If you aren’t doing a pullup or opening jars then read this.
Have you ever had to white knuckle through something where the pressure felt like a heavy elephant knee in your chest and you had to muster all your courage and might to get through it?
The funny part is… sometimes that becomes our normal reaction to anything new and unfamiliar— even when there’s not an elephant knee in sight. Eventually, you white knuckle without even being aware of it.
Clench is your new normal.
I just started learning how to play tennis and good lord it’s new and intense for me. In my first class, I deathgripped the racket so tight that halfway in— my arm was exhausted from my elbow to my fingernails. And the next day? Let’s just say my rotator cuff wasn’t on speaking terms with me.
Here’s what happens when you run a business and your default reaction to new and intense is clench and deathgrip: You’re wiped just trying to get through the day.
Running the business and dealing with cranky customers, potholes, price hikes, and shifting priorities has you feeling utterly depleted— and it’s only Wednesday.
What if all that clenching and gripping is what’s silently draining you?
Not just draining you, but also stifling the new and interesting things that want to come into your business and life?
Here’s how this very death grip scenario played out for me: When starting my business— I death gripped my “data professional” identity and traditional data offerings and I struggled with selling work I didn’t even want to do anymore because it’s what I knew.
Why? Because the thought of changing that identity or the work I knew scared the living basil out of me.
This deathgrip on my identity and my work kept me stuck and locked in a business that didn’t light me up and yet, I resisted hard.
Until I realized what was actually happening. I was at a threshold: deathgrip and stay stuck, or let go and let my identity and my work mutate. So I finally gave in and demoted data from my core identity to one of many lenses of my work and everything changed.
The electricity flowed again. The ideas came fast and furious. The opportunities came pouring in, and I could enjoy this emerging work that’s currently unfolding.
If this is you, chew on this idea: clenching & gripping is an expensive way to operate when you consider flowing is free.
What could happen if you loosened your grip just enough to let some new life come in?
In a world that’s changing like Chicago weather— learning to loosen your grip on uncertainty is a smart way to make sure you’re not wincing on the court in the hot sun, 28 minutes into a 60 minute class.
