What makes us who we are? It’s rarely one thing—humans are like intricate tapestries, woven together by the multicolored threads of our experiences, identities, and relationships. When you think about your tapestry, what strands stand out as the biggest forces for meaning and happiness in your life?
As you may know, one of mine is speaking and teaching. And this week, I had the great fortune of delivering my first in-person keynote in over 524 days (!!). As I stepped onto the stage and made eye contact with the audience, something I’d done hundreds of times suddenly felt surreal and miraculous. A lot was different; yet I felt more like myself than I had in a long time.
Over the last 18 months, we’ve all been on different journeys. One all-too-common experience has been losing threads from our lives that we never imagined could be ripped out—be they professional or personal, big or small, temporary or permanent.
In particular, losing threads that once defined us can be profoundly destabilizing: we’re forced to question who we are and how the world works. And if we’re lucky, we uncover the faulty beliefs that got us there.
When my “globe trotting speaker” thread disappeared, I spent months struggling to understand who I was without it. Eventually, I realized I’d been working from a flawed formula: do a great job for clients (goal) and book more events (outcome). For ten-plus years, this goal-outcome formula worked. But when COVID upended it, I didn’t know how to move forward.
This community of goal-driven learners understands the power of pursuing big goals. As I learned, though, this same drive puts us at risk when the ground shifts beneath us. Why? We can get too attached to outcomes that are (at least in part) out of our control.
So especially as the world navigates the Delta variant, what can goal-driven people do to be better prepared for sudden change?
I recently discovered a helpful concept from Secular Buddhism that our goals should be tools rather than anchors. Instead of attaching goals to our identity (as I did), we can choose to see them as flexible approaches that help us live a better, fuller life.
When we own the goal, versus the other way around, it becomes easier to detach from the outcome and adapt our plans. But let me be clear: “detaching and adapting” does not make us uncaring, unmotivated, or indifferent. Rather, when we release expectations about how life is supposed to be, we become more engaged with, and responsive to, what’s actually happening—which makes it easier to find lightness and joy.
To me, this isn’t just theoretical. As a speaker, “detaching and adapting” has given me three powerful gifts in just the last few days. First, a deeper, real-time appreciation for in-person events. Second, the surprisingly freeing realization that while in-person events this fall will most likely happen, nothing is guaranteed. Finally, and perhaps most incredibly, the new knowledge that whether these events happen or not, I will, in fact, be okay.
As author Jack Kornfield wisely notes, “everything that has a beginning has an ending. [When we make our] peace with that…all will be well.” (And don’t forget that “everything” also conveniently includes global pandemics.)
Dr. Tasha Eurich
is an organizational psychologist, speaker and The New York Times bestselling author of Bankable Leadership. Her latest book, Insight, delves deeper into the meta-skill of the modern world: self-awareness. Tasha’s life’s work is to help organizations succeed by improving the effectiveness of their leaders and teams. With a ten-year track record in the Fortune 500 world, her expertise has been featured in outlets like The New York Times, Huffington Post, Entrepreneur and Forbes.
