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Archive for the ‘Personal Development’ Category

Travel: A Love Letter

Posted in Life, Personal Development, tagged , , , , on July 17, 2012| 8 Comments »

I’ve written before about how travel can cause us to get to know people better. What I didn’t say was that travel can help us learn to know ourselves better.

This fact is perhaps why I care about travelling so deeply. Because all those things you can find out about your traveling companion? If you’re paying attention, you can also discover them about yourself.

Travel forces us to exist in liminal spaces, pushes us into in-betweens. We are no longer inhabiting our familiar landscapes, no longer in our comfortable personal worlds. We are past the comfort zone, pushing boundaries, encouraged to see what is around us with new eyes. Grocery shopping becomes glamorous and the tenth art masterwork we’ve seen today becomes mundane.

A fjord in Norway

Travel is taxing. We are often tired from long sits on airplanes, the passage of too many time zones, making our way from point A to point B in stifling heat or numbing cold. Our bodily needs become complicated as we try to manage our hunger, our thirst, our exposure to the sun, or our aching feet. The food may be different. The language may be different. Things go wrong and fall apart, and we are left feeling simultaneously buffeted by a large, impersonal world and lifted up by strangers’ acts of kindness and generosity.

It is because travel can be so uncomfortable that it is so rewarding. We find edges we didn’t know existed inside of us. We run headlong into our assumptions. Many of our outer trappings are stripped away even while we experiment with creating personal narratives for the people we meet. And meanwhile we are surrounded by brain food or soul food or the seeds of creative inspiration, or all three at once.

Sometimes we lose ourselves, and travel is one way to begin searching. Sometimes we crave change, and travel is one way to explore the possibilities. Sometimes we need to remind ourselves that we are alive, and travel is one way to find peak experiences.

Exploring in Portugal

Travel is an active doing and a passive waiting. Travel is discomfort and pleasure, sublimity and boredom, a pain in the butt and the best time ever. Travel is flinging ourselves into the world and asking, Will you catch me? Which sometimes turns into, Can I catch myself?

We often think about travel as an exploration of the world. But it can also be an exploration of the self. In removing ourselves from our routines, our comforts, and our surroundings, we gain fresh perspective.

I had a friend ask, “By traveling, aren’t you running away from your problems?”

But sometimes traveling is running directly into our problems. We take ourselves wherever we go. The question is how serious we are about creating change. And traveling is one way to do just that.

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Be Bold and Fail

Posted in Life, Personal Development, tagged , , , , , , , , on June 19, 2012| 13 Comments »

Let’s talk about failing.

Remember Adam Baker, producer of the documentary I’m Fine, Thanks? (The movie, incidentally, has now reached its funding goals, hooray!) He had this to say about how people overcome falling into complacency:

“They started to become comfortable being able to fail. I don’t mean they LIKED failing. Or even tried to fail. But they were o.k. with that being part of the process. Often, the desire NOT to fail was what kept people trapped for decades!”

How often do we hold ourselves back because we’re afraid to fail? Maybe people won’t like our final product (or us, heaven forbid). Maybe people will say no to us. Maybe people won’t buy our book, or listen to our songs, or even know we exist, even when we’ve given it our best shot. Maybe we’ll sound stupid. Maybe we’ll realize a major flaw only after our idea/plan/creative work has already been made public. Maybe maybe maybe.

So in order to protect ourselves from all those maybes, those things that might happen in the future, we fail before we even start, by not allowing ourselves to start (or finish). In this way we can preserve some illusion of perfection, of possibility, of “I could have done this if I’d really wanted to.” Some of us have been taught that failure is an unacceptable and unendurable sort of experience, and thus, we protect ourselves from the imagined agony it will cause.

Except. Failure only has the power over us that we grant it. Failure only causes us agonies if we allow it to do so. When we reframe failure to be okay, to be a learning experience, perhaps even a way of being able to tell that we’re saying yes to our own potential, then it loses its power to wound so deeply.

Even in the hero’s journey, the hero fails before succeeding.

“Boldness is genius.” I read this post by Sarah Peck recently, and it suits my current frame of mind (I even gave a spirited live reading of it, which I wish I had video of so we could laugh about it together). I’ve been trying to be more bold lately. And you know what has mostly happened?

I’ve failed. A lot more than usual. Things have fallen through. People have told me no. Vast quantities of uncertainty have wrapped their tendrils throughout my life. I’ve miscalculated the risks involved. I’ve been disappointed and frustrated. Sometimes I have a sensation not unlike banging my head repeatedly against a hard object.

