At the time, it sounded impossible and definitely not for me. I could barely swim a lap. I didn't run or cycle. Then I forgot about it entirely.

Eight years ago, a good friend talked me into going for a run. I was busy and I needed the exercise. I completed about one mile, in my basketball sneakers, and was winded.

Last month, I finished my first full Ironman.

How did I go from a one-mile run to an Ironman? I just didn't stop what I started. 

As we continued running, we naturally ran further. Then we decided to sign up with other friends for a half marathon, mostly for fun. Learning about structured running plans made a full marathon seem reasonable. Then a first triathlon, out of curiosity, and mainly to give my knees a break. None of it was planned, and each step turned out to be an extension of what I was already doing. By the time I signed up for an Ironman, it wasn't a leap. It was the next logical step.

What looks impossible from a distance is usually just a lot of small steps away. 

That's one of the lessons I learned, and there were others. Whatever you're in the middle of right now — a book, a business, a degree, a health change, a relationship you're trying to rebuild — I hope some of these are useful.

Start where you are, and give yourself a way to see progress.

We all have different starting points and limits. For me, it was running continuously for a mile. I didn't think about the mile as a smaller version of a bigger goal. It was the goal, and completing one mile well is what made more miles possible.

As I followed the training plan, each week of running slightly extended what my body could handle inside the same hour I already had. I wasn't finding more time — I was increasing my capacity and doing more with the same amount of time. That's the part people miss when they look at a big goal and do the math on their calendar. The constraint usually isn't the hours you have. It's what you can do with them — and that's trainable.

The mile also gave me something to track, and tracking it turned out to matter. My motivation didn't come from wanting it badly enough — it came from watching the number move. Three miles when two used to be hard. Finishing a mile in less time. Seeing that progress made me want to go out again, and going out again gave me more progress to see. Enthusiasm, for me, typically follows progress, and progress comes from getting started.

Which means you don't have to feel ready, and you don't have to want it enough yet. I certainly didn't. A friend asked, I said yes, and a mile was just where my body gave out. The starting point doesn't need to be the right one, only an honest one — whatever you can actually do today, rather than what you feel should be within reach.

The trap is comparing where you are to where you'd like to end up, deciding the gap is ridiculous, and never starting. The better question isn't how do I get from here to there? It's what's the thing in front of me that starts the compounding? Then do it long enough that it stops being a decision you have to make.

Work with how you're wired, and know what you can't teach yourself.

One thing I figured out over these eight years: signing up for a race is what makes me focus.

I noticed it by seeing the opposite. In the stretches when I had nothing on the calendar, training was easy to push off. And when I did train, it wasn't really training — I'd go to the gym and do roughly what I'd done the week before, which feels productive and gets you nowhere in particular. Once I'm signed up and there's a specific date, that changes. The plan for each week becomes clear. With only a limited number of Saturdays, Saturday's long ride has a job to do.

But deadlines work for me. They might do nothing for you. I know plenty of people who get stressed out by deadlines. Figure out what works for you — maybe it's telling someone you don't want to disappoint, or taking on the challenge with a friend. There's no right answer here, and that's the point. The mistake is borrowing someone else's method, watching it fail to take, and concluding you're not the kind of person who can do these things.

So look at your own evidence first. Think of two or three things where you had strong follow through. What was in place? A deadline? A person? A group? Money on the line? Real curiosity? Whatever shows up more than once is your lever, and you can use it on purpose instead of hoping it turns up again by accident.

Knowing your lever gets you moving. It won't tell you what to do once you're moving, and that's a different problem.

The clearest example for me was swimming. When I signed up for my first triathlon, I could barely get across one length of a pool without being completely exhausted. The date on the calendar is what made me deal with that rather than hope it would sort itself out, and it pushed me to get some swimming coaching.

I learned that the difference wasn't fitness. It was technique. I'd assumed I was a bad swimmer because I wasn't strong enough in the water, when really I just didn't know how to move through it efficiently. You can't solve that by kicking harder. I could have practiced swimming poorly for years, gotten more tired, and taken it as proof I wasn't built for swimming. What I needed wasn't more effort. It was someone who could see what I was doing and tell me what to change — which is the part you can't do for yourself, no matter how motivated you are.

If you're in the same spot with swimming, I'd recommend the Total Immersion approach; it completely changed how I thought about moving through water.

Do what you want, not what you like.

I like sleeping in. I like fries at lunch. I like almost anything more than waking up at 5am for a long bike ride. Those are things I like. Finishing an Ironman without being destroyed was something I wanted. So I got up.

Nearly every training day came down to a contest between something I liked and something I wanted, and the thing I liked was always more comfortable and more convenient. What helped me was naming which one I was reaching for — only one of them moved me closer to a strong finish.

