All In. Not Attached.
In psychology, Detachment has multiple meanings, but it primarily refers to an emotional disconnect from others or a situation, or the ability to be objective and rational during a difficult situation.
Outcomes Lie
Take weight loss.
You can do everything right. Eat clean, exercise daily, sleep well.
Then one salty meal, or one glass too much water, and the scale lies to you.
The number says you’re failing.
Your body says you’re progressing.
That’s the trap of outcome obsession.
You can’t control the number.
You can only control the inputs.
Love isn’t in the ring.
Same thing with relationships.
If the “outcome” you’re chasing is marriage, stop and ask:
To what problem is marriage the solution?
Because if you’re fixated on the outcome, you risk missing the plot.
The moments.
The tiny acts of love that actually matter.
Think back to your own relationship or one from the past.
When was the last time you felt most loved?
It probably wasn’t a vacation.
Or a ring.
Or a purse.
It was smaller.
Quieter.
More human.
Like the story divorce lawyer James Sexton tells:
One client described how, in the beginning, she always felt loved.
Why?
She liked a certain brand of granola. Whenever it ran low, the next day there would be a fresh bag waiting.
She never asked.
She never had to.
It was just there.
That was love.
Stop measuring, start living.
Outcomes make you yearn.
Processes make you grow.
When you detach from the outcome, you stop begging the future to validate the present.
And when you go all in on the factors you can actually influence : your choices, your actions, your attention.
Guess what, you usually end up with a better outcome anyway.
But more importantly, you don’t miss the moments along the way.
Detachment isn’t about caring less.
It’s about caring better.
When you truly learn detachment, you learn to control your inputs.
If what we wrap our sense of worth is our outcomes, the only way to dance over burnout, uncertainty, doubt, is to learn to detach.
When you commit to the processes in place, when you grace yourself with deviation, your outcomes will always trend in the right direction. Only when you zoom in will it look like a zig-zaggy staircase.
But as that’s life. The life you can reflect on, you can laugh at and more importantly feel deeply.
Cheat meals taste so much better when you are actually on a diet.
