The news has made me weep almost hourly and I am done with feeling outraged, feeling powerless and feeling frightened.
It’s time to reclaim our creative power and become a relentless force for kindness.
And when I say “time” I mean right now. This very minute.
We creatives have been OK with taking a back seat for too long.
The time for change is now. This very minute.
If you want to live in a world in which creativity matters, then you must act like creativity matters.
Yours first.
And then everyone else’s.
If you want to live in a world of compassion and tolerance, then you must behave compassionately and tolerantly.
Starting with yourself.
Then everyone else.
This means:
No name-calling.
No blaming.
No eye-rolling.
No over-dramatizing.
And most of all: no quitting.
This means:
You don’t get to call yourself, “lazy” or “a failure” or “not good with money” anymore.
You don’t get to point the finger at the family, the teachers, the economy or the media and blame them for your lack.
You don’t get to stand on the sidelines and pretend like the world economy doesn’t have anything to do with you.
You don’t get to huff around making loud noises about moving to Canada when there is a whole world of people out here who need your art, your stories and your voice more than ever before.
I know it’s hard.
I know it’s hard to not let the state of the world turn your mood dark.
But our weapon is the light.
Our weapon is politeness, good humor, firm resolve without violence and most of all, of creativity.
The time to find unusual solutions and out-of-the-box ideas is now.
We’ve let those other guys be in charge for too long, and it’s time we reclaimed our rightful place as the shamans, jesters, prophets, documentarians, dancers, poets, potters, teachers, healers, music-makers, magic-makers and makers-of-things.
Our work brings people together.
Our work reminds people of our shared humanity.
After all – we all want the same things.
We all want to eat good food and love somebody special.
We all want to feel like our work matters.
We all want to laugh at good jokes and be with our friends, especially when times are especially good or especially hard.
All of us.
Every person of every stripe throughout all time has wanted these things.
So if you want to bring people together, do it around the things that you have in common.
I’ve heard that marriage equality progressed faster than anyone thought it could thanks to “Will and Grace.”
And I know for a fact that “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” helped end slavery.
Matthew Bourne’s “Swan Lake” changed our ideas about masculinity, and Neil DeGrasse Tyson is now regularly on my old friend Stephen Colbert’s Late Show, making astrophysics cool again.
And wasn’t it teeny-bopper-Tweeter turned pop-culture-goddess-superstar Taylor Swift taking the stand against sexual harassment this week?
Art matters.
Artists matter.
You matter.
So do not allow yourself to sink into despair.
Rather: allow yourself to sink into the work that has been calling your name.
You don’t know how much your novel, your sexual empowerment workshop, your yoga, your paint (or paint-by-numbers) might change the world.
So don’t let anyone (not even the voices in your head) tell you that your work is foolish, is selfish, is unnecessary or should be put off until tomorrow.
It is time to be a relentless force for creativity, kindness and joy. This very minute.
At Crossfit on Saturday, I was really challenged by one of the exercises.
(To be fair, I’m challenged by nearly ALL the exercises at Crossfit. Crossfit is no joke.)
I was sweating and panting and red-faced and getting lapped by everyone else in the group. I felt weak and frustrated and left behind. I felt like a failure. I wanted to cry. I did cry. I was mad and exhausted and my arms and legs were shaking. My only thought was, “Just don’t quit. Just don’t quit. Just don’t quit. You can suck at this, you can go slow, you can hate it but you CANNOT quit.”
All the while, I was seriously considering quitting.
Just then, the instructor came over to me and asked, “Does it hurt? Or is it just hard?”
I looked her in the eye.
“It’s just hard,” I said.
She said, “OK. Good.”
And she walked away.
I’ve been thinking about that a lot: some things are just hard. But as long as no one’s getting hurt, it’s worth it to keep going.
You’ve asked me the same questions over and over and over again.
And mostly they have to do with discomfort.
“I’m not sure my work is good enough.”
“I’m an introvert so I never go to events or conferences.”
“I clam up when it’s time to state my prices.”
“I feel like everyone’s going to know that I’m a fraud.”
“I’m totally tech-phobic.”
And you let these persistent thoughts keep you stuck in the dim grey of not-doing.
And the world spins on.
You don’t start your business.
You don’t write your book.
You don’t make enough money.
You don’t make friends with powerful people.
You don’t fulfill your creative promise.
And the world spins on.
Waiting for your work.
Waiting for you to be bold.
Waiting for you to share your heart with us.
It’s like we’re in some odd stand-off: the world is waiting for your art, and you are waiting to feel comfortable.
This is totally backwards.
You will never feel comfortable BEFORE you take a risk.
You only feel comfortable afterwards.
(And, to be frank, sometimes not even then.)
So you dwell in a twilight of discomfort.
No crashing failures.
No exhilarating leaps of faith.
Just the slow drip of
“I’m not ready,”
“I’m not sure,” and
“Now’s not a good time.”
And the world spins on.
But honey – now is the ONLY time there is.
All of us – we only have today.
Tomorrow is promised to no one.
So please –
Grab your discomfort by the nape of the neck and drag it along with your art into the clear light of day.