But the thing I was really practicing wasn't discipline. It was getting my mind to take direction from me rather than the other way around. My mind produced excellent arguments: you're tired, you deserve a break, one day won't matter, you'll double up tomorrow. They're persuasive because they're built by someone who knows exactly what you'll fall for. The skill is being able to hear all of it and still do the thing you decided.

The workout was rarely the hard part. The hard part was the twenty minutes beforehand, going back and forth over whether today counted. The debate you have with yourself is expensive. It burns the same energy you were about to spend, and you usually end up training anyway, just later and in a worse mood. At some point, I learned to recognize when I was negotiating with myself and practiced short circuiting that conversation.

Showing up isn't the same as going hard, though. Being tired is real information — it's just information about how to train, not whether to. Some days that meant an easy effort instead of the planned one. Some days it meant resting on purpose, as part of the plan, rather than as the result of losing an argument with myself.

None of this is about proving your worth by how much you can push through — taken too far, that's just self-punishment, and it can do real damage. The point is narrower. You want to be someone whose own decisions get carried out. There's a real difference between intending to do something and committing to it, and the gap between those two is where most goals quietly die. Close it enough times and you start to trust yourself — which is worth more than any single thing you finish.

The cost shows up before the benefit does.

There were months when I felt slower than I'd been a few weeks earlier and quietly wondered whether I was training wrong, or whether I just wasn't built for this distance. My confidence dipped right when I was putting in the most work.

Here's what I learned: training doesn't make you stronger. Training makes you tired. You get stronger afterward, while you recover, if you give it enough rest and food and time. So the weeks where I felt the worst were often the weeks I was working hardest. You pay the cost before the benefit shows up, and the benefit tends to arrive around the time you've stopped paying attention.

Knowing that didn't make those months feel better. But it changed what I concluded from them, which turned out to matter more. Feeling slow stopped being evidence about me and started being information about where I was in the cycle.

I'd like to say I could always tell the difference between a rough stretch and something actually being wrong. Mostly I couldn't. What helped was having a plan I trusted and people I could ask, so the question didn't have to be settled by whatever I happened to feel that week.

So if you're struggling with something that matters, that isn't necessarily evidence you chose wrong. More often it means you're working at the edge of what you can currently do. That's uncomfortable by design, and it's the only way capacity grows.

Find a pace you can hold, and the fuel to hold it.

For most of the eight years, I thought about training almost entirely in terms of fitness. Get stronger, build the aerobic base, log the miles. Pacing and fueling barely registered — they sounded like details you'd sort out later, once the real work was done.

That's fine for a half-marathon and even a half-Ironman. At Ironman distance it falls apart, and a coach at my local triathlon club was blunt about why. The day is long enough that you can be genuinely fit and still not finish. You go out at a pace that feels easy. You don't eat enough in the first few hours because you don't feel like you need it. Then somewhere on the run you run out of gas — not tired, empty — and once you're there, no amount of fitness or willpower gets you back.

I saw it on the course. People who passed me climbing a hill, clearly stronger riders than I was, lying on the side of the road thirty miles later.

So he taught me to hold an effort that feels too easy for the first several hours, and to eat and hydrate on a schedule rather than by appetite. Both feel wrong at the time. Both are the reason I was still moving at hour thirteen.

I think about this constantly now as I pursue other ambitious projects. For anyone in the middle of something long, what sinks people is rarely a lack of capability or effort. It's not going the distance — starting too hard and having nothing left before the thing is done.

So it's worth asking: is your current pace one you can sustain for what you're actually pursuing? And what's refueling you along the way? For some it's sleep. For others, supportive relationships, or unstructured time.

Pacing and fueling matter more if you're going a long way, and taking that seriously changed the question I ask myself. It's no longer how much can I get done this week. It's what capacity am I building over the next few years.

Learn to relax when things go wrong.

For most people, the first time you do the Ironman is the first time you do the full distance. I swam, biked, and ran a lot, but I'd never done all three back to back at that distance. So a good part of race day was going to be things I hadn't experienced before, and no amount of preparation was going to change that.

It started early. I took a foot to the head during the swim, which happens in a mass start and still comes as a surprise.

I'd also come into the race with a strained hamstring, which changed the plan before it started. I rode the bike conservatively and stopped more than I'd wanted to, not because I was tired but because I wasn't sure the leg would hold.

It held. By the time I started the run I felt good. The hamstring was tight but fine, I had enough in the tank, and for the first time all day I thought I was going to finish comfortably.

Then, about halfway through the marathon, I felt a sharp pain in my right knee.

I stopped. I walked. I started doing the math on the cutoff, trying to work out whether walking thirteen miles would get me in before midnight, and whether running on the knee would do real damage. I didn't have good answers to either. I also wasn't sure whether the leg would simply stop working and take walking off the table too.