But you know what? Failure? It’s not so bad. I haven’t disintegrated into a pile of green goo. My sense of self worth still exists. Sure, I don’t particularly enjoy being disappointed or frustrated, but I’m pretty sure I’d feel those emotions no matter what, and this way I’m not giving them power over me in the same way. I feel frustrated? Let’s try something new, take a break from whatever is getting under my skin. I feel disappointed? I’ll only dwell on it until I try the next thing. And if I’m being bold, that means I’m trying the next new thing a lot sooner.

The idea that failure always equals disaster is just plain wrong. Boldness IS genius. Comfort with failure unlocks many doors. And allowing ourselves to separate from all those crippling maybes is freedom.

How are you going to be bold this week?

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It Is Okay To Say No

Posted in Life, Personal Development, tagged , , , , on June 12, 2012| 25 Comments »

“I spend way too much time worrying about whether I’m okay enough for people.” – An anonymous friend

Right now I’m feeling angry. I’m angry that it can be so easy to feel the way my friend feels right now. I’m angry because I’ve felt that way before. I’m angry because now I understand how many people encouraged me to feel that way.

Jim Hines published a brilliant blog post yesterday about boundaries. Please please please, if you have ever liked anything I’ve written on this blog, go read what he has to say. Go right now. I’m serious. Go even if that means you won’t finish reading this.

No. No no no no no.

I grew up being taught, both implicitly and explicitly, that it wasn’t okay for me to say no. I drew a few lines in the sand, but now it pains me to think of how few, and how much inner turmoil I suffered to stand up for them.

A bit more than a year and a half ago, a person I was close to finally pushed me too far. And I started saying no, the way I wish I had done many years before.

This person tried to punish me for saying no. He didn’t want there to be a problem, so he simply ignored it. He pressured me to pretend everything was fine, to be okay with what had happened, to once more make a huge sacrifice for his own convenience. He sent me manipulative emails and the most passive aggressive birthday card imaginable. He took something he knew I cared about and tried to use it to force me to see him against my will.

I only talked about this as it was happening to a few people. Because I believed that not only did this person think it was not okay for me to say no, but that everyone else–society as a whole–would agree with him. I still think that’s true to a certain extent. Many people are not okay with the idea of boundaries, that we have the right to decide what we will and will not do in relation to other people. I’m sure many people would tell me to suck it up, to be the nice girl, the good girl, and preach the power of forgiveness. Even though they aren’t even involved in any way, they would tell me to go back to being a doormat. (Why? Why does me having power have to threaten the entire world order? I have no idea.)

As an old friend of mine used to say, that’s bullshit. I no longer want anybody in my life who is not okay with me saying no. Full stop. I have drawn my line in the sand and this time it runs all the way down to the earth’s core.

It is okay to say no. Even when people react with anger, hurt, and pique, it is okay to say no. Even if it means people will no longer like you, it’s okay to say no. (These are not the people who will love and cherish you and have your back and support you through good times and bad in any case.) It is okay to take care of yourself, and you deserve to be surrounded by people who will support you in doing that.

Never let anyone tell you differently.

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Creating Your Own Life Plan: a Conversation with Adam Baker

Posted in Arts, Life, Personal Development, tagged , , , , , , , on May 31, 2012| 5 Comments »

Today I have a really special treat for you. I’ve interviewed Adam Baker, the producer of the documentary I’m Fine, Thanks, which was one of the Kickstarter projects I highlighted on Tuesday. I was really excited to do this interview because the subject of the documentary, complacency, is so in line with what I talk about here on the Practical Free Spirit: priority setting, having adventures, being willing to take risks, and living an examined life.

So without further ado, here is the conversation Baker and I had:

What originally drew you to the topic of complacency in modern life?

My own story! Haha.

My wife and I were living that exact life that we discuss and talk about in the movie. We were doing o.k., but we weren’t doing what really made us come alive.

We made choices based on what we should do – or were supposed to do – and not really what was in line with our values.

In one of your blog posts, you said that two of the interviews made you cry. Will you tell us which two?

Well, at least two! But I’m sure I know the ones I was talking about then.
The first was Jonathan Fields’ interview. And that was twice. The first time was during an emotional story he told about 9/11 – and the second was when he told a different story about his daughter (I could relate as a parent).

The second interview was Victoria from Austin, TX. She’s a successful attorney who finds herself stuck between her career, wanting to stay at home with her young daughter, and her overwhelming debt from law school. The weight of her decisions was heavy for all of us in the room (you’ll have to wait and see it). 🙂

What are some ways in which we can combat complacency in our lives?

