Why You Need to Find Balance Between Growth and Grace

In the Pursuit of Ambitions

In the Pursuit of Ambitions

Looking Ahead — Malaysia 2016

As a super ambitious college student with a lot of goals and dreams that I want to see come to fruition — hopefully sooner than later — one thing that is often frustrating for me is the battle of time.

Time is Money

Time is of the essence

I hear these quotes all the time. But when it comes to my goals and dreams, time always seems to be the greatest barrier to see things come alive, to see my plans come into action.

I will spend much of my “free time” meeting and networking with countless professionals in the community, just simply trying to spark a conversation with the right people who have an ear to listen to “a young 20-something” who asked to meet regarding a few ideas I have.

Time is Precious

And I understand that everyone is balancing many areas of life: family, friends, cleaning house, taking care of kids, pets, gardens, etc. There are so many roles that I play in my everyday life, from cooking healthy meals for my family to taking my niece to school. For me personally, I’ve found that I need to give myself a solid pat on the back from time to time. As difficult as it is for me to ask for it, I appreciate each complement and every round of applause. Okay, if I’m 100% honest, I just want someone to look me in the eyes and say, “good job” or give me a hug and simply say, well done.

But that’s hardly reality, talk about false hopes. Sometimes, I wonder if praise is really nonexistent, or if some of us just struggle to hear the words and feel the love and support of others. I can viscerally remember working for days, endless hours with little room to breathe and relax. Feelings of overwhelm and pressure. The job was never done. It still isn’t finished. It will never be finished. Will I ever find success or find satisfaction in my life and work?

I want to achieve. I want to achieve a lot.

Why would I ever accept good marks from others if I am my own worst critic?

Have I called myself upon unrealistic expectations?

I’ve heard many times,
“If there were only more hours in a day.”
“If only I had more time.”
“I need eleven hands to get everything done in one day.”

Ever since high school — graduating in 2014 in a class total of 68 students —
I realized just how little time there really is to get things done.

As an ambitious, young, free-spirited dreamer, I had many ideals and missions I wanted to develop and grow before I left. And while many of those goals and dreams fizzled out, I learned many lessons. I wanted to change the world in an instance, and I realized that it simply couldn’t be done.

I can’t change the world, yet.

Focused efforts are worth more than a fractured workforce

There were about twenty other students who stood alongside me as passionate doers and creative thinkers. Each of us wanted to accomplish so much. Naive they called us — ambitious and optimistic we called ourselves.

Yet, due to the low number of students in our school, I had little rallying support to create the “movement” of ideals I had longed to make alongside my teammates. I was with a bunch of high school kids with high hopes, wearing ten hats of leadership in different clubs, organizations, extracurriculars and initiatives. I quickly worked myself to exhaustion and overload. I crashed.

I struggled to wrap my head around how I was going to accomplish all I was striving to achieve before graduation. While I enjoyed my classes, grades were never my focus. I was interested in making a difference. I’ve always been driven my impact and culture change, in my school and my community.

I was supremely interested in what Andy Crouch describes as “Culture Making” — yet at my young age I was ineffective and still learning about the skillfulness of crafting a solid core, rallying support, and understanding the defining relationships of others. Becoming a functional facilitator to free and feed the strengths of others will continue to be one of my lifelong pursuits.

My fellow dreaming students and I had so many roles to balance with our overwhelming plates — already at such a young age — that through failed accomplishments and dreams unseen to fruition, I believe I learned another great quality of life for us to take forward. Grace.

I wake up each day with anywhere from 10–25 ideas for projects to start or pursuits I want to keep working towards. And the balance of desiring growth — or at least trying to grow — with grace is distressingly difficult.

I find myself applying grace for others much more than for myself.
I find it easier to give than receive.

I care about my people.

I know I’ll play many different roles in life (God willing), as a student, parent business owner, free-lancer, and more. Throughout my life, I will live in a society where I live and work with people — incredible people. Without my people, I will have nothing. Empathy is huge for me.

Finding grace for others is easy, because I see them forgetting to apply it to themselves. It seems I want to give out what I long to receive.

How meta. (I know right?)

