by Jenna | Nov 14, 2012 | Writing Articles
In my last post, I wrote about the cycle of creative burnout and how our creative inspiration becomes depleted when we push ourselves too hard and for too long.
I'm well acquainted with burnout; it's a cultural norm in the field of urban design, my last "real" J.O.B. The writing profession has its own set of deadline-driven, high-stress work.
In the creative realms, including writing, artists are often seen as people who work in fits and starts, pulling all-nighters when they suddenly become inspired (or finally stop procrastinating).
I've allowed myself to enjoy the feeling of heroism that comes when I swoop in and save the day, meeting the deadline with just seconds to spare, but I've paid high prices for every single one of those dramatic experiences: apathy, resistance, confusion, grief, exhaustion, and lifelessness.
And truthfully, I STILL feel like I'm recovering from the bad choices I made working 60 and 70 hours a week more than 10 years ago.
Balance is a myth? I don't think so.
It's been said that balance is a myth and that passion should reign supreme.
I disagree.
Imbalance is an amateur's gig.
Balance -- an ongoing cycle of work and renewal without resorting to extremes -- is part of not hitting bottom in the first place.
Balance is about staying sane.
It doesn't mean that we don't work hard and play hard at different times.
But it does mean keeping an eye on the greater whole and not bingeing on any one thing at any given time.
So what DOES a cycle of creative renewal look like?
The cycle of creative renewal
It looks like this:
by Jenna | Oct 24, 2012 | Writing Articles
I had a lovely chat with a friend recently about applying to a school program she's interested in. She confessed that even though she very much wanted to attend the school, she hadn't yet completed the application.
Ah!
That familiar friend: Procrastination.
Why do we procrastinate about things that are important to us?
Why is that when it comes time to do the hard work, whether it's taking action on our businesses, filing important paperwork, writing that longed for novel or script, or making time for our art, we stall?
I mean, sure, it's hard, but we've also said how important it is to us. We've spent money on classes, books, training, and support. We've written it into our schedules. It's clearly a priority for us, right?
So why so much talk and not so much action?
It's the size of the dream that matters.
I'll say that again: It's the size of the dream that matters.
The more important something is to you, the more fear, procrastination, and resistance you experience. In fact, the level of fear you feel seems to be directly proportional to the size of the dream.
Perhaps even a little bigger, just for good measure.
"The more we care about something, the more we dream, the more fear shows up."
~ Robert Maurer, author of One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way
The problem: We're wired to shut down in the face of fear.
The fact that our brains are wired to shut down in the face of fear is what creates the entire conundrum in the first place.
As Robert Maurer describes in One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way, when our brains go into fight-or-flight mode, our frontal cortex -- our thinking, rational brain -- is automatically shut off so that we can respond appropriately and quickly to the threat at hand. This is a natural response to fear. Unfortunately, our mid-brains, home to the amygdala that governs the fight-or-flight response, can't differentiate between the fear that comes up when we're confronted with a tiger or when we're contemplating completing the next great opus.
And so suddenly your thinking, rational and creative brain is completely turned off . . . which when you're attempting to create and design new business ideas or a screenplay, isn't so helpful.
The good news
The good news is that when you can learn to expect the fear to show up, you can normalize it and make it okay. Then it's easier to be compassionate with yourself and coax yourself through the tasks at hand.
I've learned to recognize my own resistance routine and treat it like a familiar visitor I know how to handle.
I tell myself, "It's okay, I know you're scared, you can do this anyway." And I do.
It helps that I make a point to tackle things in small pieces, just the way Maurer recommends: "Small, easily achievable goals -- such as picking up and storing just one paper clip on a chronically messy desk -- let you tiptoe right past the amygdala, keeping it asleep and unable to set off alarm bells."
This is why, even on really tough days, you'll still find me writing at least 15 minutes a day on my screenplay, six days a week, no matter what.
The really good news?
The more work you do in small steps, the more your brain gets rewired with new neural pathways and new habits, making resistance so much easier to overcome.
Warmly,
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by Jenna | Aug 1, 2012 | Writing Articles
Last week I wrote a post called, “Stop buying stuff and do the work.” It resonated for more than a few people — and I had promised to write more about WHY we don’t do the work.
So why don’t we do the work?
First, an example.