We found two common things amongst those that had successfully fought this problem:
  • They changed WHO they surrounded themselves with. The spent less time with people who brought them down and more with time with people who inspired and lifted them up. It was really that simple.
  • They started to become comfortable being able to fail. I don’t mean they LIKED failing. Or even tried to fail. But they were o.k. with that being part of the process. Often, the desire NOT to fail was what kept people trapped for decades!

Why do you think so many people are struggling with this issue right now?

It’s so easy to get caught up in the default life path. It’s encouraged and safe. It’s comfortable. So we all fall into that pattern.

It’s far easier to live someone else’s plan for your life – rather than to create your own plan. Creating your own plan is tough – REALLY tough.

But all the people we talked to said one thing – it was worth it!

What has been the hardest part of the process of making this documentary for you?

The sheer amount of work.

We spent 16-18 hour days on production while on the road. And, honestly, post production has almost been that crazy, as well!

We gave ourselves an incredibly short time frame – I’m sure we’ll be happy once it’s over – but during the process it can be stressful!

How did what you learned through making this film change you or the way you want to live your life?

It re-fortified my belief in what I’ve been trying to do for the last few years.

I’ve been working towards a more intentional life – but always have ups and downs. It’s the meaningful projects like this that remind me to stay the course!

What can people do if they’re interested in supporting this movie?

First, watch the Kickstarter trailer. (Amy interjects to add: Check it out! It’s a kick ass trailer.)

Second, if they feel compelled – back the project on Kickstarter (for as little as $5) – which gets you a download of the movie. We have many more levels for you to back, but kept it very affordable to help share with as many people as possible.

By supporting the Kickstarter, you ensure that this story can get out into the world. If we’re successful we’ll be able to share this with tens of thousands more people!

Lastly, just spread the word. Whether you can back the project or not – sharing the trailer and the campaign with your family and friends means a lot!

We’re on pace to become one of the most backed projects on Kickstarter (total number of people supporting us) – which is amazing!

Thank you, Baker, for taking the time to talk to us about your film. I can’t wait to see it! And I can pretty much guarantee I’ll be referencing this interview again, especially those excellent points on how to combat complacency.

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Let’s Kick Self Loathing Where It Hurts

Posted in Life, Personal Development, tagged , , , , , , , , , on April 5, 2012| 47 Comments »

Elizabeth Bear recently wrote an essay in which she stated her intention to try not to self-denigrate herself out loud. You should go read it because it is thought-provoking and also because she references Sondheim in an awesome way, and who doesn’t love that?

That being said, it was a painful essay to read, at least for me. Yes, a great step would be for people to keep those tenacious feelings of self loathing to themselves so they don’t model them for others. Perhaps without the vocalization and implicit validation of those feelings, they will even lessen over time. But I can’t help but see the tragedy that those feelings of self-hatred and self belittlement are so prevalent in the first place.

In the comments section for the post, there is some mention of bragging, and how terrible it would be if one were to accidentally brag. (Okay, that’s not actually what is said, but that’s how it translated in my own head.) I mean, really, didn’t you know the world will END if you brag? Especially if you are a woman. Heaven forbid that you actually appreciate something awesome about yourself and want to share it with others. Heaven forbid that you give yourself a public pat on the back like I did last week. (And yes, I felt fairly uncomfortable about doing that, which was a signal to myself that it was important to do.) Humility is a great trait to embrace, but according to a recent Psychology Today blog post, “humble people are not self-deprecating but rather accurate in how they regard and present themselves.” And that is a big difference indeed.

I see this kind of unproductive behavior all the time. I talked to a friend this weekend who knows she is under charging for her valuable services. This is not the first friend I’ve talked to with this problem. I’ve talked to award-winning writers who are convinced they suck. On Twitter, a friend was talking about her husband, and how he gets a fabulous performance review every time at work, and then within a week or so he’s already back to worrying about how he’s doing. So many of us have so much trouble embracing our strengths and talents and believing in ourselves.

I recently read some blogging advice that said that in every post, you should be revealing all of your own weaknesses and mess-ups and personal disasters because that is what people like to read. And it’s true, there is a certain appealing rawness to that sort of writing, and certainly it’s not always the most helpful or communicative (or honest) to set oneself up as perfect. But aren’t success stories also instructive? Do I really have to focus only on the parts of me I don’t like in order to engage an audience? We as a culture seem to have this idea that we aren’t allowed to acknowledge our own awesomeness. Instead we wallow in insecurity and resentment, and at our low point, we try to tear other people down because we can’t raise ourselves up.

