As a recovering overachiever, I’ve lived most of my life believing that striving is a good thing, an essential thing really. Like Gordon Gecko explaining greed in Wall Street, “Greed, for a lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works,” I believed striving was good. Striving worked.

Philosophically, sources from Aristotle to Nietzsche to Emerson seemed to agree, especially around my favorite area for striving – personal growth, transcending limitations, excellence. In this light, how could striving be anything but our divine duty?

And striving indeed, propelled me through near-annual moves growing up in a military family, completing college in 3 years, starting a theatre company, getting a coaching certificate, completing advanced degrees, garnering professional achievements, and continually researching the best ways to address personal and family challenges.

Until recently, striving has been one of my most trusted confidantes and advisors. It seemed as though there was really nothing that striving couldn’t help me solve. So how did our relationship change?

It started quietly enough, about 10 years ago, with yoga. Initially, striving seemed to help me build my practice. Committing to a certain number of classes each week, even when it meant going in the dark of morning or when I was exhausted at night, staying with it regardless of how much I didn’t know, being open to literally falling down or at least falling over. But other seeds started to get planted, including non-judging, being present, trusting, letting go. These seeds were further nourished by a spiritual fellowship that embraced similar principles, a therapeutic approach centered on compassion and curiosity, and then a mindfulness practice that introduced the principle of “non-striving.”

Mindfulness, non-judgmental awareness and presence in the moment, was radical for someone whose life was driven by planning and doing to achieve future outcomes.  The notion of being  and especially, non-striving was almost over the top. How could this be worth my time? Where was it going to get me? I soon discovered these were common questions among new practitioners and that many of us suffered with striving-abuse. We were using striving, not as a way to guide efforts towards worthwhile goals, but as a means to control outcomes, to control what felt at times to be uncontrollable lives in uncontrollable times.

But the feelings of freedom and relief that started to creep in during my mindfulness meditations fueled me on. As articulated by Jon Kabat Zinn, Non-Striving gave me permission to jettison my many agendas, to be OK with whatever my state was in that moment. To loosen my attachment to specific outcomes. To truly rest (even when it didn’t feel restful) in the present. To then be able to act (or not) from a place of greater insight, compassion, and clarity.

So I have discovered that non-striving doesn’t mean never striving. And that when I strive, I can do it with a lot less desperation.

Here’s to your enjoying some non-striving moments today and this week!