What got me moving wasn't resolve. It was something smaller: I dropped my shoulders, slowed my breathing, and accepted that my knee was going to hurt. Then I took a step, and another, and tried a few different paces until I found one it would tolerate. Nothing about the situation changed. The knee hurt for the rest of the race. But I could keep going, which was the best thing I could hope for.

When something goes wrong, relaxing rarely feels like an option. It feels like the opposite of what the moment calls for — you want to do something, fix it, take action. Tensing up at least feels like a response. But most of that energy goes into the reaction rather than the problem, and on a long day, energy is the thing you have least of.

The specific problem you'll face is one you probably haven't rehearsed. What you can rehearse is how you meet it — and it's worth practicing when the stakes are low. The delayed flight, the email you didn't want, the plan that falls through, the bad weather. Those are chances to notice the tightening and let it go before it costs you anything.

The rest of that marathon was stop, walk, run, and repeat, with the crowd's encouragement and adrenaline carrying me for most of the way. I finished, and finished stronger than I expected to given the knee. Seeing my family at the line was the best part of the day. Unfortunately for them, they had to help me walk my bike and carry my gear back to the hotel, which tells you something about how strong the finish actually was.

Snap back to the moment.

Lake Placid is a beautiful course — too bad I spent long stretches of it in my head.

I'd look at my watch at mile 85 and wish it said 110. I'd replay the fries I'd eaten the day before and blame them for my stomach issues. I'd wonder whether the hotel exercise bike I'd used on vacation the week before explained the pain in my knee.

And here's what I noticed: the more I did that, the longer the day got. Time crawled whenever I was thinking about where I wanted to be instead of just being in it. When I was actually in it — the road, the effort, the lake off to my right — time moved. I'd felt the same thing during training. Whenever I focused on how much was left, it felt like a burden. When I came back to the thing I was doing, the hour just passed.

Staying present sounds easy. It isn't. What helped was asking myself a question, over and over: What am I doing right now? Running. Toward the finish. That's it.

What surprised me wasn't that things went better when I was present. It was how rarely I noticed I'd left. The tell for me is a heaviness that doesn't match what I'm actually doing. Catching that, and coming back, is what I'm practicing daily.

It's on you, and it's a team effort.

Nobody could do my training for me. Not my family, not a coach, not a well-built plan. If I didn't get out the door, nothing happened. On race day, I was the one at the start line and the one crossing the finish. It's easy to look at that and think you did it all yourself.

Triathlon looks like an individual sport, and it turned out not to be one. Almost none of the eight years happened without other people in them.

My family gave up weekends so I could disappear on long training days, and nobody made that an argument. Friends helped me pick out a bike and rode some of the long ones with me, which is the only reason a few of them happened at all. The coaches who fixed my stroke and drilled me on fueling prevented me from hitting the wall mid-race. And on race day there were volunteers who'd signed up to spend their Sunday helping strangers. One of them peeled the wetsuit off me after the swim, which would otherwise have cost me several graceless minutes and a good deal of composure.

None of that was help I went looking for. Most of it I didn't ask for and some of it I didn't notice at the time. But it's the reason the whole thing worked, and it's changed how I think about my own effort. Since then I've started looking back at other things I've finished and counting the people who contributed. There are always more than I would have guessed.

Challenge the story you're telling yourself.

I opened with what I said when I first heard what an Ironman involved: not for me. I wasn't weighing it and deciding against it. I'd dismissed it immediately.

That's usually what stops us. Not the difficulty of the thing — a quiet belief about ourselves that closes the question early. I'm not athletic. I'm not a writer. I'm too old to start. I'm not that disciplined. Those feel like observations. Mostly they're claims we've never actually checked.

I'd believed a version of this about age, too. I assumed my peak years were a decade or two behind me and that everything from here was a slow decline. But I'm a better swimmer, cyclist, and runner now than I've ever been, and I got there well into my forties. Not faster — better. Skill doesn't seem to decline on the same schedule as speed, and I hadn't considered that.

Natalie Grabow didn't learn to swim until she was 59. At 80, she finished the Ironman World Championship in Kona, the oldest woman ever to do it. What I find striking isn't the finish. It's that at 59 she must have had every reason to think swimming was something for other people, and she went and learned anyway. Almost nobody who finishes a hard thing had a special starting point.

I'm not sure any of us fully knows what we're capable of. What I am sure of is that most of the limits I've assumed about myself were never tested — they were just sentences I'd accepted at some point and stopped questioning.

It's worth asking what you've already ruled out, and whether you've ever tested it.