Photo by Kate McCarthy

Well, screw that! I love that Elizabeth Bear shows how this kind of behavior doesn’t just hurt ourselves, it hurts the people for whom we are role models–it is particularly brilliant because it tricks people into healthier behavior by playing on their concern for others. But can we take it a step further? Let’s have this concern for ourselves. Let’s acknowledge when we do something well, or when we come through in a difficult situation, or when we face our fears and do important work anyway. Let’s acknowledge that we are allowed to have something to say, that we are allowed to have opinions, that we are allowed to value our own expertise. Let’s acknowledge that we are worth it.

And let’s all take a moment to brag and celebrate our own awesomeness. (Oh, the horror!) Leave me a comment and tell me something amazing about you. It can be something small, like the way you rocked your To-Do list yesterday, or it can be something large, like how you raised millions of dollars for charity. Tell me how great you look in that outfit, or how many books you read last year, or the amazing high score you got on your GRE/SAT/whatever test you want. Tell me about the awards you’ve been nominated for (or won!), or the way you totally helped someone out, or how you met one of your goals. The sky is the limit, and the only rule is, you have to brag. About yourself.

I’ll start us off. I sold six stories in my first year of selling anything at all. I am super smart. I have a great smile. I spend most of my time doing things that I love and/or really care about. I read thirty books in the past three months. I am a passionate and dedicated blogger. I am an intellectual bad ass.

Yeesh, that was uncomfortable. And now it’s your turn. Guilt-free bragging! Who’s with me?

I can’t wait to read about how amazing you all are.

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Taking the Red Pill

Posted in Life, Personal Development, tagged , , , , , , , on March 6, 2012| 10 Comments »

I haven’t been writing recently about being a people pleaser, or becoming more assertive, and other topics like that. You know why? Because it’s hard. It’s hard to change how you react to things. It’s hard to tear your life apart, examine it from every angle, and then slowly put it back together again. I often put pieces on backwards, or they just don’t fit right even though I’m hammering at them for dear life.

But then I read this essay by Penelope Trunk, who is, as you know, one of my favorite bloggers, and I realized I should write about it more. Here is what she had to say:

“It’s hard to know who to take advice from. But my instinct tells me that the best advice comes from the people with the most difficulties. Not in the past. But right now. Because that’s where you want to be: doing something difficult right this moment.”

So yeah. I’m doing something difficult right now, so maybe it is worth talking about, even though it’s dangerous and messy and I don’t have all the answers. I don’t want to give you advice as much as I want to illustrate that people can in fact do this–that people can change themselves, that people can look at themselves and say, I could be a lot happier than I am, and then take positive steps to make it so. Because I meet so many people who seem to think that almost everything is impossible, and that just isn’t true.

Here are two things that happen when you have actually made strides at changing your people pleaser tendencies: people will freak the hell out, and you will realize you have spent most of your life listening to very bad advice.

People will freak out because, even if they are actually decent people (and sadly, some of them aren’t), they are used to you being a doormat. You suddenly deciding you’re not a doormat is vastly inconvenient and confusing. It disrupts the normal patterns of all your relationships. Even the people who are generally supportive of this change will sometimes freak out, because oh my god change and where do they fit into this new picture?

As for the bad advice, it’s amazing how willing many people are to support you making decisions that are outright harmful for you. Society as a whole is quite okay with this notion too. There are two forces at work here. There are the people who are taking advantage of you in some way. It is obviously in their best interest to give you bad advice about continuing to be a doormat with everyone; they have a vested interest in you continuing to drink the Kool-aid. And there are the people who are doormats just like you, who don’t have good advice to give since they are in the same unfortunate position, and who wouldn’t give the good advice anyway because then it might force them to examine their own position, which they don’t want to do because of the chaos that would then ensue in their own lives.

Of course, once you have that lightbulb moment in which you realize how generally absurd most of this advice is (and wouldn’t that make a fun post one of these days?), there is no turning back. You have taken the red pill, and you begin to wonder: why was pleasing these people ever so important in the first place? So instead you sit back and watch them freak out, and you remember that you are worth it. And you keep resisting the gravitation pull of going back to the old comfortable ways that were holding you down.

