FIELD NOTES: On Calibrating Your Inner Compass
A reminder that the only metrics that matter are the ones that measure how alive you feel.
Life does not run in a linear way. That goes for our habits too. One day you might skip the program, and break that clean score you had set out for yourself.
Guilt washes over, makes you belief you are not worthy anymore. If capable to strike one indulgence, how can one still fit the image? As if suddenly handed an empty slate with no achievement to this day.
So the measuring stick comes beating, steers you towards "social comparison banks." Doubts creep up, force you to hide from further accountability because suddenly all is directionless.
How come I was so peaceful? Rather than jump back up, you stay put, sink deeper. The measuring stick poking into a wound that was non-existent, but now owns dreams.
Your reflection suddenly looks old, at stake: Have I been wasting all my time? You blame that goddamn pizza, for that one bite swallowed everything.
Pause and rewind, how blind can one be… Have you forgotten the 99.9% of consistent effort? The burning desire, determination and creative effort? It's funny how little we celebrate the many wins, how hard we punish the few mistakes.
All learnings meet us exactly where we are at. There is no such thing as perfection or running behind. Stay away from the measuring stick and keep working your great realisation. As Napoleon Hill once put it, "action is the real measure of intelligence."
The metrics we choose don’t just measure our life; they shape it. A borrowed ruler will always build a borrowed house.
My question for our community is this: Honestly, what is the one external metric—be it income, status, or the approval of others, that has the tightest grip on you? And what is the truer, internal measure—a feeling of purpose, creative integrity, the quality of a single hour's work, that you could choose to honour instead?
I look forward to reading your reflections in the private members' discussion.
Trust the hunch. Find the story.
Antoine