One last thing

Rather than asking what you'd like to accomplish, here's a question I think is more useful:

What are you already doing that's worth continuing?

I didn't set out to do any of this. I went running with a friend and kept going. Somewhere in your life there's probably something you do inconsistently, don't take very seriously, and would be glad to still be doing in eight years. Protecting that is probably worth more than anything new you could add.

The first step is usually smaller and less impressive than you'd expect. Mine was a mile, and it left me winded.

Finally, none of these lessons showed up during the race. They showed up afterward, when I sat down and asked what had actually gotten me there. That's been true every time — after my first book, after my second, and after paying close attention to someone worth learning from, like William Zinsser. The experience by itself doesn't teach you much. Reflecting on it is what turns one into the other.

So whatever you've finished recently — a project, a hard season, something that didn't go the way you wanted — give it an hour and a blank page. Ask what you'd tell someone who was about to do the same thing. You'll know more than you think you do.

The post Lessons Learned Going From One Mile to an Ironman appeared first on Embrace Possibility.

“Now the tragedy of an attachment is that if its object is not attained it causes unhappiness. But if it is attained, it does not cause happiness—it merely causes a flash of pleasure followed by weariness; and it is always accompanied, of course, by the anxiety that you may lose the object of your attachment.”

This resonated deeply with me because I began to see how much of my own stress and anxiety stemmed from attachment—whether it was to outcomes, ideas, or relationships. I started to notice how fleeting the “flash of pleasure” is—whether it’s landing a publisher for my book or completing a marathon—and how it’s often followed by that nagging fear of loss or the need to hold onto what I’ve achieved.

As I’ve been working to become more aware of these attachments in my daily life, I’m still learning just how difficult it can be to truly let go. The idea of living more freely and without clinging to outcomes is something I’m actively practicing, and it’s definitely a work in progress. I’ve found that it’s not about detaching from life or giving up on goals, but about learning to engage with things more mindfully, without being so tightly bound to them.

In this article, I want to share some of the signs that are helping me recognize attachment in my own life—whether it’s through constant worry, the need for control, or over-reliance on external validation. I’ve also included some practical steps I’m experimenting with to help let go, so we can all work toward finding more peace, freedom, and contentment in our journeys.

Here are 18 signs of attachment, ways to recognize them, real-life examples, and practical tips to help you loosen the grip.

1. You Constantly Worry About the Future

How to Recognize: You find yourself stuck in 'what if' scenarios and struggle to stay present because you're always thinking about what's coming next. You're stressing about things that haven't happened yet.

Attachment: You're attached to controlling or predicting the future.

Example: Before a big meeting, you’re overwhelmed with anxiety about how it will go, replaying possible outcomes in your head.

How to Let Go: Schedule “worry time” for 10 minutes, where you allow yourself to think about the future. Once time's up, bring your attention back to the present by focusing on your breathing or surroundings.

2. Change Makes You Uncomfortable

How to Recognize: You feel uneasy or anxious whenever something shifts in your routine, even if it's a small change. You display strong emotional responses when things don't stay the same and have difficulty accepting that things change, whether it's aging, relationships, or life circumstances.

Attachment: You're clinging to stability and fear the unknown. You’re attached to the idea that things should stay the same.

Example: A coworker moves a meeting or a friend cancels plans, and it leaves you feeling disoriented or upset for the rest of the day. You feel stressed about getting older or resist changes in your relationships, clinging to how things used to be.

How to Let Go: Ease yourself into change by making small adjustments in your routine, like taking a different route to work or trying new foods, to build your comfort with flexibility. Focus on how changes have brought growth in the past, and try to embrace the flow of life as it evolves.

3. You’re Obsessed with Controlling Everything

How to Recognize: You feel anxious when things don’t go exactly as planned, and you often try to dictate how others should behave or handle situations.

Attachment: You're attached to controlling people and outcomes.

Example: You get frustrated when coworkers don’t follow your detailed instructions and feel the need to step in and “fix” things.

How to Let Go: Focus on controlling your own actions and let go of trying to manage others. When you feel the urge to micromanage, remind yourself that others are capable and that it’s okay if things are done differently.

4. Your Mood Rides on Success or Failure

How to Recognize: You feel on top of the world when you succeed but devastated when things don’t go as planned. You feel like a failure when you don’t meet certain milestones or achievements.

Attachment: You're attaching your self-worth to external achievements. You’re attached to success as a measure of your self-worth.

Example: You feel euphoric when you get a promotion, but if you don’t, you spiral into self-doubt and question your abilities. You feel disappointed and unworthy after not hitting a financial or career goal, questioning your value.

How to Let Go: Acknowledge that neither success nor failure defines you. Focus on personal growth, effort, and resilience, knowing that failure is part of the process and doesn’t diminish your worth. Success is just one part of who you are.

