How's That Working For You?

It was 1999 and I was as angsty as any college kid, itchy to figure out what my life was about, what it meant to be alive.

I had a book shelf full of Edward Abbey and Aldo Leopold and William Least-Heat Moon and a habit of squinting my eyes just so on cloudy days in an attempt to fool my brain into believing the clouds were mountains out there on the far horizon.

I questioned everything.

When Chuck Palahniuk’s book hit the big screen, I was pretty sure Fight Club had been made just for me.  

Scene after scene was chock full of line after line, question after question, that lit my 21-year-old self on fire.

On fire.

One line stood out more than all the rest and has stood the test of time in my life, even as my views have mellowed on some of the rest.

It has remained a litmus test over an over, because there’s no way out of the answer:

How’s that working out for you?

How’s that working out for you?

It’s so simple, but it leaves no room for bullshit.

Years later, in a hospital waiting room filled with the droning of daytime tv in the background, I was jolted to attention by hearing those words come out of Dr. Phil’s mouth.

How’s that working for you?

It’s THE question of our lives.

Because here’s the thing.

We can take all the comfort we need to from our reasons, our story, our justifications.

Many of them are perfectly valid.

As humans we carry so much inside us— pain, trauma, joy, memory, fear.

But at the end of the day, we are faced with the actual realities of our lives, how our day-to-day choices shape, well, everything.

And that is the single question that can help us actually determine if those choices are serving our lives.

How’s that working out for you?

Is it getting you the life you want?

Look.

I know it can be tricky to navigate this whole life thing.

I know we have to actually understand what it is we want before we can truly answer that question.

I know there are layers to unravel to get to it.

But honestly, usually we know somewhere inside us whether or not what we’re doing is working for or against the life we dream of.

We might not know what to do instead.

We might not know just how to course correct to get us headed in a direction we actually want to go.

And that’s okay.

You don’t have to figure that all out by yourself.

As a matter of fact, you’ll save yourself a HUGE amount of time, energy, and angst if you get help from someone who isn’t mired in the thick of it with you.

I’ve worked with both an incredible therapist and an incredible coach over the years and I’m grateful every day for the tools each of them gave me. 

They helped me make sure that my choices do, indeed, work for me, work to move me toward the growth and sort of life that is important to me.

So get in the habit of asking yourself, “How’s this working for me?”

And if the answer is that it isn’t, it’s time to make some changes.

You don’t have to make them alone.