For years (literally) I said I wanted to write, but I managed instead to fill my plate with training after training after training, and volunteer job after volunteer job. I studied with Coach For Life and Sonia Choquette, pursuing certifications with them. I started and ran organizations like the Sensitive Professionals Network, Six Sensory San Francisco, and a Coach For Life graduates forum, not to mention working as a youth leader with a youth group.
I read (and bought) countless books on coaching, intuitive development, angels, high sensitivity and so much more. Some of them I hardly even opened.
Then I spent more time, energy, and money on learning business skills and developing my message with several high business coaches, and completing hand analysis training.
And while I don’t regret what I was doing — after all, I have tremendously deepened my self-knowledge, grown as a person, learned a ton, and met wonderful people along the way, I was keeping myself so busy that I wasn’t pursuing my true dream of writing.
Throughout that time (and for years before it), I had a nagging feeling that I was “waiting for my life to start” and yet I wasn’t taking action to change anything. Instead I was filling my time doing all those other wonderful things.
And they were wonderful — but in hindsight, it was still resistance.
What’s that about?
It’s all too easy to think we are too busy, that we don’t have enough time. Or that we just need to get better organized. Or just get this one more thing done first.
And the thing is, we feel good that we are contributing great things to the world and our community and that we are learning so much.
And we are. We do.
ALL of these things are true.
We are not bad people after all, we have good intentions and we are interested in so many things.
But why does the one true dream always fall to the bottom of the pile? Why do we make choices that keep us from our dreams?
This is not a new answer
In my case — and I suspect it is true for many people if not most — it’s fear.
This is why we buy stuff we don’t need, keep ourselves too busy to think or connect inward to our deeper selves, procrastinate, spin in circles, get apathetic, and all those other things that add up to resistance.
Because it is scary.
Pursuing your truest, deepest dream is the most frightening thing imaginable — you might not even consciously recognize that you are afraid.
It’s your own hero’s journey
Pursuing your true dream — your art, writing, business, or passion — requires massive amounts of courage. It’s your own personal hero’s journey. Every single day you have to be willing to face down your personal demons, fight the resistance, and forge ahead.
It’s no wonder we want to avoid it, right? And we are so clever that we don’t even know that’s what we’re doing.
Time to clear the decks and answer the call to adventure. It’s waiting for you.
Warmly,
by Jenna | Jul 25, 2012 | Writing Articles
One of the biggest mistakes I see people making (and I do it myself) is buying and investing in various products, books, and services but never actually doing the work.
It’s tempting to think that if we just invest in X then we’ll automatically have Y.
It’s just like a gym membership — the only way to lose weight or get in shape is to actually go and workout. You can’t just pay for it, you have to use it.
Say and pray doesn’t fly
Even programs that are well designed to give you a regular, daily opportunity to participate, it doesn’t pay off to sign up and just “hope it works.” You actually have to do the work, make the hard choices, and face the difficult obstacles to get the results you want.
In our instant gratification society, we want to believe that there’s a single cure-all or an over-night remedy that will just fix everything while we sleep.
Doesn’t work like that, unfortunately.
And when we combine it with a culture where most of us feel broken and like we need to be cured, well, it’s not too hard to see we’ve got a problem.
Ways we do this
Here are some examples of the ways we do this:
- Enrolling in a gym but not using it.
- Buying books but not reading them.
- Going to healers but not doing the exercises or integration work they assign us.
- Taking classes but not implementing what we learn.
- Signing up for programs but not participating in them.
I’m guilty of all of these things. How about we make a pact right now to stop the madness?
The sad thing is that so many people are spending so much money on programs and training (I see it in the coaching world in particular, but it’s also true in writing, business, etc.) but never taking the time to integrate or even implement what they’ve learned. And sometimes before one class is over they’re already signed up for another one. Many people are in thousands and thousands of dollars in debt as a result.
Solutions
Here are a few ideas about how we can change this up:
- Ask yourself, “Is this truly important to me?” If the answer is yes, figure out how to make it happen. Your actions demonstrate your priorities. Period. Figure out a way to be all in. If the answer is no, let it go and move on.
- Make space for it: Something I learned from Miriam is to block off time in my schedule for learning. I love it.
- Look at the stockpiled “stuff” you’ve already invested in and make a clear decision about what you sincerely want to use. Let the rest go.
- Question whether or not you are truly ready to learn anything new right now. Consider your energy, bandwidth, and other commitments. Consider not signing up for or purchasing anything new unless it’s 100% in alignment with your highest priorities.