5. You Rely Heavily of Others for Emotional Stability

How to Recognize: You feel anxious or insecure when someone you care about doesn’t give you the attention you expect.

Attachment: You’re attached to seeking validation and emotional support from others.

Example: You feel neglected when a friend doesn’t respond to your texts right away, leading to feelings of insecurity.

How to Let Go: Cultivate emotional independence by practicing self-soothing activities like meditation, journaling, or exercising. Understand that you can manage your emotions without relying on others for reassurance.

6. You Can’t Handle Different Opinions

How to Recognize: You get defensive or upset when someone challenges your beliefs or disagrees with you.

Attachment: You're attached to being right or having others agree with you.

Example: You find yourself arguing at social gatherings when people have differing political or personal views.

How to Let Go: Practice listening without reacting. Allow yourself to hear other perspectives without feeling the need to prove your point. Acknowledge that it’s okay for people to have different opinions.

7. You Seek Pleasure and Avoid Discomfort

How to Recognize: You constantly seek distractions or comfort when faced with stress, avoiding anything unpleasant. You feel empty or dissatisfied when pleasure or excitement fades.

Attachment: You’re attached to chasing pleasure and avoiding discomfort.

Example: After a long day, you automatically binge-watch TV or overeat to escape your stress, avoiding confronting your emotions.

How to Let Go: Start by acknowledging discomfort when it arises instead of immediately avoiding it. Try sitting with your feelings for a few minutes, allowing yourself to experience them without judgment. Tara Brach's RAIN method might help.

8. You Need Everything to Be Perfect

How to Recognize: You find yourself getting upset over small things or reacting impulsively when things don’t go as planned.

Attachment: You're attached to the idea that things should always go smoothly or to an ideal of perfection.

Example: You feel frustrated for hours after a small mistake at work or a minor inconvenience like a traffic delay. You redo a project multiple times because it doesn’t meet your exact vision, even though it’s already good enough.

How to Let Go: Pause and take a few deep breaths before reacting. Ask yourself if the situation is worth the emotional energy you're giving it, and practice letting go of the need for everything to go perfectly. Embrace imperfection as part of life. Focus on progress over perfection, and allow yourself to be satisfied with doing your best rather than chasing an unattainable ideal.

9. You’re Overly Attached to Material Things

How to Recognize: You feel anxious or distressed if something you own is damaged or lost. You compare yourself to others based on material success or possessions.

Attachment: You’re attached to possessions as a source of security or identity.

Example: When your phone gets a scratch, you feel a wave of frustration even though it still works perfectly. You feel down when your friend upgrades their car.

How to Let Go: Practice gratitude for the function of your belongings, not their appearance. Begin decluttering, starting with items you no longer need, to reduce your attachment to material things.

10. You Crave Validation from Others

How to Recognize: You often seek praise or approval from others and feel discouraged when you don’t receive it.

Attachment: You’re attached to external validation for your self-worth.

Example: You post on social media and feel down if you don’t get as many likes or comments as you expected.

How to Let Go: Build internal validation by reflecting on your own accomplishments and strengths. Celebrate small wins privately and remind yourself that others' approval doesn’t define your worth.

11. You Struggle with Letting Go of the Past

How to Recognize: You replay past events, wishing you could change the outcome or dwelling on mistakes. You tend to hold onto grudges for past wrongs.

Attachment: You’re attached to how things could have been.

Example: You keep thinking about an argument you had last week, obsessing over what you should have said differently.

How to Let Go: Accept that the past is unchangeable. Focus on what you’ve learned from the experience and how it can guide you moving forward.

12. You Define Yourself by Your Role or Title

How to Recognize: You feel lost or insecure when your role or job title changes, or you cling to the identity tied to your work.

Attachment: You’re attached to your identity as defined by external roles.

Example: You feel uncertain and uneasy after changing jobs or losing a professional title that defined you for years.

How to Let Go: Reflect on your values, passions, and relationships outside of work. Explore other aspects of your identity that aren’t tied to career or titles.

13. You Expect Relationships or Situations to Stay the Same

How to Recognize: You feel upset or insecure when people or situations in your life change.

Attachment: You’re attached to the idea that relationships or circumstances should remain constant.

Example: You feel disappointed when a close friend’s new job means they have less time to spend with you.

How to Let Go: Accept that all relationships evolve. Focus on nurturing your connection in its current form and appreciate the time you do have, rather than clinging to what it used to be.

14. You’re Always Comparing Yourself to Others

How to Recognize: You frequently feel inadequate or jealous when you compare your achievements or lifestyle to others.

Attachment: You’re attached to external measures of success.

Example: You feel envious when a colleague gets a promotion or a friend buys a new house, leading you to question your own progress.

