Sam Birkett 0:08
Hello, it's Sam here from Marketing Meanders with Sally and Sam and I wanted to share with you just now some of my thinking about acceptance and this is really about... come from me looking at self-help guides and this huge industry of self-help and motivational speaking and optimisation of you and your work and this multi-billion pound industry is out there. So much of it is based upon the idea of changing things and adapting and everything else and of course, if you want to go out and run a marathon tomorrow, you're not going to be able to do it, perhaps if you haven't trained to do a marathon, so you need to go and train for six months to run a marathon. So you're going from a place of realising that you have an issue, you have a problem, you need to run a marathon, but you haven't trained to do it. So your body's not prepared to run the marathon. So go and spend six months following a training regime to improve yourself and get yourself in a place where you can run a marathon. Great, you've done it. So physically, we can see an example of how you can help yourself to improve to achieve a goal, which is great. But mentally, so often when you look at self-help, or you look at trying to assess problems, like why do you procrastinate all the time? Why do you fear failure? Why do you have impostor syndrome? Why do you not communicate effectively with those around you? Why do you find it hard to have difficult conversations? You know, all sorts of these things, which are difficult to do, I think all come down to acceptance, at least to begin with, you know, the idea of actually accepting the fact that you do fear failure, understanding why, because you're worried about your identity, as being someone who's efficient and effective is challenged by failing and if you fail, you think, oh, that just means that I'm not good at doing what I do in general. So that's why I'm so terrified of failing, or you're so terrified of failing because you feel that you let people down, or you're so terrified of failing because you think I'm going to catastrophise if I fail once, then the whole house of cards will fall apart, I'll lose my job and lose my house, lose my home, lose my family and oh no, everything's awful, because I failed once. But it's that acceptance of understanding why you have that feeling, you know, investigating it, and then actually accepting it, which I think is very important, because then that's the only way in which you can then, not necessarily change that, I think it's acceptance and mitigation, you know, there are certain things which you are naturally good at, there are certain things which you are naturally bad at, there are certain things which you are okay, at and that's the way it is, I mean, yes, you can improve like, you can speak a smattering of French, and therefore, you have French lessons for a year, and you go and live in France for six months, your French is going to dramatically improve and all of a sudden, you've improved yourself and you've solved that problem... or that weakness of not being able to learn French. But if you go back to the further root cause of that, it's not that you can't learn French, it's just the fact you haven't invested the time and energy to mitigate that problem, to actually say, right, I'm going to spend the time and energy, like if I was training for a marathon to be able to then run the marathon, it doesn't necessarily mean you can be able to run the marathon as fast as the Olympic world record holder, it just means you'll be able to actually run the whole marathon. If you go out and try and do a marathon now, you might be able to walk a marathon perhaps. But there's pain in the development and there's time that you need to invest to actually achieve that goal. So yes, you can work towards them, you know, improving and enhancing and changing yourself for the better to actually achieve that goal. But unless you accept where you are now, unless you accept how your mind does actually work. I think it's trying to understand how you do you see things, how you do see yourself and how you see yourself interacting with the world, which is the first step and then actually saying, Okay, so are the things I can do to mitigate and work in other ways to improve the way I deal with this to make that problem. Something that is achievable, a challenge is something that is achievable, or that probably is something that doesn't trouble me as much as it used to and I think then you have to understand, you know where you're coming from, as I say, so am I naturally good at doing this? Who could help me do this? What processes or tools or ways because I changed the way I do things now to make this easier and better and more optimal as it were to get there, but that's all good and absolutely, I think you should do those things. But I do also feel that we have to accept that we can't be amazing at everything, you know, you're not going to be amazing at doing everything. You can't take all the things you're not very good at now and be really good at them in a year's time. I mean, okay, maybe you can pick 10 and you are then really good at 9 because you go out and you spend your time training and studying and doing all sorts to then be really good at them. But I think then if you're doing that with those, then there's gonna be other things that fall off inevitably other things fall off the wagon because you're not concentrating. If you spend all your time training for a marathon and trying to be fluent in three languages in a year's time, then you're going to have less time to spend with your friends and family because you just have to invest that time doing the other things that you're trying to improve on. So other things will suffer as a result. So therefore, there's also acceptance of what it is I can change what it is I can't, and what is it that I want to change? And what is it that I don't want to change? And how far can I go trying to amend any one thing? So I just think, you know, want to look at any of these issues that anyone might have out there with my own problems, I think well, I need to accept the fact that is a problem. I need to accept the fact that that is painful. If it's a painful thing or frustrating thing, and I have to accept and take on board the fact that there are going to be, if it's a problem or challenge, I have to accept the fact that something like that is there's the pain almost to accept when I experienced that problem, that challenge that element of my life that doesn't work out the way I want it to, it doesn't follow the perfect story, it doesn't work out particularly well and I have to accept that pain and acknowledge that pain and accept the fact I'm gonna go through that and then it's more about having a healthy appreciation of, well, what can I do? How could I change this? How could I make it less painful? How can I mitigate it? Because I think it is that and this may sound... I hope this doesn't sound pessimistic. Hopefully, this just sounds realistic. Certainly not massively optimistic or overly optimistic, you know, not saying you shouldn't be optimistic, I usually am. But I think that's the problem. If you're saying no, that's a problem, but it's fine, we can fix it 100%, it'll be fine, be sorted. You know, that language we hear these days, I think is actually dangerous because we just feel as if any problem can be worked out, fixed, positive thinking will get you through it, but actually, positive thinking can end up having quite negative results sometimes. Just thinking yes, it's going to be amazing, I'm going to do is I'm gonna get there, doesn't always have the most positive results and I think it's also looking at things in the holes, looking at as I said about, you know, balancing all the things which are going on in your personal life, professional life, life and existence in general and again, that word acceptance, accepting certain things for how they are, and accepting and trying to understand what you can change, what you can influence and things that you can't and I just know... I don't, I'm not qualified to lecture other people like this in the slightest. It's only my own observations and what I've heard and read and watched and try to understand, you know, working through my own issues or challenges and my own understanding, my own life, so I don't know people might identify with this. They might think that it's useful, they might not and I have to accept that they might not they might think this is total bunkum and that's okay. But yeah, that's just the thoughts I have today on life in general and yeah, let me know if you agree, disagree, think it's interesting, or very boring. Thanks very much. Take care. Bye for now.