Settled, But Not Settling
By Dean Attwood - Mindset and Performance Coach and Anxiety Expert
There is a difference between being settled and settling.
And I think we often confuse the two.
Being settled is not about creating some perfect internal state where nothing bothers us, nothing challenges us, and nothing gets under our skin.
Life will still bump into us.
People will still disappoint us. Plans will change. Things will go wrong. Someone will say the wrong thing at exactly the wrong time. We will still get tired, frustrated, irritated, hurt and overwhelmed…
Being settled does not stop the bump.
It changes what happens when the bump comes.
And sometimes, before we do anything with that bump, we need to create some space.
There is a reason we use the phrase ‘sleep on it’.
When we are angry, stressed, overwhelmed or caught in the middle of something, we instinctively know that perhaps now isn’t the best time to make the decision, send the message or have the conversation.
We need some space.
A conscious step back, a night’s sleep.
Yes, the situation hasn’t changed at all.
The person hasn’t changed.
What happened hasn’t changed.
The problem may still be sitting there waiting for us.
But something in us can have changed…
Perhaps not dramatically.
But we have created some space.
And within space, a pause, a moment, just like within a breath…there is opportunity.
An opportunity to see something differently. To reframe. To change perspective. To step outside of the box we couldn’t see beyond when we were standing right in the middle of it.
We might regain some self-control. We might reflect differently. We might find the beginning of an up spiral rather than continuing the one that was taking us down.
And within this space, there is another skill we can practise.
Finding some certainty within the uncertainty.
Because sometimes everything around us really is chaotic. We can’t control what somebody else is going to do. We don’t know how something will turn out. We might not have all the answers.
But we can still, as best we can, keep our head.
We can acknowledge the uncertainty without having to become as uncertain as everything around us.
That is a skill.
Not forcing calm. Just finding something within ourselves that is a little steadier than the chaos around us.
And perhaps that’s another part of what it means to become settled.
There is an old example I have always liked;
Imagine you are walking through a coffee shop carrying a cup of coffee and someone accidentally bumps into you.
Coffee spills everywhere.
Most of us immediately focus on the person who bumped into us.
The frustration.
The inconvenience.
The hot coffee.
The mess.
And understandably so.
But there is another part of that moment worth looking at.
Why did coffee come out of the cup?
Not because somebody bumped into you.
The bump explains why something came out.
But coffee came out because coffee was what was already inside the cup.
And that is the bit I think we often miss.
Life bumps into us all the time.
Sometimes gently.
Sometimes incredibly hard.
And when it does, something inevitably comes out of us.
Anger.
Fear.
Defensiveness.
Control.
Blame.
Impatience.
Resentment.
Or perhaps; Patience. Perspective. Compassion. Curiosity. Calm.
The ‘bump’ did not necessarily put those things there.
It revealed what was already being carried.
That does not mean we blame ourselves for our reactions. Nor does it mean we excuse the behaviour of the person who caused the bump.
It simply gives us somewhere much more useful to look.
Because if all of our attention remains on the person, the event, the unfairness, the frustration or the spilled coffee, then we can spend an enormous amount of our lives trying to control the bumps.
Trying to make people behave differently.
Trying to make life become more predictable.
Trying to make sure nothing presses the wrong button.
And that is exhausting.
Being settled asks something different of us.
It asks:
What came out?
Not as criticism.
As information.
Because our reactions tell us something.
They show us what we are carrying.
And sometimes that might be something we need to feel ….
Sometimes it might be something we need to understand.
Sometimes it might simply be something we need to acknowledge that has been sitting there far longer than we realised.
This is where being settled can become incredibly powerful.
Because being settled is not passive.
It is not accepting everything.
It is not becoming so calm that we become numb and stop caring.
And it certainly is not settling.
Settling says:
This will do.
Being settled says:
I can see more clearly from here.
That is very different.
You can be settled and still want more.
You can be settled and still challenge somebody.
You can be settled and still have ambition.
You can be settled and still decide that something in your life is no longer good enough.
In fact, sometimes being settled is exactly what allows us to do those things.
Because we are no longer making every decision from the spill.
We are not simply reacting to the bump.
And this is where we move from being settled to not settling.
And no, I’m not about to tell you that now is the perfect opportunity to get out a notebook and write down your five-year goals.
Quite the opposite.
After the breath.
After the space.
After the reflection.
We can simply ask:
Where am I right now; Me, Myself, I?
What is simply no longer serving me?
What momentum do I want to maintain — and what momentum needs to stop?
Because not settling doesn’t mean constantly chasing something bigger.
It doesn’t mean every part of our life needs improving.
And it certainly doesn’t mean that being content is somehow a lack of ambition.
It means being able to look honestly at where we are without immediately needing to run away from it.
To acknowledge what is good.
To recognise what isn’t.
To notice what we are carrying.
To decide what deserves to come with us.
And then, from a more settled place, decide where we want to go next.
That is where the real benefit sits.
Not in becoming impossible to disturb.
Not in somehow creating a life where nobody bumps into us.
But in becoming increasingly interested in what those disturbances reveal.
Life will continue to bump into us.
We probably cannot do much about that.
But perhaps we can become better at creating the space between the bump and what happens next.
A breath.
A night’s sleep.
A moment of acknowledgement.
Not to get fixated on getting everything right, but to give ourselves time to notice what came out and find healthier ways to deal with what we're carrying.
Because the bumps will keep coming.
Maybe the real work isn't trying to stop the cup from spilling.
It's changing what's in the cup.