How to Let Go: Shift your focus to your own journey. Celebrate others’ success without comparing it to your own, and remind yourself that everyone’s path is different.

15. You Take On Other People’s Problems

How to Recognize: You feel responsible for fixing others’ issues, even when they don’t ask for help.

Attachment: You’re attached to solving problems for others to feel needed.

Example: You feel drained and overwhelmed by trying to help a friend through their financial struggles, even when they haven’t asked for your intervention.

How to Let Go: Set boundaries and remind yourself that others are responsible for their own lives. Offer support, but don’t feel obligated to fix everything for them.

16. Uncertainty Makes You Anxious

How to Recognize: You feel uncomfortable or anxious when things don’t go according to plan or when the future is unclear.

Attachment: You’re attached to certainty and predictability.

Example: Last-minute changes to your schedule cause you to feel anxious and out of control.

How to Let Go: Practice embracing uncertainty by allowing parts of your day to remain unplanned. Try small spontaneous actions to build comfort with the unknown.

17. You Fear Leaving Your Comfort Zone

How to Recognize: You feel anxious or resistant when faced with new experiences or challenges outside of your familiar routine.

Attachment: You’re attached to the security of your comfort zone.

Example: You stay in a job you don’t like because the idea of starting something new feels overwhelming and risky.

How to Let Go: Start by taking small, manageable steps outside your comfort zone. Whether it’s learning a new skill or meeting new people, gradually challenge yourself to embrace the unfamiliar.

18. Your Identity Relies on External Success

How to Recognize: You feel like a failure when you don’t meet certain milestones or achievements, questioning your value. You judge other people based on their external success markers.

Attachment: You’re attached to success as a measure of your self-worth.

Example: You feel disappointed and unworthy after not hitting a financial or career goal, leading you to question your abilities.

How to Let Go: Acknowledge that neither success nor failure defines you. Focus on personal growth, effort, and resilience, knowing that failure is part of the process and doesn’t diminish your worth. Be aware when you judge others and see it as a projection of your own insecurity.

Letting Go of Attachment

Letting go starts with simply noticing where attachment shows up in your life. Pick one area—whether it's worrying about the future, craving approval, or needing to control everything—and start working on loosening your grip. It doesn’t have to be a big change. Try focusing on one small thing, like letting go of the need for everything to be perfect or practicing being okay with uncertainty.

Over time, as you take these small steps, you’ll start to feel more at ease, more present, and less weighed down by stress. It’s a gradual process, but even a little shift can make a big difference.

Try This:

• Pick one thing you tend to cling to, like perfectionism or worrying.
• Set a small, specific goal for this week—whether that’s allowing things to be “good enough” or giving yourself just 10 minutes to worry and then moving on.
• At the end of each day, check in with yourself. How did it feel to let go, even just a little?

The more you practice, the more you’ll find that letting go brings a sense of freedom and peace that’s hard to get when you’re holding on too tight.

What’s something you’re working on letting go of? I’d love to hear your thoughts—share in the comments below!

Photo by Jon Moore

The post 18 Warning Signs You’re Too Attached – And What to Do About It appeared first on Embrace Possibility.

Risk is typically perceived as a fear that requires a certain courageous personality to overcome. We are often categorized by ourselves or others as being risk-averse or risk-seeking and lead our lives accordingly. The risk-averse person seems destined to lead a stable but perhaps unextraordinary life while those who are risk-seeking will either crash and burn or be wildly successful.

Unfortunately, many people live according to their own risk profile, not realizing that they may be missing out on wonderful opportunities. By not knowing how to take smarter risks, you're likely limiting your potential. But how do you take risks in a way that doesn't make it feel like you're gambling with your life?

First, recognize that everything you do has risk - from crossing the street to texting to putting on pants (one of my toddlers suffered a torque fracture when he fell putting on his pants - *sigh*). We label something as "risky" when it is above our personal risk threshold. If the activity falls below this threshold, we see it as normal. Much of the advice we've heard centers around bypassing your threshold, which is a dangerous thing to do. "Just do it" may sometimes work out but can also be catastrophic especially if the risk is high.

To help bring to life the tips you're about to learn, imagine you are standing at the edge of a steep canyon and leaping across to the other side is the risk you would like to take.

Depending on your fear of heights, your experience with leaping across canyons, and other relevant factors, you have a personal threshold for how risky you think this leap will be. You can increase this personal threshold if you have a compelling reason for why you want to get across to the other side. For example, if it was just part of your vacation hike, your risk threshold might be much lower than if you were being chased by a bear. In many cases, the risk threshold you have is dependent on factors outside of your control such as the specific situation, your personality, other people's actions, etc.

