I should have done things differently.
Now it’s too late.
I’ve missed my chance.
I screwed it up.
I should have known.
I say: baloney.
You did the very best you could do under the circumstances and with the information you had at the time.
Honestly, I’m not sweet-talking you with some feel-good mumbo jumbo here — I’m serious.
As I’ve said, in my experience everyone is always doing the best they can do — and if they could do better, they would.
So we need to bless the past. We need to settle in to the reality that the past cannot be any different from what it is.
We need to look back and realize that we have, indeed, always done the best we knew how to do — even when our best wasn’t very good. And that if the universe is friendly, we can assume it’s all been, somehow, correct.
We can wish things were different, but we might as well wish the mountains would walk down to the sea, because in this very moment, they can’t be any different.
Sometimes something happens that hurts us so deeply we think it can’t be right — it must be bad. We do something awful to someone we love. We ignore our intuition and we stay in some bad job, relationship, or situation longer than we should.
We are caught in some life circumstance that feels just horrible. I’m not saying we should paint those situations pink and call them cheerful. That would be diminishing, disrespectful, and cold.
You are allowed to feel as hurt as you are, as angry as you are, as sad as you are, as disappointed as you are.
Do whatever you need to do to express those feelings in a safe way:
bash the mattress with a whiffle bat, pray, cry, run, write, sing, apologize…
If you need help to move through those feelings, for heaven’s sake, set aside your pride/skepticism/reluctance and get some. And once we’ve worked through all our emotions, we are still left with the truth: the past is what it is, and it cannot be different.
Often, having discharged our pent-up emotion about the past, we can even see how it really was for the best — how whatever happened was a valuable (if painful) lesson for us, and we can genuinely feel grateful for the experience.
Even in the case of loved ones dying, well, we have to know that as much as it saddens us to lose time with our beloveds, we all have to die. Even with everything we know about medicine and prevention and safety, illness, death, and accidents still happen — in just the same way that unlikely healings and miracles and near misses still happen.
So we are humbled by our lack of control, and we bow our heads and still our hearts and say, “It is what it is.” And it cannot be any different, no matter how hard we wish it were so.
We can cling to the fantasy that it’s possible to change the past, or we can declare the past the past, deal with our current feelings (whatever they may be), and move on. The past is what it is, and we can move on from here.
ACTION STEP:
Repeat after me: I can move on from here.
Photo credit: Khánh Hmoong via photopin cc
“It’s big, R.J.! Big!” says the screenwriter to the old-time Hollywood producer.
Your vision may also have first appeared to you in breathtaking Cinemascope and stereophonic sound.
But you may be paralyzing yourself with the grandiosity of your vision.
Reducing the size of your project might free you up.
So rather than trying to create an international convention of lute lovers complete with presentations, performances, and a trade fair, perhaps you could host a gathering in your home for ten to twelve lute lovers.
This strategy is especially effective for test-driving Big Ideas.
I once had a client named Virginia who had dreams of opening a dance studio. Before she knew it, she was knee-deep in commercial real estate brochures and cumbersome questions about insurance and employee compensation. She was, to put it mildly, discouraged.
After some discussion of what about her initial idea had so engaged her (“working with young artists,” “bringing spirituality and dance together,” and “giving real, practical help and advice — after all, I was a dancer, too — I’ve been there!”), she realized that she could begin by offering a one-day intensive workshop.
Her church would be happy to rent her a space very inexpensively, and suddenly the idea of only having to get fifteen dancers in a room for one day seemed very doable.
Eventually, Virginia did open a dance studio that focused on the intersection of movement and spirituality, but she ended up doing it through her church, thus saving her a million administrative headaches and allowing her to focus on the part of the work that truly inspired her: teaching.
Increase the Scope of Your Project
Maybe you’re stuck because you’re bored. You’ve been thinking too small.
Perhaps rather than trying to sell your jewelry at local craft fairs, it might be more exciting to sell your items online to a global audience of moneyed fans.
Maybe rather than auditioning for the local community chorus, you’d like to book an evening at a piano bar and offer your very own one-person cabaret show.
Try this: Write down a number-related aspect of your goal, then add a zero.
So if you’ve been thinking you’d like to make $10,000, what happens when you open up to the idea of making 100,000?
If you’re working on selling five or ten of something, what does selling fifty or a hundred look like?
Rather than trying to grow your email list a person at a time, what if you found a way to grow your list a thousand people at a time?
Thinking big gets you out of your self-imposed limitations. You stop thinking about what’s possible for you to accomplish on your own, and you start thinking about what’s needed for this quantum leap to happen.
“What does the project need?” is a much more fruitful question than “How do I do this by myself?”
Ask any successful creative entrepreneur her secret and every single one will tell you, “I got out of the way of the vision.”
