Chasing Enough - Impossible Equations and Expectations
- 11 hours ago
- 7 min read
For the first time in a long time, Jorge and I took a day off together.
It wasn't anything extravagant. We had booked ourselves into a sauna and float session, and somewhere between sitting in a room that was far too hot and wondering why we voluntarily pay to sweat, we started talking. Really talking. It had been a long time since we'd done something like that, just the two of us with nowhere to be and nothing else competing for our attention.
It's funny what happens when you sit in a room together for long enough. Eventually, the conversation moves past the practical things, and you start asking the questions you haven't really made time to ask.
We've been in Brisbane for six months now, so I asked him, "How are you feeling about the move?"
In true Jorge fashion, his answer was measured.
"I don't know yet," he said. "I'm still figuring it out. It takes time to understand a place properly before you can really have an opinion."
It's such a Jorge answer. Thoughtful. Considered. No rush to arrive at a conclusion before he's gathered enough information.
Then somewhere in the conversation, without really thinking about it, I said something that had probably been sitting quietly in my mind for months.
"I just feel like I'm chasing enough."
He looked at me for a second and replied with a question.
"How can you chase enough?"
I looked back at him, slightly confused.
"What do you mean?"
"Well," he said, "if you're chasing something, by definition you don't have it. But if it's enough... doesn't that mean you've already reached a point of having what you need? How can both be true at the same time?"
I don't know if you've ever had one of those moments where someone asks such a simple question that your brain almost freezes.
Suddenly I wasn't thinking about Brisbane anymore or even about the word “enough”.
I was thinking about the sentence I'd just created and the fact that I'd put two ideas together that couldn't actually exist at the same time.
I had created impossible equations and expectations, and yet I'd been asking my brain to solve them every single day.
The more I thought about it, the more fascinated I became because this wasn't really about the word enough. It was about something much bigger. It was about language.
We use words every day without ever stopping to ask ourselves what they actually mean.
Worse still, we put words together that sound perfectly normal because we've heard them so many times, yet when we slow them down, they quietly contradict one another.
We spend our lives asking our brains to solve equations that were never designed to have an answer.
The equations and expectations we’re unknowingly creating
A few days later, I was coaching a client who said something remarkably similar.
They told me how frustrated they have been feeling, as some relationships at work have felt very superficial. Rather than exploring the problem, I asked them to define the words.
"What does the word relationship mean to you?"
They described it as:
Loyalty.
The people you intentionally chose to have in your life.
People you can rely on
People you have known for a long time
Then we unpacked the second word.
"What does superficial mean?"
Surface level.
Functional.
Limited.
Transactional
Without adding anything else, I asked one question.
"How do those two words, by your definition, co-exist?"
They stopped, almost instantly. They immediately realised they had been measuring colleagues against the definition reserved for close friendships. Of course, work relationships felt superficial. They're designed to be functional, transactional even. Some become friendships over time, but most begin and end because you simply happen to work in the same place.
Nothing at work had changed; the people at work hadn't changed, but my client's language (and consequently their mindset) had shifted, and suddenly their expectations of work relationships changed with it.
The difference between clarity and chasing is everything.
When I finished the session, I sat there thinking about my own impossible equation, the silent conversation running in my own mind. I needed to unpack it, so I did the same coaching on myself as I did for my client.
"I'm chasing enough."
I stopped thinking about the sentence and started defining the words.
What does enough actually mean to me?
What does it look like?
How would I know I'd reached it?
What would someone watching my life actually see?
What would I be doing?
How would I feel?
As I started writing my definition, something unexpected happened. I realised I already had most of it. Not all of it, but far more than I'd been giving myself credit for. I even went as far as rating each of my “enough” statements on a 5-star scale, asking myself what I would need to get this to a 5-star rating. And you know what, I knew the answers, and 5 stars wasn’t difficult to achieve.
It then hit me: I wasn’t chasing enough; I was actually chasing clarity around the small pieces that were still missing.
They're two very different pursuits.
One is impossible because it can never be measured.
The other can.
Undefined expectations have a way of becoming impossible standards.
It made me wonder how many of us are living inside impossible equations we've never stopped to question.
"I just want certainty."
"I need everyone to like me."
"I'll relax when I'm successful."
"I need perfect balance."
They sound like ordinary sentences until you stop and define the words.
How long have we been walking around carrying our own impossible equations? How many times have we wondered why things don't quite feel right, why we never quite feel ready, or why we wake up asking ourselves, is this all life has to offer? Is this it?
Perhaps the problem isn't our circumstances. Perhaps it's that we've unknowingly created expectations that can never truly be met. We end up chasing ideas we've never defined and asking our minds to solve equations that were never designed to be answered.
Maybe it's time to find our impossible equations... and rewrite them.
Finding the impossible equation you're trying to solve
This week, I'd encourage you to listen carefully to the language you're using with yourself.
Write down one sentence you hear yourself repeating.
Then forget the sentence for a moment and instead circle the important words.
Define each one separately.
What does it actually mean?
What does it look like?
What would someone else see if it were true?
Then put the sentence back together and ask yourself one simple question.
Can these definitions co-exist?
Sometimes, the biggest breakthrough isn't changing your entire life; it's about changing the equation you've unknowingly been asking your mind to solve.
As I think back to that afternoon sitting in the sauna with Jorge, I realise he wasn't really asking me about the word enough. He was asking me to look more closely at the question I was asking myself.
It turns out they aren't always the same thing.
Maybe that's true for all of us.
Perhaps the words we repeat every day deserve a little more of our attention, because chances are we've never stopped to ask ourselves what they actually mean.
I walked into that conversation believing I was chasing enough, and walked out realising I was searching for clarity and they're two very different pursuits. That is, one keeps us endlessly reaching for something we can never quite define, and the other gives us something real to work towards.
Perhaps this week isn't about finding more. Maybe it's simply about finding the impossible equation you've been asking yourself to solve... and then giving yourself permission to write a better one.
Until next week,
Vikki
In this blog, I've shared just a glimpse of a few NLP concepts and techniques. If this sparks your curiosity and you'd like to explore more, or even consider becoming an NLP Practitioner yourself, we'd be delighted to welcome you to our in-person NLP certification training.
Our next sessions are scheduled to run in Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane in 2026. We'd love to see you at one of these NLP training sessions.
Click here to learn more about our NLP Certification Training and secure your place.
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