It’s my belief that a flexible mind helps us to deal with chaos, loss, big life changes, small frustrations, and all that life throws our way.
A flexible mind leads to more peace. You’re not as stuck in your ways, and can adapt to change. You don’t always think you’re right but are curious about other people. You can take on new challenges with a smile.
I don’t always have such a flexible mind, to be honest. I’m working on it.
When I’m not flexible, I can feel it: my mind starts to feel rigid, I feel frustration, irritation, anger, disappointment. There’s a feeling of not wanting things to be the way they are, feeling of being wronged, attacked. It’s the result of being caught up in whatever story you’re telling yourself.
So here’s what I’ve been working on, to develop a more flexible mind:

1. See the tightness. If I notice myself getting frustrated, hardening up, feeling a tightness … this is the sign that I should practice. And the good news is that practice helps me get better, so I should celebrate! This is a lesson that life has gifted me, and I try to say thank you.
2. Don’t act. The most harm comes when I act out of my frustration, actions that might include shutting down and not talking to someone. So when I notice the tightness, I try not to take any harmful action. Instead, I try to turn inward to face whatever is arising.
3. Stay with the feeling. Turn towards the feeling, and just observe it. See it as something that is arising, but isn’t necessarily me. It’s a feeling, a cloud passing across the sky, not a big deal. What does it feel like, physically in my body? Explore it with curiosity.
4. Give it some space, and compassion. If the tight feeling that is arising is a cloud, then I try to give it a big, expansive blue sky to float across. Instead of being immersed in the cloud, I try to widen, open up an expansiveness. And then I give the feeling some compassion. It’s OK to feel this! And it’s good to give it some love.
5. Relax, and loosen my grip. The tightness comes from wanting something or someone to be a certain way. I’m holding on tightly, and I really want this. Instead, I try to loosen my grip on whatever it is. It doesn’t really matter that much, I can flow around this. Instead, I try to relax into the moment, and be with whatever is going on. Notice the world around me, right now, instead of being caught up in my story. Relax, and be grateful for what’s around me.
6. Saying “I don’t know.”. Here’s the key to it all. Once I’ve relaxed a bit, I can now tell myself, “I don’t know how things should be. I don’t even know how they are now.” So this gives me space to not know, and to investigate. What is the truth about this moment? What would it be like to allow the future to unfold without knowing? What is it like to not know how other people should act, but be curious about why they’re acting that way? And to give them some compassion too?

Not knowing. A flexible mind is one that doesn’t really know what shouldhappen, and is not even sure what will unfold in this next moment. It is curious, like a baby exploring the world afresh. When we sit in meditation, or take each moment as it comes, we allow ourselves to not know, and to be interested in whatever arises.
That’s what I’m working with, imperfectly and forgetfully, and I find it helpful.

I think we’ve all been there: we’ve signed up for the gym, signed up for a class, bought an ebook … and then not used it.
We’ve had hopes of learning to draw, to program, to play a musical instrument … and then promptly failed to do so.
We’ve had the best intentions for a project (maybe starting a blog or writing a book). We’ve had the best intentions for our day, to be productive and kick some butt.
And then our plans fall apart. We fail to live up to our hopes.
Why is this? What’s wrong with us?
In my experience, there are a few key obstacles:

1. We are overly optimistic. We think we’re going to be able to do about 2-5 times what we can actually do. We only have so much capacity, only so much energy, only so much time in the day. But we are not very good at estimating any of those, and we also think the things we want to do are going to take way less time than they’ll actually take. Optimism beats us every time.
2. We don’t account for the little things. This goes hand-in-hand with the optimism, but when we’re thinking about our plans, we don’t think about all the tiny things, like maintenance tasks, that need to be done in order to accomplish our plans … or even just to live. We don’t think about showering, brushing our teeth, getting dressed, cooking, eating, cleaning up, doing laundry, driving, getting gas, answering a thousand and two emails, taking phone calls, using the bathroom, and so on and so on. We just aren’t wired to be able to calculate all of that.
3. We fail in the face of resistance. When we have the choice to focus on what we hoped to focus on, or do some busywork or go to one of our comfortable distractions … resistance comes up. And our habitual, conditioned response is to shy away from the resistance. Sometimes we have the motivation to overcome it, but most times we put things off, because beating the resistance isn’t easy.
4. We don’t have the right environment. A big part of whether we succeed at overcoming the resistance is whether we have an environment that’s conducive to keeping us on task or holding us accountable. For example, if we are a part of a team, and they are counting on us to get a project done by the end of the day … we will be more motivated to overcome resistance because we don’t want to let them down. But let’s say no one will know if we procrastinate for an entire day … and there are lots of tempting distractions staring at us from the browser … we’re less likely to get things done. And if people in our lives are actively against us taking a class or learning an instrument, we’re less likely to do it. Accountability, supportive people, the presence of distractions … these are some key parts of whatever environment we’re in.

These are things we all do. There isn’t a person among us who is immune to these problems — certainly not me, nor anyone I know.
So what can we do? It turns out there are a few key habits we can form to help with these problems, and some of them are going to seem obvious now that we’ve identified the causes.
Solutions to Key ObtaclesIf you want to actually put that class or gym pass to use, if you want to get that personal project done or read that ebook you bought … here are some suggestions that I’ve found to be powerful in actually doing what I hope to do:

• Know that you probably only have 3-4 hours a day of productive time to get projects done, get important work done, read books, learn stuff. The rest of the time is spent on sleeping, eating, personal maintenance, transportation, meetings, calls, email, distractions, shopping, cooking, errands, taking care of kids or hanging with friends, and so on.
• Block out what you can do in that time. Exercise, writing, reading, learning, a few important tasks.
• Now cut out half of those. The things you want to do are going to take twice as long as you hope. If you have some time left over, bonus! Use that time not on distractions but on the tasks you cut out.
• If you want more productive time, cut out some distractions, TV, online reading. But you’ll probably only be able to add another hour a day.
• Set up a good environment for each project you want to complete — if you want to learn guitar, have some accountability and someone who will be supportive, even if that means finding someone online. Set deadlines and have people who count on you to get your project done. Go somewhere for 30 minutes where you won’t have any distractions.
• When you’re ready to focus on the thing you hoped to get done … face the resistance instead of running from it. Stare it in the face. See that it’s not that bad. Know your deeper reason for wanting to get this done, and remember that this reason is worth facing the resistance and pushing on despite that discomfort.

I hope you find these useful. I’ve used them to learn things, to get projects done, to stick to exercise programs, to do things with my kids. I’m far from perfect, I forget these things all the time, but when I remember to do them, I am much better at living up to my hopes and dreams.