Wind at your back

Arjun’s note: Welcome to Edition 17. I write about how it feels when you feel unstoppable and how you should extend this mindset to everything in life. Please share the newsletter (linked here) with your core Whatsapp group chat and ask them to subscribe 😄 

Do you remember feeling unstoppable? I went for a jog last week and it felt like the wind was at my back. Every step I took was lighter than the last and each stride was even paced. I ran but I never felt weary. The path was clear, the dogs stayed quiet and the sun glimmered gently over the horizon. The wind propelled me to my fastest time and it felt like I could have run forever.

Imagine if you could feel like this every day. No critics. No obstacles. No busy work. You get to do what you want to do every day. No obfuscation. No excuses. Nothing miscellaneous. Every day you live in flow. The game becomes easier as you unlock new levels. Everything in life seemingly happens for you.

It starts feeling too easy. You let your guard down. Delusion creeps in. Complacency sets and even mistakes feel like winning moves. You only recognise victories and fail to register losses. You forget that the magnitude counts in victory and defeat. And so you add small wins while you discount large losses. This is the point in your life when your luck turns and it’s only clear from a distance. You fall fast and the realisation hits slow.

You blame failure on your luck or weather or malicious foes. It feels like everyone is out to get you. The once favourable wind now blows in the opposite direction. The ground is littered with sharp-edged debris. Dogs bark, monkeys growl and cats stare with malevolence. Each step weighs heavier till you remind yourself you have no choice. The wind may no longer be at your back but you have to complete what you started.

There has to be a middle ground. You want to feel unstoppable. You never want to fail. You want to be great but you do not want to despair. How can you live so large without knowing what it’s like to shrink yourself to fit in rooms. Knowing is important but it should not soften your beliefs. Dreaming is vital but it should not rid you of fears. You’re not suspending the possibility of failure. It’s a perspective that allows you to win larger than you ever have. Failure is acceptable and so is extraordinary success. 

You have to believe you can do great things and that you can fail while attempting these feats. Do not hold yourself back. Nothing will happen for you if you stay fearful. Your feelings cannot be allowed to run your days. These are unreliable and unanchored from what happens ahead. Your feelings are important and so is agency that enables you to choose how to live your days.

This agency can be leveraged to live with a positive mindset. Feeling unstoppable is a choice for the person with exercisable agency. Push your agency to the hilt. No one and no object can withstand the force of human will sharpened beyond belief. This is your proprietary advantage in life and it has to be taken all the way. 

You should feel like you can run with the wind at your back. This feeling should persist on a clear sunny day and on a cloudy rainy evening. You do not control your environment but you can direct your own life. In this life-long ordeal, it is best to feel like you’ve won the lottery. Unfussed, unbothered and indistractable-- you have no choice but to win on a day that you feel unstoppable. Everyone all the time should feel like this.