I know I have many hats to wear and many jobs to accomplish for the future. At the end of the day though, I need to take care of my people and take care of myself in the process. Through all the ups and downs, I need to learn to be flexible with expectations and timelines. I need to release the pressure I place on my shoulders and let myself enjoy the process.

Determined to accomplish my goals, I must allow for grace and freedom to be my foundation. When I need to pivot, speed up, or even rest, I can lean into the unknown or lean back into what I know I can trust. Grace & Freedom

I think I too often do myself the disservice of rushing through life too fast. I run forward with blinders, towards a self-perceived finish line that never seems to end. It is a mark in time, a win or accomplishment I had set without an honest understanding as to why.

Was it graduating high school, college, or even landing a dream job? When will the pursuit itself be fulfilling enough to be simply that, enough?

Where does satisfaction lie if not at the end of the finish line?

That kind of race never ends.

What is my current finish line?

I’ve graduated from school now. Is a house or apartment my next step? Starting my business and helping more people are daily activities, but are these finish lines? What if I land my dream job or give it all up and just find a simple job to simply pay the bills and count the days until I retire?

I’ve found that finish lines come, and finish lines go.

Each stage of life calls upon different goals and strategies on how to get there. Each year of my life calls me to have different finish lines, and they are fluid in nature, so perhaps I should be swimming and consider riding the waves of life? Sometimes, I’m just barely able to hang on and make it through the day.

Many of my finish lines have come from standards and stereotypes of society that I’ve accepted as my own. However, with great introspection I’ve grown to take a deeper look at my goals and dreams, and also where I want to finish.

Photo by Goh Rhy Yan on Unsplash

I want to run a good race.

I want to see other people run a good race too.

I’m not here to compete, but to cooperate in rallying support of others.

I want to see myself succeed. I want others to succeed as well.

But far too often I have found myself running for endless gains, hoping to feel strong and accomplished after crossing the finish line. Sadly, this just hasn’t been the reality. What I’ve seen result is often in strong contrast to what I hoped for. I want to see myself not just survive but thrive in the journey, compared to my friends and family members I’ve seen come to a crashing halt or depressive ignorance for what next step they can take. Life changes all the time, and when it’s time for me to run a new race or pivot, I want to know how and when to do so. But, I won’t have those luxuries.

One of my biggest pet peeves is seeing things like my own passions and ambitions fizzle out, yet that is exactly what happens. I hate it.

I want to achieve. I want to achieve a lot.

I have my own aspirations, but I can easily find myself more passionate about wanting to grow others’ ideas, passions, dreams, and aspirations as well even more. I wonder if it is easier for me to work to promote someone else than myself due to my own self-perceived barriers or limitations I place on myself.
Being able to see the potential in another person’s dream or idea is one of my strengths, but I can see more in others than I can in myself.

I love seeing others be built up, motivated, and inspired. The energy and excitement I feel is a contagious catalyst for awesome encouragement.

Again, where would I be without other people? Alone, with no one to help.

It’s hard to take action without energy and motivation behind the scenes to fuel the fires and drive the trains of my ambitions.

This is why I appreciate visionaries and pioneers so much. Yet, one thing I’ve grown to really appreciate is the structure and solid foundation of those who think completely opposite of me, such as students and professionals from the world of computer science. It’s fascinating to read up on the Medium publications of Modus and OneZero to spark new interests and curiosities.

As a dreamer, creator, artist, floater, big-picture, idea-guy, entrepreneur….

I need structure and logistical help to ground my ideas and lofty dreams. Without it, my ideas are just flying high in the sky. This is where my good friends who excel at excel are incredibly helpful!
GOD BLESS YOUR SOULS!

Lord knows spreadsheets are not my thing.

So, as I continue to live and work in life, I know I’ll be doing it together — with others striving for their own goals and dreams. My hope is that I can have some potential impact in their life as I run in stride with them beside.

In pursuit of lofty pursuits and projects…
my chase continues with recognition for the need to find a healthy balance in life & work, a balance in time & effort, and a balance of growth & grace.

I cannot help anyone run their own race if I’ve injured myself from working too hard. If I’m unable to take care of myself and find grace in the pursuit, I’ll never be able to work well with others who deserve the same level of grace.

