We live in the tension between a version of us we despise and a version of us we would like to become.

And we also live in the tension between our failures, which we see so vividly, and other people’s successes, which we fantasise a lot about.

When we get going, we often reach for the positive extreme. We are at our best and we aim to emulate those who have succeeded before. We know we can. Then we meet criticism, bad weather, rejection, difficulties of various kind, and we fall to the negative extreme. We are suddenly incapable to complete the most trivial task, unworthy of anybody’s attention, care, empathy.

Most reality, though, happens in the middle. And that’s also where we can anchor to achieve real and incremental progress.

It’s when we embrace the version of us we are today and the work we are doing today – neither bad nor good – that we get rid of the tension and we can start enjoying the journey.