And I promise – if you smile while you do it, we will be so dazzled by your bravery that we won’t notice if you wobble a bit.
Smiling and wobbling our way into the future, together we can make this world a better place.
That person who expressed interest in your work, but you never followed up with them…and now you think that too much time has passed, so you don’t reach out to them.
The friend who was having a tough time, and you wanted to call or write, but you got busy and now it feels weird.
The thank you note you didn’t send.
The invitation you never made.
The opportunity that passed you by.
It’s a TERRIBLE feeling, isn’t it?
Guess what?
It feels terrible because it’s FALSE.
It’s not too late.
It’s never too late.
As long as you have breath in your body, it is never, ever, ever too late.
If you are still thinking about it, then the possiblity is still alive.
The fact that it is still on your mind means that it is NOT TOO LATE.
But there is a challenge here:
You are going to have to change.
You are going to have to sacrifice
– your perfectionism
– your embarrassment
– your discomfort
– your misplaced pride
– your big idea that you know how long something is supposed to take
and GIVE IN to the DESIRE you have to take action.
It’s time to put on your Big Girl Panties.
And I know — you think about reaching out to that person, or pursuing that opportunity, and you cringe.
It feels scary.
But trust me: you would not still be thinking about it if it weren’t the right thing.
And who knows? Maybe NOW is an even better time than before!
Maybe now is the perfect time.
So here….to make it easier for you, I’ll give you a little script to use:
“Hello X,
I find myself still thinking about you and XYZ today, so I wanted to follow my intuition and reach out.
If it feels right, I’d love to connect. Are you available to talk on DAY at SPECIFIC TIME or OTHER DAY, OTHER TIME?
If not, no worries – but I’d be remiss if I didn’t even ask.
I hope this finds you well.
Yours,
Me”
Take a chance.
Turn that regret into action.
Open yourself up to some new information.
Your email pings. Your message app pings. Your other message app pings. You’ve got forty-seven notifications and thirteen new requests and an overflowing inbox. It all seems urgent. After all, it pinged. That must mean it’s important.
Your brain is hard-wired to respond to immediate stimulus. This is another survival mechanism. Anything that sounds like “Alert! Something is happening!” gives us a little hit of adrenaline, whether it’s a rustle in the bush that indicates a hungry tiger is nearby or a text from the spouse reminding you to get milk on your way home.
Correspondingly, our brain releases a hit of the “feel-good” chemical dopamine each time we feel a sense of achievement, even if that achievement is simply texting back, “Yes. Milk. Love you.” As Simon Sinek explains in his brilliant book Leaders Eat Last, we can get addicted to the cycle of doing and doing and doing, and we fail to notice that nothing is actually getting done.
We get addicted to the cycle of doing and doing and doing, and we fail to notice that nothing is actually getting done.
Bringing just a bit of mindfulness to your daily movements can help a lot. One way to check in with yourself is to play the Because/Because game.
The Because/Because game asks you to pause for one moment before you begin an activity and ask why you are doing what you’re doing and why you’re the person doing it.
So, in the moment before you start catching up with the bookkeeping for your side hustle, you might have this conversation with yourself: “Why am I doing this bookkeeping? Because it’s important to me that I know whether this side business is really profitable. Why am I the one doing this? Because even though I dislike doing these kinds of detail-oriented tasks, I’m the only employee.” Now, this awareness might not lead you to hire an assistant immediately, but once you’ve had this conversation with yourself five times in a week, you might start to see the value of getting some help.
On the other hand, if you find yourself dreading a visit to Sad Susan, your friend who just ended yet another disastrous love affair, you might hear yourself thinking, “Why am I going to see Susan? Because she needs a shoulder to cry on. Why am I the one doing this? Because even though Susan’s love life is a non-stop soap opera, I care deeply about her happiness.” Remembering your true motivation can put a smile back on your face as you stop off along the way for the margarita mix and ice cream.
Little Changes Action Step: Put a few of your least favorite activities through the Because/Because game. Are there any that you could you eliminate from your life today?
The good news… this quick tip will help you with any project or goal you are interested in starting or completing.
Now find the tension between you and your goal and get started today!
Chapter 14 – Minimum Daily Requirement
Now, I love home-remodeling shows, but I also believe that we are naturally inclined toward productivity. We love to be learning, doing, and playing. We love to stretch and grow and solve problems, and we love to feel like we’re making a contribution to the world . Too much unstructured time can be stressful and depressing. When we don’t know what to do with ourselves, we give up.
The trick is to inject some creative tension into your life. The word tension gets a bad rap, but remember that it is structural tension that holds the keystone in every arch — and sexual tension is often the beginning of all kinds of wonderful things .
Think of a goal that frightens you a little bit, something that stirs you up, maybe even something that you’re pretty sure is impossible. Let it loom large in your mind. Connect with it. Feel the energetic relationship — the tension — between where you are now and where the goal is. Feel that energetic spoke of the net between you and that goal, and let that tension to pull you forward into taking one first step.
When you’ve taken one step, celebrate. It’s easy to brush aside first steps, especially when you believe that you really should be farther along already, but don’t. You did something, which is more than you did yesterday. Which is excellent. Be proud.
