Why I’m choosing to go with the current
Hello, hello!
We are back from Break Week, and oh do I have a post for you today!
Not too long ago, I was on a call with my therapist, and I was describing a business dilemma to her. I was tossing around a new, big idea, and I was questioning whether now was the right time to start bringing it to life.
When I finished my explanation, my therapist told me she had a metaphor she wanted me to think about. She said that there are two ways we can go through life: We can either go with the current, or we can swim upstream against it. No matter which way we choose, we’ll usually end up in the same place.
Swimming upstream, she explained, takes a lot of effort. If we choose that method, it will feel as if we are forcing something that isn’t natural. It will feel especially challenging, and we’ll likely feel every inch of that journey. But if we yield to the current and go along with the direction it’s already flowing, it’s going to feel more natural, organic, and a lot less painful.
After our call, I thought a lot about that metaphor and the project I was feeling called to work on. This new idea was really big, and it would take a lot of my time and the team’s team to bring it to life. But I told myself that it was an example of going with the current: The last time we launched something this big was when we started the Human Leadership Program in 2021, and I’d felt for a while like it was time for the next big thing. It felt like the next logical step for our business, so I decided to share the idea with my team, and together, we began to pursue it.
Doing so meant that all of our other big projects were still moving forward, but this new idea would take precedence. I even worked on a blog post about the new idea, and I intended to share it with you as an example of going along with the current.
But then, something changed.
About a month later, I started to notice that every time I worked on this new project, I felt stressed. It didn’t feel fun. I found myself procrastinating on it, and it took up so much of my mental capacity that I felt I had little to give to other projects (like the second book, which I really want to bring to life this year).
I went back to my therapist’s metaphor and thought about how she described the feeling of swimming upstream. I realized that this project was starting to feel a lot like that. It wasn’t only that it felt difficult . . . it also felt like I was forcing it.
I noticed the stark contrast between that feeling and how I feel when I’m working on the second book. While it’s still a challenging project, I want to work on the book. I find myself wishing I had more hours in the day to dedicate to it. I willingly and happily spend weekend time working on it. I feel excited about even the thought of writing. It feels natural and organic. The complete opposite of the other project.
That’s when I realized I had made a mistake: I thought choosing to work on this new project was an example of going with the current, but actually, I was fighting my way upstream. The project that was truly going with the current had been in front of me all along: the second book.
So, I told the team about my discovery, and together, we decided to put the new project on pause and go all-in on the second book. We realized that the second book is a new and exciting project . . . it is our next big thing. As soon as we made that decision, I—and the rest of my team—felt the biggest sense of relief.
I decided to rewrite this blog post because I wanted to share the whole story with you. I think it shows what it means to be human. I think it shows that we can think an idea makes sense, we can pursue it, we can change our minds, and then we can end up right back where we started and realize it’s a great place to be.
I’ve also been reflecting: Why did I feel the need to work on the other project when I had my dream project right in front of me?
I think it’s because as leaders, we can feel constant pressure to grow, grow, grow. Whether the expectations come from ourselves or from the world around us, it’s easy to get caught in the trap of thinking that success means always working on or launching more. But when we're working on new things or coming up with new ideas, what’s more important, I think, is to really dig deep and ask ourselves how it feels to work on these things. It’s okay for work to feel challenging. I think what we want to avoid is the feeling of forcing something and causing unnecessary stress—not just for ourselves, but for our teams, too.
I’d love to encourage you to think about your own work. Where are you right now? Are you fighting the current? Or are you going along with it?
I hope this post inspires you to think deeper about the work that you do and why you do it.
Big hugs,