To be a smarter risk taker, consider these 3 practical actions to reduce the risk of the task at hand to below your risk threshold:

De-Risk the Actual Task

Whenever you can, look to remove risks to achieving your outcome. If your goal is to get across to the other side of the canyon, you will want to walk along the edges of the canyon and find the area where the edges are closest together. You may also consider the possibility of building a bridge as opposed to jumping over. The idea is to find different ways to remove the risk you're seeing.

For a work-related example, if you're about to give a presentation at a high-profile conference, can you control where you are on the agenda so you're not following the best speaker or going right after lunch? Can you make sure you get in a day or two before your presentation so you won't be stressed with travel issues? Perhaps you can get an attendee list so you're not surprised by any unexpected senior leaders walking into your presentation and potentially rattling you.

De-risking is usually the most intuitive of the three tips so hopefully, many of you are already doing this.

Build a Safety Net or Buffer

In the canyon leaping example, the leap will seem less risky to you if there is a safety net below you.

To build your buffer, first identify what's at risk. What are you actually going to lose if this doesn't pan out? In many cases, you may realize that there isn't really much at stake.

For example, if you’re looking to join a startup after a 15-year career at a Fortune 50 company, what will you lose if the startup fails? Perhaps you might lose financially and have to worry about paying your bills and supporting your family. Maybe it will hurt your professional trajectory causing you to fall behind your peer group. Maybe your ego will take a beating when everyone judges your decision as stupid and reminding you of their advice not to leave your job.

Once you understand what is at risk the next step is to figure out how to protect against the downside of that risk.

Using the same example, if you’re worried about your ability to pay your bills and take care of your family, create a plan to save more and reduce living expenses so you can go for 2+ years without income. If you don’t want to lower your professional trajectory, assess how this startup experience can boost your trajectory even if the startup fails. Perhaps you can build a wider professional network or gain skills that you could not get at your current job. Another way to build a safety net is to either persuade your current company to buy the startup or start a similar division within your company. Lastly, as for your ego getting hurt, you might want to invest in other areas of your life so it won't be the end of the world if work doesn't go well. Being a part of an accomplished sports team or music group or coming home to a fantastic family can help you be more resilient. If you're afraid of your ego getting bruised, keeping your venture a secret from others can also help.

Increase Your Competence

If leaping is what you need to do to get across the canyon, the more skill and training you have, the less risky the task will seem. When you build up experience and expertise in the exact task needed, it won't seem as risky to you as someone looking at the situation without your expertise. A great visual example is the tight rope photo for this article. For an experienced tight rope walker, the activity depicted may seem less risky than to our untrained eye.

In a professional context, if you're thinking of taking a role in a different country, it's hard to not see it as risky if you haven't done it before. If this is a goal of yours, you may be able to reduce your risk by taking on a three-month international project or to work on a cross-border team. These experiences will help you understand the nuances of working effectively across cultures. You may also want to speak with others who have made this leap to get a road map for making the transition. Sometimes having a guide is enough to reduce the risk to below your threshold (for example - climbing Mount Everest).

Taking smarter risks is not about mustering the courage to "just do it". It’s about actively managing your relationship to risk. You can de-risk the situation, create a buffer to limit your downside, or train to increase your competence.

You can apply these risk mitigation tips to all areas of your life - career, relationships, sports, academic research, etc. It's generally agreed that more risk leads to more reward. By using these tips to take risks comfortably, we hope it will lead to a more rewarding life for you.

What's a risk you want to take but is right now above your threshold? Which one of these tips can you use today to bring you closer to taking a smart risk and live a life without regrets?

Photo by Leio McLaren (@leiomclaren)

The post 3 Ways to be a Smarter Risk Taker appeared first on Embrace Possibility.

Although it was a random choice, it got me thinking about the rubber band.

It is simple and useful.

It costs almost nothing.

It can be used in many ways.

It also reminds me of The Law of the Rubber Band by leadership coach John Maxwell. Like rubber bands, we work better when we are stretched. He emphasizes that growth comes from "the tension between where we are and where we want to be."

To unlock your full potential, it's important to keep stepping out of your comfort zone. This can be counterintuitive because when most people imagine being at their best, they typically envision life going smoothly and success coming easily to them.

You may want others to perceive a calm, cool and collected "you" performing effortlessly but to become extraordinary and to keep fulfilling your potential, you want to find the struggle and surf the edge of your comfort zone. The first step is to recognize when you are at the edge of your comfort zone.

So how do you know when you're there?

Your feelings will tell you.

You're at the edge of your comfort zone when:

You want to back out

If you've ever signed up for something that you knew was good for you and find yourself wanting to back out, you're on the right track. Keep at it despite the tons of great and reasonable excuses for why it'll be ok to back out.

