How can our approach to seemingly mundane things enable us to grow and face the big things that feel most difficult to us?

We all have those moments of adventure where we decide to do something a different way. We could call that way harder, but perhaps it could be better put as a way that allows us to grow, to stretch ourselves, to become more practised in being out of our comfort zone, more familiar with navigating the unknown and to show us we are more capable than we often allow ourselves to believe.

It was in one of these moments that I discovered that there is a chain of Greek restaurants who when you call to book a table answers with a lovely burst of Mediterranean music as they connect you to the restaurant. It was a soothing surprise to me as someone who finds making phone calls difficult.

Why didn’t I just book online? 

It was one of those adventurous attempts to do more of the day-to-day or seemingly mundane tasks in a way that best allows me to grow and to become more comfortable with the unknown.  

For me, ultimately the unknown is what makes the call much harder than the online booking form. I don’t know how the conversation will go, who will respond, or how. While objectively a straightforward, uncomplicated process, subjectively it feels like a plunge into the unknown for me in a way that is daunting, anxiety-inducing and unfamiliar. 

Yet, in this case, it is also relatively low stakes. If it doesn’t go well (and what really is the worst that can happen?) I book online or book somewhere else. 

If how we do something is often how we do everything, how is every low stakes situation an opportunity to take an approach that enables us to grow and be more comfortable navigating the unknown? 

What are the day-to-day or relatively low stakes things you do regularly that, in how you do them, can provide you with an opportunity to grow?

How can we develop a practice of embracing the unknown in small ways so we are more able to navigate it when it really matters? 

What is the approach to life we want to be practising in every moment?

If we step back from the activities, and come back to the idea that how we do something is how we do everything, how do we want to be doing everything we do? 

What is the approach we want to take to how we show up, to how we do things, to how we are with ourselves and others?

What does how we currently do the everyday things we take for granted say about how we do things? 

How does that compare to how we want to be?

What underpins the approach we take compared to the approach we want to take? 

This blog has written before about how we can bring more of the qualities we want into our lives in how we approach things, so what are the qualities we want to apply to everything we do and what would that look like?

For example, if we want more joy or ease or steadiness in our lives, how do we do everything with more joy or ease or steadiness?

What if the growth isn’t just how we do something but what we do? 

There is a risk this blog could be read as an unrelenting, conscious striving for growth and challenge that could be summarised as: what is the hardest, most challenging way for me to do this small thing? 

This is certainly not a justification for inventing unnecessary ways to make life feel harder or more painful.

Instead it is an invitation to ask what, then how and then to ask how again.

What is growth for me? What enables that? 

How may I therefore go about things that enable this growth? 

And how may I do these things in a way that does not create unnecessary suffering for me? 

In short, what is the thing, how can I do it in a way that helps me grow, and how can I approach how I do it in a way that avoids unnecessary suffering?

Yes, it may involve doing something that feels hard, challenging and difficult for us, but what would it be to approach that hard, challenging and difficult thing with ease?

When may that growth also be about not ‘doing’ or doing less? 

When may our opportunity for growth in the small things be to do less of them or to do them more slowly or to simply not do them and to rest? 

When may the seemingly easiest thing feel the hardest? 

How may we go about that in a way that allows the other things to feel easier, for that really is growth, as we expand our own sense of what we are capable of.

What if we’re always growing and how we go about things is simply about how we best enable that growth?

The term growth pains comes to mind. What is our approach to pain? What does it tell us? 

How does our approach impact our experience of it?

If we consider our growth, how do we approach it and us in a way that enables it, and the inevitable challenges that the novelty of growth can bring. 

We do not know fully what we are growing into until we allow that growth.

So how can how we approach each day, and the small things, in a way that best enables our inevitable growth as people? 

What if how we all did things was with enabling our growth, individually and collectively, in mind?