Set the table.

Then give the invisible stuff a chance to work.

Take it with you:

What conditions could I create today that would make the outcome I want more likely?