#36 When Is "Good" Enough?

Have you ever wondered when 'good enough' is good enough?
Sari shares a story from a session that inspired her to explore the balance between effort and ease. Discover why we stop short, and take away some tools to help you remain in integrity with yourself,  and become the person you are meant to be.

Good Enough Journal&Affirmation Guide

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Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome and Weekend Inspiration
• 1:27 The Algebra Test Dilemma
• 3:24 The Good Enough Paradox
• 5:17 Why We Leave Things Incomplete
• 7:17 Three Guiding Questions for Decision-Making
• 9:39 Balancing Effort and Ease
• 12:48 This Week's Invitation and Closing

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Hey, welcome. Welcome back or welcome if it's your first time to transform your life, just count me in. I'm Sari Stone, your host, and just coming off of such a great weekend. We had company this weekend and just so inspirational to be with this young lady for a while. So have you ever had a moment where you thought that's good enough, but something inside you whispered, you can do more. Last week, on Friday, actually, I had a tutoring session with one of my absolute favorite people, definitely my favorite way to start my Fridays. Um, he's actually a seventh grader doing ninth grade algebra, and to be honest with you, he could do probably 12th grade algebra if he had the instruction right now. He's got such capacity, and I totally just enjoy him and his family. He keeps me on my toes, and he had already earned a passing score, but his parents and I were trying to encourage him like, finish the test. Your teacher's giving you a chance to finish the test, not so much for the grade myself, but for himself. For and his parents thought, you know, for the work ethic of it, like of finishing what you start. And we all got into a discussion, and the whole thing got me thinking, when is good enough truly good enough? And when is our soul actually calling us to go all in? So we were rationalizing with him, and he's very bright. So, I mean, everybody's intellectualizing everything, and I realized that we were just totally in our heads, that we were everybody was locked into, you know, needing to be right, trying to get the other person to understand our roles, and I realized that we are always looking for the answers, but we actually live in the question. So I started asking him questions, and I asked him to go into his heart and really feel like what it what he would feel like either way. Which way did he feel better about, not think better about? And that helped him make up his mind. Actually, in this particular case, it felt more expansive and relaxed and relieving for him to finish the test. Perfectionism can actually keep us stuck. We've all heard that perfect is the enemy of done, yet doing the bare minimum can keep us small. There's a couple different sides to this issue. Our brains actually resist extra effort when the reward feels uncertain. Like, thanks a lot, brain. But then growth research says that the magic happens when we engage for the sake of learning, not just the outcome. This is about, to me, the way we live our lives in integrity with ourselves. And as Wayne Dyer said, when you're inspired, you do what needs to be done because you're moved by a calling, you're guided by a calling. And you can always ask yourself: does this task feel expansive? Does it feel aligned with who I'm becoming? And if the answer is yes, then that's your cue to lean in. There is a good enough paradox. And perfection is the enemy of done, but done without heart can also be the enemy of growth. Good enough can sometimes be healthy and protect the energy and prevent burnout. There's times I'm in the middle of something and I just stop and I do it more and more and just ask, like, how is this feeling? Does this feel like the right day to do this? Does this feel like the right time to do this? And if the answer is no, I don't do it because there's something else that my energy should be going towards. Then again, good enough can also be a case of me self-sabotaging when it's fear or avoidance dressed up as having balance in my life. That's a hard sentence for me to say because it was hard for me to realize that it could happen sometimes that way. So I was thinking the examples I gave my student were, you know, for this call, I did my hair and my hair was just good enough. My hair is not my greatest gift anyway for me to do. I'm not great at doing it. And before a Zoom call, I try to get it looking good enough, but my priority is on making sure that the lesson or the coaching that we're gonna do is really, really good, is very, very high quality. So, hair, one thing, good enough for me, because I'm not a hair model. Turning in a test incomplete, even though you're capable of doing more. Self-limiting. I looked into why, because I'm always trying to figure out what is my brain doing. Is my can I work with my brain on this, or do I just need to stick with the heart? And there's something called an effect that I just learned about, and it's the Zygrid Nick effect, and the mind holds on to incomplete tasks, so that's why you're up at two o'clock in the morning because you didn't finish something and you know it has to be done, and you know you're gonna finish it the next day, but I mean that happens to me because finishing gives us closure, and finishing also gives us good old dopamine. Another reason is that the amygdala and fear of failure or rejection can make us quit early. When we shift from outcome to learning, effort feels more rewarding. And according to Carol Direct's research, the growth mindset guru, praising