- If you don’t have the bandwidth but you want to take something on, be clear on what you’ll give up to make it happen. One of the biggest mistakes I see writers making, for example, is hoping they’ll have time to write instead of creating time for it. I see this with entrepreneurs, artists, and sensitives as well.
Bottom line
We’ve got to stop torturing ourselves by taking on more than we can handle. In a way, doing that is a form of resistance. Look to see what sacred priority is being forced to the bottom of the pile because of the choices you’re making. Is that okay with you?
Warmly,
by Jenna | Jun 13, 2012 | Writing Articles
I was emailing with a beloved client this week who was concerned about setting herself up for failure by taking on something she might not be ready for.
I said, "It's not about failing or not failing, it's about learning what works for you and what doesn't, and refining until it does."
She made a great choice to take a midway step toward the thing she was considering.
In the meantime, our conversation got me thinking about failure and our relationship to it.
The Payoff of Incapacity
Then today I started reading Steven Pressfield's new book, Turning Pro: Tap Your Inner Power and Create Your Life's Work. (If you haven't read his stuff, don't wait. He's amazing.) He says:
"There's a difference between failing (which is a natural and normal part of life) and being addicted to failure. When we're addicted to failure, we enjoy it. Each time we fail, we are secretly relieved."
He argues that when you remain addicted to failure you allow yourself to indulge in the "payoff of incapacity." And what's the payoff there? Leaving your talents "unexplored, untried, and unrealized."
And doesn't that make sense?
Let's face it, fulfilling your dreams is wickedly terrifying. What if you do fail? What if you can't rise to the challenge?
It's safer not to try. Easier to stay addicted to failure.
But you don't really want to be a zombie, right?
To me, the risk of not trying is much more costly.
Our culture is filled with shadow people -- speaking of zombies, these are the real walking dead -- never pursuing their hopes and dreams, selling out for the American dream and not living their own.
We pay with our souls when we don't do our Work.
Edison Knew Better
In various online sources, the numbers differ about exactly how many times Thomas Edison failed when he attempted to make a light bulb, but there is agreement on one thing: He made so many attempts that most of us would have given up long before he did. LONG before.
His take on the situation was to say that he had not failed, but rather proven that all those other methods did not work.
Design Better Experiments
Which takes me back to my client and the principle I shared with her.
When we choose to see our "failures" as failed experiments, we can design new ones, and see what works better.
Create Better Systems
For example, I have been terrible about filing for years. On Monday it dawned on me that I simply need a better system and that I haven't completely finished designing that system. I've worked on it, it's better, but it isn't done. That's all. It's not that I'm a bad person or even bad at filing, it's that I don't have a workable system yet.
Look at What's Not Working
As another example, at one point I had a bad system for paying my team too. They would email me their invoices and I would procrastinate about paying them. It wasn't that I didn't want to, it was that it seemed overwhelming. Sometimes I'd even be worried the invoices would be too high. I'd have to force myself to download and open their invoices, figure out how much I owed them, write the checks, address the envelopes, get them in the mail, etc. I'd do it, but it felt like pulling teeth. I was often late.
Needless to say, no one was very happy about it, so we came up with a new system.
My team members now put their invoice numbers and amounts due in the subject lines of their email messages to me. At a glance, I know exactly how much I owe them. We also made an agreement that I'd pay them no later than 2 days after I receive their invoices. And they all send them on a specific day every other week. I also have sheet of pre-printed address labels for each of them ready to go.
Now, when the time comes, I just whip out my checkbook, write out the checks, drop them in the self-sealing envelopes, decorate them with the address labels and stamps and voilà. Done.
Something I used to dread has become simple and doable, just because I took the time to create a system for it.
This Works for the Big Stuff too
When it comes to the big stuff, your Work, this works too.
For example, if you want to build your business, but you're not taking steps each day to do that, look at what's getting in the way and what you're doing instead.
If you want to write but you think you don't have the time, look -- really, truly LOOK -- at what you're doing with with your time.
If you want to put yourself out there for speaking gigs, getting more clients, doing more art, or going on more auditions, look at what you're doing, or not doing, to make that happen.
Then create a system to help you overcome the roadblocks you're unwittingly putting in your own way.
Bottom Line
The beauty of taking time to really LOOK at where your systems are breaking down -- at where you are "failing" -- is that it can make a huge difference in your sense of accomplishment and belief in yourself. Which is so worth the investment.