 

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There Is No Magic Bullet

Posted in Arts, Personal Development, Writing, tagged , , , , , on February 7, 2012| 4 Comments »

Sometimes when we are on the road to excellence, we get a little tired. We wish we were already there. We wish the road had a literal signpost saying “You have made it, and you can officially stop worrying and consider yourself to be awesome.” We wonder if we should have chosen something easier to do with our time. And we think that maybe there is a magic bullet, something we can do that will–Bibbidi bobbidi boo!–make us more amazing.

Let me make this part of the road simpler for you.

There are no short cuts. There are no magic bullets. There are no sure things. There are no easy paths. So if you want something quick and easy, excellence isn’t the end goal for you.

Photo by Trey Ratcliff

Sure, there are activities beyond diligent practice you can do that will help you progress. In writing, these include attending workshops, reading slush, seeking out critique experiences, reading craft books like The 10% Solution, etc. In singing, these include participating in master classes and workshops, auditioning, obtaining performance opportunities (however humble), studying with different teachers, etc. But none of these methods are foolproof, and not all of them will pan out.

Take the various Clarion workshops, for example. Working professional writers often cite their Clarion experience as being pivotal in their development as writers. These are the stories about Clarion that we hear most often. But then there are the writers like Alexandra MacKenzie, who took ten years after the workshop to be ready to learn from one of her instructors. Because you can’t always control the timing of these sorts of things. And there are also the Clarion attendees who stopped writing altogether; these are the ones we hear about the least, and yet they assuredly exist. Why? Because no way of leveling up is foolproof. No way of advancing works for every single person.

The path to excellence doesn’t often go flat like a plateau only to suddenly rocket steeply upwards into awesomeness. It is a gradual process, a long slow incline upwards. As Seth Godin says, it is a series of hills, one after another. Those who continue to improve keep choosing new hills to climb that are just on the edge of their abilities.

Sometimes the path feels like a flat-line that suddenly springs up, but this is an illusion. I saw it all the time with my students in voice lessons. They would work steadily and gradually improve, so gradually that they didn’t even notice it happening. They would struggle with a concept and it wouldn’t quite be clicking, and they’d get frustrated and discouraged. At this stage in the process, it was my job as the teacher to keep pushing them, keep encouraging them, keep them singing even if they were ready to throw in the towel. And then inevitably, they’d finally understand. Their bodies would finally coordinate correctly, the muscle memory would finally develop, the ideas we were talking about would finally make actual instead of theoretical sense. And they’d experience a leap in ability. A leap that was really a slow mounting of ability all along.

That leap in ability is just around the corner for all of us. If we practice diligently and intelligently (directed practice as opposed to blind repetition), we are pushing ourselves forward along the path. The leap may come next week or it may come next year. It may come after we take a month-long break or it may come after a few weeks of intense practice. We don’t know when it will come. Excellence requires us to have the faith to sustain us while we work.

We must believe the leap will come. But it won’t come because of magic. It will come because of our own hard work.

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The Pursuit of Excellence, or How Becoming Awesome Takes More Than 30 Days

Posted in Arts, Life, Personal Development, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , on February 2, 2012| 13 Comments »

I have devoted my life to the pursuit of excellence. The Greeks called this areté, striving for excellence, living up to the best of one’s potential, and facing challenges with courage and persistence. I wanted to be the best student. I wanted to become a skilled singer. I wanted to travel around the world. I wanted to be an effective teacher. And now I want to be a masterful writer.

Areté has been one of the driving forces of my life. I care about people and relationships, I care about my health (only because I can’t get away with being indifferent to it), and I care about excellence. That’s not to say I don’t have other interests, passions, and concerns, but these three things I think about every single day.

Here’s the thing about mastery: it tends to be all-consuming. It requires commitment to make your practice one of the highest priorities in your life. It requires patience and fortitude while you struggle to improve. It requires the willingness to be bad (especially when starting out) and the strength to fail.

J.S. Bach--an undisputed master of musical composition.

Mastery takes time. It’s not easy to achieve, and anyone who tells you otherwise doesn’t know what they’re talking about (or they’re looking for a snappy headline that will drive page views or book sales). I used to have voice students come in for lessons, expecting to become fabulous singers with a month or two of lessons (and barely any time outside of that devoted to practicing). Guess what? They never became fabulous singers. They learned some basics, and that’s as far as they went. (Strangely, parents understand this about their kids and usually (although not always) insist on more commitment. Adults were by far the most egregious in terms of thinking singing would be an easy skill to acquire.) Sure, some of my students could skate by on their natural skills for a while, only to eventually arrive at the realization that if they wanted serious chops, they’d have to put the effort in.

