The Season of Getting Serious (Gently)

Kris Evergreen here. Monday, mid-September, and the fall rhythm is fully engaged now. The looseness of summer is officially in storage.

Fall is the season of getting serious — the projects, the school year, the run toward the holidays and the year’s end. And I want to make one distinction this morning that I think saves people a lot of grief: there’s a difference between getting serious and getting harsh.

Serious means you care about the thing and you show up for it consistently. Harsh means you beat yourself along the way — the drill-sergeant voice, the impossible standards, the treating of rest as weakness. Our culture bundles these together, but they’re not the same, and the second one doesn’t actually improve the first. It just makes it miserable and, eventually, unsustainable.

So this fall: be serious about your things. Show up. Do the work. And be exactly as kind to yourself while doing it as you’d be to a friend attempting the same. That combination — serious and gentle — is the one that lasts.

Serious and harsh are not the same thing. Serious and gentle is the combination that lasts.

Where in your life could you stay serious but drop the harshness?