In Buddhism there’s a concept called “The Second Arrow” – Thich Nhat Hahn explains here:
The Buddha speaks about the “second arrow”. When an arrow strikes you, you feel pain. If a second arrow comes and strikes you in the same spot, the pain will be ten times worse. The Buddha advised that when you have some pain in your body or your mind, breathe in and out and recognize the significance of that pain but don’t exaggerate its importance.
If you stop to worry, to be fearful, to protest, to be angry about the pain, then you magnify the pain ten times or more. Your worry is the second arrow. You should protect yourself and not allow the second arrow to come, because the second arrow comes from you.
– Thich Nhat Hanh
Answers from the Heart: Practical Responses to Life’s Burning Questions (Amazon)
The idea is that while bad things happen to us in life – things that are out of our control – our reaction often makes this much worse than it needs to be.
The first arrow is “real” and it’s right there – it’s the unfortunate luck that sometimes befalls all of us. But the second arrow is invisible, and it comes from the inside. The suffering it causes is self-inflicted.
The pain of the second arrow may be ten times worse, but it can also easily be done away with – simply by realizing it’s there. You don’t need to suffer any more than you need to.
Oftentimes, the first obstacle to any success is exactly like the second arrow.
Before you get to the real obstacles – those things out there in the world that stand in your way – you first have to get past the invisible obstacles that you put in front of yourself. The first obstacle is like the second arrow, because the first obstacle comes from you.
This obstacle can take many forms, but it’s often based around self-perception, sets of beliefs about yourself and/or erroneous thought patterns.
Here are a few examples, some of which I’ve written about before:
- Feeling like you have to wait for the “perfect moment” to start something new (There’s never a perfect moment – you always just have to do it anyway)
- Not yet seeing yourself as the kind of person who does the thing you want to do (This is a big one)
- Not having well-defined priorities and being clear about what’s most important to you
- Mental/emotional blocks that cause you to suffer from excessive procrastination
- Not having a well-defined vision and knowing exactly what it is you want
- Trying to do too much too soon, rather than practicing incremental improvement
- Seeing the mountain in front of you as way, way bigger than it really is (I call this “turning tasks into monsters in your mind“)
- Harbouring certain harmful or limiting beliefs about yourself (Which usually aren’t even yours in the first place, because they’ve been given to you by someone else)
- Not realizing that the failures of the past don’t determine the future
Again, often just seeing this obstacle for what it is is enough to make it disappear.
There is one caveat though: you have to be brutally honest with yourself.
Thich Nhat Hanh also speaks about “seeing deeply” through mindfulness and meditation. When you practice meditation, you practice becoming the observer of your thoughts, feelings, and physical sensations.
Becoming the observer is what allows you to see yourself more objectively. Take the “I” out of the equation and just observe what is happening – then you will see deeply what is really going on.
The less power you give to the “I”, the easier it is to be honest with yourself. That’s why it’s so easy for us to see other people’s problems and their solutions – we can see it all from the outside looking in, without the ego attachment.
Here are a couple of meditations to get you started:
You can also practice mindfulness in day-to-day life.
This is how you become accustomed to being more objective. And while I don’t know if it’s possible to ever become completely objective about ourselves, we can certainly try.
When you begin to see deeply what is going on, the first obstacle(s) to success will gradually become clearer. They slowly become visible, and then just like that – they disappear.
Good luck :)