You stop noticing what has always been there.
There are certain sentences I’ve started listening to differently.
“I’ll take care of it.”
“It’s easier if I do it.”
“I just need to figure this out.”
“Just one more hour” [on the computer].
None of them sounds particularly alarming. They actually might feel familiar.
In fact, they can sound quite capable, reliable, you’re in control.
Responsible, even. And sometimes they are.But sometimes I wonder if these little sentences tell us more than we realize. Because pressure doesn’t always arrive looking like pressure.
Sometimes it, pressure, arrives as competence.
You’re handling things.
Making decisions.
Keeping promises.
Remembering what needs to “get done”.
And…
Thinking three steps ahead while answering the question directly in front of you.
Life is moving. You’re moving with it.
From the outside, nothing necessarily looks wrong.
And perhaps from the inside, nothing feels particularly wrong either.
That’s what makes this kind of pressure so interesting to me.
Think about something you see every day.
A crooked picture in the hallway.
The pile you keep meaning to move [and keep pushing away].
That tiny mark on the wall.
Eventually, your eyes simply stop registering it.
And what becomes automatic rarely gets questioned.
How did this become my job?
Do I always have to be the one to do this?
Funny how rarely we ask ourselves the questions that might change what we see.Until one day you find yourself questioning a decision you would normally make easily.
Or wondering why you can’t quite “hear”what you want beneath everything you’re considering.
Or saying, yet again:
“I just need to figure this out.”
Maybe…But maybe you don’t need to think harder.
Maybe there’s something you need to see.
That sentence has been staying with me.
Because this is where another person can sometimes offer something we simply cannot give ourselves:
Perspective.
Not advice.
Not someone handing you the answer.
A mirror.
Someone who listens closely enough to notice the sentence you’ve said three,four times.
The responsibility you automatically claimed.
The assumption you didn’t realize was an assumption.
The thing you brushed past with, “Oh, that’s just what I do.”
And perhaps, for the first time, you wonder what all that capability has been asking of you.
There’s often a tiny moment when that happens.
Ohhh.
You see it.
Nothing outside you changed in that moment. But now you’re looking from a different place. And what you do with what you see?
That is yours to decide.
On August 25, I’m holding a masterclass:
UNDER PRESSURE
Save Your Peace. Keep Your Edge.
We’ll look at the patterns that can form underneath undetected pressure and what you may not have noticed yet.
August 25 | 12 PM EDT | 5 PM BST
If you’ve ever thought, “I just need to figure this out,” come join me.
Maybe there’s nothing more to figure out.
Maybe there’s simply something you haven’t seen yet.
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