#96: Embracing the strive state

#PersonalGrowth #Change #Relationships #Boundaries

Nov 16, 2024

👋 Welcome to Pursuit, where we explore the art of living well. My name is Amir, and each week, I go over 10 hours of content about personal growth and mental well-being, bringing you four insights and thought-provoking perspectives from leading thinkers. I hope to have a tiny impact on your life and inspire you with the tools to lead a more fulfilling life. Join us on this journey of continuous improvement and discovery.

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This week’s discovery:

🧗🏼‍♂️ Embracing the strive state
🙅🏼‍♂️ What's not wrong
👭 What is your attachment style & how to fix it
🎯 What are anti-goals and why they are important

If you’re interested in listening to this week’s newsletter, you can follow Pursuit’s podcast on Spotify or other popular podcast platforms. Here’s this week’s episode:

🧗🏼‍♂️ Embracing the strive state

Last week I really enjoyed listening to this podcast episode by Dr. Adam Fraser, a peak performance researcher, in which he discusses the 'strive state' and how embracing challenges can lead to personal fulfillment. Here’s a snippet:

The pursuit of happiness is a common goal for many, but the real essence of fulfillment lies in courage and evolution. Most people's regrets towards the end of life revolve around courage - wishing they'd lived life on their terms, expressed love more openly, and embraced challenges without fear. Courage builds self-esteem and pride, fostering faith in one's capabilities.

Evolution, on the other hand, signifies progress and improvement, which are key to engagement and resilience. Seeing ourselves grow, overcoming obstacles, and moving towards meaningful goals keeps us engaged and resilient. Courage and evolution, both integral to our well-being and mental health, require striving and effort. An easy life, devoid of these elements, can lead to a lack of fulfillment.

🙅🏼‍♂️ What's not wrong

Lisa Olivera invites us to embrace the evolving nature of our identities and aspirations. She reminds us that it's perfectly acceptable to take our time as we grow, shift, and redefine our relationship with our work and desires. Here’s my favorite part:

It’s okay to take time to become the versions of ourselves we want to be in the things we do. It’s okay to let our work and life shift and change as we do. It’s okay to return to what we once needed space from. It’s okay to come to new understandings of ourselves in the midst of having space to do so. It’s okay to reorient toward our desires and gifts, again and again, in new and similar shapes.

👭 What is your attachment style & how to fix it

Attachment styles are deeply rooted in our childhood experiences and significantly influence our adult relationships. In this podcast, Connor Beaton, a men's life coach, dives into attachment styles, exploring how to identify and improve them. Topics include understanding attachment theory, regulating anxiety through breathwork, healing attachment styles through nervous system work, and communicating needs in relationships. Here’s a glimpse into some of the most prevalent attachment styles: Anxious and avoidant:

Anxious attachment tends to manifest in individuals who need reassurance from others to feel okay. This could be due to inconsistent or unpredictable care in childhood, overbearing parents, or abusive experiences. The person becomes hyper-vigilant about their partner's well-being, constantly seeking reassurance.

Avoidant attachment, on the other hand, is characterized by a belief that one doesn't need anyone else to be okay. This can stem from a fear that connection or dependence on others threatens individuality. The key to understanding one's attachment style lies in examining past experiences and how they shape our behaviors and beliefs about relationships.

Avoidant individuals, often due to experiences of feeling unsafe expressing needs or emotions, tend to avoid difficult conversations and conceal their emotional states.

Dismissive and fearful avoidance are two manifestations of this style. Dismissive avoidance leads to an often diminished desire for intimacy and connection, viewing such needs as irrelevant. This usually stems from past experiences where expressing needs was dismissed as unimportant.

Fearful avoidance, on the other hand, is characterized by a deep fear of intimacy and connection, usually a result of traumatic experiences in childhood that made relationships seem harmful or dangerous. This fear shapes their behavior, leading to a constant struggle between the desire for connection and the fear of rejection.

🎯 What are anti-goals and why they are important

Anti-goals are not goals that you don’t want to achieve. They are the sacrifices you are not willing to make to achieve a goal. As an example, if I want to build a billion-dollar company, what am I not willing to sacrifice to get there? Most people who have such lofty goals pay little regard to what they lose along the way: their health, their family, and their sanity.

What are you not willing to sacrifice to get to your goals?

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🎵 Discovery for your ears

You’ll find mostly Ethnotronica, Organic House, World, Disco, and Organic Electronic here:

🎧 If you appreciate the music I carefully select and haven't followed my Spotify playlists yet, now is the perfect time to hit that follow button and join me on this musical journey! 🎶

🌒 Pano: Danceable and electronic obscure songs
🌓 Sisy: Ethnotronica and organic house
🌑 Berghain: Dark, minimal techno and tech house
🌕 Heide: Groovy soul and disco house
🌞 Sonntag: Afterhours shit
🌎 World: From Latin jazz to Turkish psych
🌚 Super Slow: For your intimate moments