effort and strategy, not just results, is actually what builds resilience in people. And there will be a whole episode on that. When you're inspired by a purpose, we know everything flows, and you can't get it wrong. You're probably never gonna get it done. Sometimes inside of us, we are being called to stretch beyond our comfort, and that's where trust and capacity to receive actually expand, right on the other side of what's comfortable. Other times, when we get in touch with ourselves because we're just trying to overachieve or people please, letting good enough be enough is an act of self-love and going with the flow of your life, thus freeing you up for something else you could be doing. So I use a self-check and I ask myself, does this action feel expansive and aligned with my highest self? How do I feel inside? Or am I avoiding because of fear, or am I wisely trying to conserve my energy? There's three guiding questions. Fear or wisdom? One thing. You could put it on a T chart. Am I stopping out of avoidance or intentional choice? Am I just trying to get out of something because I don't like it? Or do I honestly not want to do it right now and have a logical time when I can do it and let it just be with that, going with the flow of my life? The second one is alignment. Does going all in here or wholeheartedly help me align with who I'm truly becoming? Is this the person I want to be proud of? Do I want to be the woman that does this? And then after, am I gonna feel proud of how I showed up? Is it stopping me from trying something now because I'm afraid to be a C student? If my answer is yes to two or three, likely it's time to go all in. So practical tips. You can pause and check in with yourself and think, am I stopping out of fear or wisdom? After am I gonna feel proud of how I showed up? And this self-honesty helps you decide when to give full effort and when to let good enough just be enough. Here are some prompts that I used when I was journaling about this because it was really helpful. Where in my life am I settling for good enough? And it feels aligned. Where in my life am I stopping short because I'm avoiding or afraid? Can I think of a time when I've gone all in and felt proud regardless of the outcome? It's hard for us to determine at times whether we should go all in or settle for good enough. And I think it's an ongoing question. We don't want to push our kids, we don't want to push people that we support in our lives to do something. We never push. I mean, and that's a rule in itself to just have people align and flow with their lives. But sometimes support is not a push. Reminding somebody of what they really want if they've temporarily forgotten is not a push. It's holding up a light, it's lighting a candle so they can remember who they came here to be themselves and remember what they need to remember about staying on track with their lives. Here are a couple of affirmations that I'm using. I honor what truly matters by showing up with a full body, yes. I allow ease where ease is sacred. I allow effort where effort is called. And in yoga we balance effort and ease in our flow. Life balances effort and ease, growth cycles balance effort and ease. So why don't we balance effort and ease a little bit more easily without so much mental resistance? I expand my capacity to receive by living in integrity with myself. If you want to take it a step further, you can picture a moment when you stopped at good enough and notice how did it feel in your body. Did it feel good? Sometimes it feels really good, and it feels like I'm finally validating what I need as a person when I stop and say, No, you know what? That is good enough. That's fine. You don't have to put little curly cues on everything to make every single plate that you make look gorgeous. I mean, unless you're enjoying doing that. Right? Then again, sometimes if I picture a moment when I went all in and not for the applause, but just because I love doing it, aka this podcast, I feel expansion in my chest. I feel so happy to be doing this. I feel 100% alive and aligned inside for doing this podcast. And I think that that's a good call. And I did have to give myself permission to be a C student, especially when I first started with this. Another thing you can do is bring one current situation in mind and ask yourself silently: Am I stopping from fear or stopping from wisdom and respecting myself? I can see it and I can feel it myself. I visualize a light in my heart, like a warm, steady light, just showing me the path that feels more true, showing me the road that my feet need to be on to go home. And I do trust that my inner wisdom knows when to surrender and when to lean in. This week I would invite you to choose one area in your life where you're gonna go all in because it matters to you. I mean, it could be you're washing your car and you want to do a really good job on it. Not for a grade, not for applause, just flat out because you really care all the way. And choose one area, and this may be harder for you, to let yourself off the hook and embrace ease. That balance right there expands your capacity to breathe with life, to receive life, to give it back. It expands your capacity to receive life's miracles. Another thing you can do is download the free journal and affirmation guide if you want to reflect. That link is in the show notes. Thank you so much for joining me today. If you like this episode, please let me know. Stop by at social media on Instagram or my Facebook page, just count me in, and please leave a comment. If there's anybody that you think could benefit from this episode, please forward it to them. And I look forward to seeing you next time. We're all in this together.