Charles Starrett

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Culture consultant & social tech teacher/facilitator at SoulCo & Northeastern University. He/Him. Dad, Harvard and NEC alum, visual thinker, dabbler in ukulele, electronic music, 한국어, and TTRPGs.

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Creating the right conditions

Have you seen how much advice there is for setting ourselves up for success by creating the right conditions for our work? Writers are told to get up early to get their writing in before the day begins. Runners, too. Meditators are pressured to create a dedicated space for practice in their homes. And this doesn’t even get into everything we’re supposed to measure from our time, to our steps, to how many new people we’ve talked to in a month.

Controlling our environment to create certain conditions around us may be effective for some of us some of the time, but how about creating conditions for success and well-being inside ourselves?

What if we could create the conditions inside to be able to focus on writing whenever we had time, or to take a moment of pause to remember what matters most before starting a meeting, or to pay attention to the body when walking between the car and the front door, or to bring our full attention to each bite of a meal and deeply appreciate what we’re eating?

There’s nothing wrong with trying to create a supportive environment, but trying to control the outside world is a lot more stressful than the pleasure of paying attention to ourselves and creating conditions inside us to work flexibly and with ease no matter what happens outside of us.

Learning to create the conditions that will support us inside, regardless of what the conditions are outside, is a free and portable superpower available to anyone willing to practice.

16 July 2022

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