Action Step
Write down three to five variations in scope of your project and see which size project feels like the best fit.
(Note: Don’t worry about what you think you are capable of doing; just pick the one that makes your heart go thump thump thump and live with the idea for a while.)
After you’ve done the exercise, come back and leave a comment. I would love to see what you came up with!
It isn’t the prettiest aspect of your personality, but there it is: jealousy.
Ick. How very seventh-grade of you. But all of us, no matter how far beyond seventh grade we’ve gotten, feel jealous sometimes.
And here’s a news flash: jealousy is a gift.
Jealousy is your gut’s way of telling you that first of all, whatever it is, you want some. And moreover, you believe that you could have it. After all, you are never jealous of those who have things you don’t want.
Imagine that your best friend just added an amazing rare frog to her rare frog collection. Feel jealous? I didn’t think so.
If you have no interest in frog husbandry, you don’t feel jealous. Mystified, maybe, about why she might want to collect frogs to begin with (in much the same way your family might feel about you and your choice of a career in the arts), but in no way jealous.
Now, if that same friend suddenly lucked into an all-expenses paid six-month artist’s retreat in a villa in Provence, you might feel jealous. Because that, you want.
This is part one of the gift: the simple acknowledgment of desire.
I don’t know about you, but I sometimes pretend that I don’t want what I want. I pretend that things are okay with me when they aren’t. I pretend to be patient when I feel impatient. I pretend I don’t mind being passed over when, in fact, I mind very much.
Have you done that? Tried to quiet that “I want” voice? Hurts a bit, no?
The second half of the equation, and perhaps the more important half, is this: you believe you are capable of getting it. You are only ever jealous of things you believe you could do or have yourself.
What if your frog-loving best friend just swam the English Channel? Still not jealous, are you? Of course not, because not only do you not want to do that, but you also don’t think you have the ability.
But if that friend wins an award in something you think you could do, or reaches some milestone you aspire to, or obtains some neat thing that you’re pretty sure you could obtain if only the circumstances were right, then that green-eyed monster light is likely to start flashing.
Exercise : Harnessing the Power of Jealousy
Jealousy is a signal from within about desire and will. Add a little anger (also known by its polite name, frustration) and the recipe is complete.
Again, it’s not pretty, but it is an important message from your inner self — ignore it at your peril.
So the next time you find yourself trying to muzzle that nasty little voice of jealousy, take a moment and ask yourself:
1. Do I want that?
2. Why do I want that? What will getting that thing mean
to me?
3. Do I think I could have it?
4. What do I think is standing in the way of my obtaining that?
5. What fifteen-minute baby steps could I take today toward
that?
See if making a little progress toward your own goals doesn’t turn that jealous-monster voice into a happy-cheering-look-at-me go voice.
Keep making those baby steps toward your goal, and I bet that someday soon someone might just be jealous of you.
Play along with me and let’s see what happens in this visualization exercise.
Take three deep belly breaths and imagine yourself walking somewhere pleasant.
As you walk, you realize that you are near a large creativity center where all kinds of artists are working, playing, performing, practicing. . . and you are welcome to go exploring.
Notice what your creativity center looks like.
Is it a warehouse? An old brownstone? A Renaissance Fair–type atmosphere? Hear the sounds of people working, and as you walk through the space, notice what’s around you. What draws your attention?
Now, coming across the way and waving wildly at you, is your Creative Twin.
Your Creative Twin is like you, but also different. First of all, your Creative Twin is rich. Really rich. Super-crazy rich. And your Creative Twin is also a bit impulsive and free-spirited.
Your Creative Twin has been known to do things like buy a villa in Tuscany sight unseen and then lend it out to a friend of a friend. Your Creative Twin has gone off for six months to study traditional Japanese dance and has created art installations in the desert that can only be seen by helicopter.
Notice what your Creative Twin is wearing, and how your Creative Twin walks and moves through the world.
Your Creative Twin greets you with great enthusiasm and perhaps calls you by a special nickname. Together you walk around the creativity center, admiring the artisans and catching up.
Suddenly your Creative Twin stops short — inspiration has struck! Your Twin says, “I know! We must do a project together! This is perfect!” And your Twin begins to outline the project. Notice how you feel about this idea.
The day is winding down, and it’s getting time for your Creative Twin to jet off. As you say good-bye, your Twin gives you a word of advice. Then your Twin gives you a gift that you didn’t know you needed.
Notice how you feel about the advice and the gift. Place the gift somewhere for safekeeping, and wave good-bye to your Twin.
Take one last look around your creativity center, noticing any final thoughts or niggling feelings. Take another deep belly breath and come back to the present moment.