In the grand scheme of things while I think every person is unique, I think I’m striving for the same goal as everyone else— safety, security, peace.

I think it is vitally important for the entire team to know that each individual deserves grace for the time it takes to complete the work asked of him or her, especially in the pursuit of excellent work.

Not everybody will wake up at 3:30am and crank out an article on Medium.

I often forget that not everyone has the same availability, the same work ethic, or the same energy levels I do when I try to work and schedule things for my teams. Yes people are different, it’s true and it’s okay.

Not everybody wants an email to prepare for tomorrow’s meeting, and some people want a notice a week in advance. Some of us are early birds, and some of us are night owls.

Creative people need space to create.

If it takes my designer a week and a half to punch out an awesome design that only needs a couple more revisions, then I need to give grace along that timeline while reinforcing the needs of our mission. I also need to trust.

Likewise, if I receive an urgent email and it takes me until the next day to respond, I would hope to receive the same level of grace I had given before.

I need to get away from feeling scared that someone else is going to abuse the privileges I grant them; I can find myself being easily skeptical and quick to believe the worst, that someone or something is going to take me for granted. Again, it seems I’m just looking for comfort of a ‘good job’ or pat on the back.

This happens in business.

This happens in relationships.

This happens in family.

This happens in friendships.

Photo by Bekir Dönmez on Unsplash

Yet, if I work with grace and balance in my life, I can grow to accept that people can be different and work just as well. I can work together to achieve our dreams- yes our dreams as I run in stride with others. As a health coach, I’ve learned a lot about motivational interviewing and I know my clients can be their very best when I serve them grace and they give grace to themselves.

My race will never be the same.
My race will forever be different and I’ll grow stronger because of it.
But I know the movements on how to walk and so I’ll continue to run no matter what life throws at me.

Maybe I can help others enjoy the race of life more if I learn to enjoy the race more as well. I’ve heard it said that smiles are contagious, but when was the last time I saw someone smiling with joy and jubilee as they were on the last leg of the marathon? Never.

Maybe if I force myself to smile more it will work wonders for both myself and my people. It is worth a shot.

I write this as a reminder and a way to remember what I can do to take better care of my people, but also to take better care of myself.

Last week was a rough week. It began with such high spirits and high hopes that ended in a direct loss of courage, captured by dark thoughts of “why bother…” Again, I felt that I had come up short with expectations I had placed for myself. And, to be honest, I’m still upset with myself. I don’t like to fail.

Failure stinks. I’m still fighting myself for being and achieving less that what I want, but that’s nearly an everyday struggle. It is so challenging to see these pursuits fail to meet my predetermined timelines and continue on without the mighty checkmark and cross the task off the list. Per usual, my expectations are out of this world and I manage to place the great weight of the earth on my shoulders.

But, I need to constantly remind myself to find grace for myself as much as I do for others. I desire growth, but growth without grace will lead me nowhere fast, alone and desolate, upset with myself and without any support.

Grace amidst Growth

In my life, my work, my family, my organizations on campus, and the lofty dreams I have for the community action I want to promote, I’ve learned another critical piece along the way.

Things take time.

I hate how true this is. Maybe it is my generation’s pull for instant gratification or something different altogether, but I have to remind myself that Rome wasn’t built in a day.

People need time to perform their best work, and they deserve this time.
If I want to perform my best work and have the best life, I need to grant myself this space to perform well.

I can grant grace amidst my chaotic life and work. Grace heals hardships that usually come from misunderstanding and miscommunication — or in my case false hopes and lofty expectations.

I can be flexible with my pace and still run a good race.

I want to accomplish many things, but I cannot grow without grace throughout the journey.

So when it comes to working with others and placing expectations on myself, my clients and my teams, I want to take a step back and consider the grace I offer, or the lack thereof at times, as I continue to drive, to strive, and grow in my pursuits — together with my people.

And when I find myself neglecting myself and forget to grant grace, I just listen to the track by Jack Johnson for my day to instantly get better.

In Peace & Progress,
“The young ambitious 20-something”

We live busy lives that change every day.
I take the approach to empower others with freedom to ZigZag
their way to live a happier and healthier life.
I live my life to make your life easier to be Happy and Healthy.
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