You feel this way because you're not sure how you'll perform and it makes you nervous. Many times, it doesn't seem worth the trouble or worry. This is exactly where you want to be. If you knew how you'll do, you would be in your comfort zone.

In this situation, commit to the activity and because you'll want to do well, you'll end up spending a good amount of time preparing. You will grow from this preparation and your confidence will increase when you do well. If things don't go as well as you expected, you can learn from it and tweak your preparation next time. With one experience under your belt, it only gets easier.

The next time you get nervous anticipating a new task or situation, remind yourself that you are now officially out of your comfort zone and get ready to improve yourself.

You are bad at it

The first time is the worst time - everything is typically hardest the first time around. If you find that you're pretty good at an activity and it doesn't humble you much, then you're probably still within your comfort zone.

Based on your interests and passions, seek out activities and challenges that are relevant to your goals but you aren't awesome at (yet). Be honest with the challenges you might be avoiding. Perhaps it's having a difficult conversation with your spouse, being the keynote speaker at a conference or making small talk at a dinner party.

Look at what you're bad at or have failed at for clues.

You don't want other people to see you

No one wants to look bad in front of other people. That's why we edit and revise our work and hide our struggles.

If there is an activity that you are embarrassed to do in front of others, then it's probably a good growth area for you. You don't have to invite an audience to watch you. The fact that you don't want an audience means you're on the right track and the skill or activity you're doing is something you should continue to work on.

If you're comfortable, you're probably not growing. Remember that the comfort zone is the enemy of achievement. 

"Ships in harbor are safe, but that's not what ships are built for."

- John Shedd, American Author and Professor

When was the last time you stepped out of your comfort zone?

Inspired by Law of the Rubberband in John Maxwell's The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth (Long Story Short book note)

Photo by thisisbossi

The post How to Find the Edge of Your Comfort Zone – The Law of the Rubberband appeared first on Embrace Possibility.

... well, before I tell you what it is, let's define stable.

When something is stable, it is not likely to change. All my life, I've been raised to believe that stability is a good thing - stable job, stable relationship, stable government - but is it really?

If we think there will be a change for the worse, it is easy to understand the appeal of stability but isn't that like throwing the baby out with the bath water? Just because a person is afraid of a negative change, does that mean we should resist all change including the positive. Perhaps we don't realize that when we pursue stability, we are actually giving up possibilities for growth.

If I stop growing, I will put myself in a very dangerous situation because there are people out there who continue to grow. How many people took stable jobs just to find out that their jobs are being outsourced and they haven't kept their skills up to date to effectively find new jobs? How many people continue to take "stable" jobs (not sure if there are many left but pharmacists and accountants still comes to mind) thinking that their life is set?

The one thing I have learned from the unemployed pilots, lawyers and factory workers in the US is that it is risky to be stable because things change. The one certainty in life is that things will change and for those who seek comfort in stability, please remember that the faster change comes the riskier stability becomes.

My advice is to trade stability for flexibility. Learn skills that will help you stay marketable (I am currently learning to computer program, click here to find free courses to sign up for). Always think about how you can improve the way you add value for other people. As long as you are doing something valuable, you'll always be able to find someone to pay you to do it for them.

Don't stop learning.

The post It is Risky to be Stable because… appeared first on Embrace Possibility.

Let me explain...

I thought personal excellence was all about gaining success and avoiding failures. This meant choosing activities that had high success rates. This resulted in:

Staying Within My Comfort Zone

When you try new things, you have a very high chance of failure. How many things have I avoided because I didn't want to look stupid or thought I would be bad at it? It is no secret that the only way to grow is by doing new things and to step out of your comfort zone even one of our most famous scientists, Albert Einstein, once said, "Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new". Mistakes are not so bad after all.

Getting Upset When I Failed 

No matter how hard I try to prevent it, there were still situations where I failed and when that happened, I was pretty hard on myself. I made the mistake of thinking that my failures reflect who I am so when I failed, it was because I was no good. I realize now that failure is nothing but feedback and that it is a pre-requisite of success so now when I fail, I know I am one step closer to achieving my outcome.

Keeping My Failures a Secret

This one was the worst. Anytime I failed at something, I would hide it and then pretend it never happened. I didn't investigate it any further, never talked to anyone about it and tried to avoid it altogether. This attitude held me back because I never learned from my mistakes. Failures are an excellent opportunity to find out how you can improve and usually all you have to do is ask. Samuel Smiles was spot on when he said, "We learn wisdom from failure much more than from success. We often discover what will do, by finding out what will not do".

Embrace failure. Michael Jordan does.

Here is a transcript of the video:

"I've missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times I've been trusted to take the game-winning shot, and missed. I failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."

Photo by Ian Kim

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