Now complete the following sentences about what you noticed. Perhaps one small idea will bubble up, or maybe the ideas will percolate and tomorrow you might have some blazing insight. Or maybe not. Either way, just let your mind stay blank as you write down your thoughts.
My “creativity center” was:
What caught my eye was:
My Twin was:
My Twin’s name was:
The project my Twin suggested was:
My reaction was:
My Twin’s gift to me was:
My Twin’s advice to me was:
A real-world version of this project might be:
Other things I noticed were:
Some students have wept with relief at encountering this freer, wilder version of themselves. Others have felt a little put-off, or just plain jealous that their Creative Twin had so much money and was so blithe about it.
There’s no right or wrong way to feel.
Take the parts of this exercise that inspire you, tickles you, or maybe seriously annoys you and play with them. See what comes up.
Perhaps your Creative Twin will lead you down an unexpected path toward a glorious new future.
Here’s an example of the kind of letter I frequently receive from my clients:
I know what I need to do, I just can’t make myself do it. I watch endless YouTube videos, I play computer solitaire, I fool around on Facebook — I even scrub my kitchen floors — all just to avoid the work that I know is my destiny. I get so mad at myself. Am I chasing a shadow goal? What do I do? — Elizabeth
Here’s what I would say to Elizabeth, and to you, since chances are fairly high you are dealing with the same concerns:
Rest easy, honey — you are merely suffering from a biological imperative called “displacement activity.”
Displacement activity is what happens when an animal is in the grip of two conflicting instincts, and so it enacts a third, seemingly inappropriate behavior.
For example, you’ve probably seen a chimpanzee being challenged by another chimpanzee. When the first chimp doesn’t know whether to run away or fight, he might scratch his head. . .yawn. . . look away. . . start grooming himself.
Seems like a very passive response to aggression, but that chimp will do anything to deflect the energy, avoid making a decision, and otherwise make himself as invisible as possible.
When you have the instinct to create and you simultaneously have the instinct not to create, your fear says, “Don’t do it!” And so, confused by these two equally strong instincts, you shut down and get stuck playing an online word game for hours on end.Sometimes years.
It doesn’t mean you have low self-esteem, and it doesn’t mean your dream is impossible, and it certainly doesn’t mean you’re lazy.
So the next time this happens, just recognize the dynamic without yelling at yourself.
“Ah,” you might say instead, “I appear to be having the instinct to create something. And I also find myself feeling afraid of what will happen if I create that thing.
Perfectly natural.
But my fear does not get to make my decisions for me. So I will now set my kitchen timer for fifteen minutes and just play around with my creative idea in a light, fun, beta-testing sort of a way and then see what happens.”
ACTION STEP
Spend fifteen minutes right now playing around with your favorite project.
Some years ago I was suffering from some fairly extreme anxiety.
One of the ways the anxiety manifested was that I felt like I was being constantly graded.
During every meal I cooked, every parallel-parking job, every audition, every everything, I felt like someone, somewhere, was monitoring my every move and keeping track in a big notebook about how well or, more often, how poorly I was executing my life.
Exhausting.
So I decided that if I could not disabuse myself of the idea that I was being graded, then I would just try to get a C — which is the grade you get for showing up and doing the work.
Not doing the work better than everyone else, not doing extra-credit work — just showing up and doing the work.
I was quite pleased with this idea, and I shared it with my sister during one of our almost-daily phone conversations. She agreed that it sounded like a jim-dandy strategy and wished me luck with it.
Then we went on to discuss the real topic of our conversation that day: our father had moved into a new apartment and we wanted to send him a housewarming gift. I said I would take care of it.
A day or two later we were on the phone again and she asked me if I’d sent anything to Dad yet.
“Well, no,” I explained, “because I want to get him something nice but still within our budget, and I was thinking about something for his kitchen although he already has quite a bit of kitchen stuff so maybe there ’s a better idea if we do some sheets or maybe towels, maybe monogrammed, or —”
“Sam!” my sister interrupted. “Get a C — send a plant.”
Ah, the pure ring of truth!
Ten minutes later I had spent less than fifty bucks at an online flower delivery website for a handsome dieffenbachia plant, and the next day my father called both of us to say thank you and to tell us how lucky he felt to have such thoughtful daughters.
Here’s the point: my desire to find the perfect thing for my father was preventing me from finding anything for my father.
My willingness to take the budget-friendly, obvious option (a houseplant) allowed me to do what we really wanted to do to begin with, which was just let our dad know that we loved him and hoped he was happy in his new digs.
There are two more reasons you can afford to get a C.
One, your version of a C is probably everybody else ’s version of an A.
Two, if you get your work out there and then find that it needs to be made more perfect, well, then, you’ll improve it, right?
That’s how you roll.
How is your desire to do the perfect thing getting in the way of your doing anything?