Mastery takes focus. I’ve always hated it when people ask me what my hobbies are. The question triggers me to think about how I spent my time. For years, the real answer was: I sing in different genres. I play the piano. I love to sight-read. I compose and write songs. I adore musical theater. I think about educational theories and new ways to help my students learn. I think about the psychology of singing.

Nowadays, I write and I read. I analyze and research and think and learn. I go to bookstores and conventions and signings. It’s not that I have no interests outside of writing, but I have to dig deeper to unearth them for casual conversation, and I have a tendency to relate my other interests to writing in one way or another. Have a bad experience? Well, it will be useful for my writing sometime down the line. Like RPGs or theater? Well, they let me study different ways to structure stories. Travel? Broadens my horizons and lets me envision worlds outside my daily one.

Mastery takes diligence. I love this example of Steve Martin. He devoted himself to learning how to perform live comedy and play the banjo. Then he changed over to making movies. Then he changed over to writing fiction. Then he began to focus some more on the banjo again (and won a Grammy for his efforts). The article (which you should go read because it is super interesting) posits that his success is due in no small part to his practice of diligence.

Commitment. Time. Focus. Diligence. And the dream of someday being able to accomplish what you can only imagine right now.

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Bad Luck, Good Luck

Posted in Life, Personal Development, tagged , , , , , , on January 24, 2012| 10 Comments »

I am a very unlucky person:

I had a difficult childhood. I suffer from chronic health problems. My mom died when I was nineteen. I don’t fit in easily with many groups. I attract people to me who take advantage of my over-niceness/over-empathy. Sometimes people have treated me very poorly. There have been many times in my life when I’ve been forced to make hard choices. I’m a little bit accident prone. I’ve had dreams and aspirations that haven’t come true and never will in the future. I get rejected a lot. Sometimes people don’t listen to what I have to say. I have often felt very isolated.

I am a very lucky person: 

I gain immense personal satisfaction from my creative work. None of my medical issues thus far have been life-threatening or impacted my quality of life permanently. Also I have health insurance. I take a great deal of joy from life, both from the small things and the large ones. I have traveled all over the world. I have been able to spend the majority of my life pursuing interests and careers that I deeply care about. I had access to a good education. People have gone out of their way to be helpful and kind to me. I am able to change. My empathy allows me to connect with people on a deeper level.  I have a lot to look forward to. I have plenty of resources and opportunities. I have been able to help and inspire people. I have people (and dogs) who I love deeply.


These are both stories I can tell about myself and my life. Both of them contain statements of truth; both of them contain some statements that have nothing whatsoever to do with luck (and some that do).

I had trouble writing the unlucky one. Not because I was making things up, but because that is not the predominate story I tell myself. It’s the one that creeps up on me when I’m tired or discouraged or in pain. It’s the one that makes me doubt myself. It’s the one that makes me want to choose the easiest way.

The lucky story is what I tell myself every day. It is where I find much of my happiness.

In which story do you spend most of your time?

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Life is a Work in Progress

Posted in Grief, Life, Personal Development, tagged , , , , , , , , , on January 10, 2012| 7 Comments »

I don’t really like pain, and I don’t like to feel uncomfortable. Sometimes I daydream about my ideal life, when I have fixed all my problems, have everything I want, and am exactly where I want to be in my career.I will never achieve that ideal life. And thank goodness, because if I did I’d be bored stiff…in which case I would have a problem, wouldn’t I?

Seth Godin published an insightful post last week entitled “Trading in your pain,” in which he outlines two common problems we can have due to our relationship with pain.

The first is the “if only” syndrome. We think if only something (fill in the blank) happens, then everything will be great and we won’t feel pain/discomfort/ uncertainty anymore. If only I meet the right person. If only I buy the right house. If only I remodel. If only I get an agent. If only I sell my first novel. If only my sales figures exceed a certain golden number. If only I win this award or make that bestseller list. If only I get this promotion. If only I was better or had more or …

That’s not generally the way things work, though. Whatever “if only” you’re hoping for (and I’m holding out for several myself), even if it happens, it will open the way to new challenges, new problems, new if only’s, and new pain as you strive. That’s okay. It doesn’t mean you’re not doing well. It doesn’t mean you’re not good enough. It’s just life.

The second is the “fear of change” syndrome. We sometimes become comfortable with a certain flavor of pain or discomfort, and we hold onto it really tightly so we won’t have to deal with another, unknown flavor instead. We become frozen. Stagnant. Afraid of success and the new problems success will bring us. Afraid of a different failure mode and how that will make us feel.

Behind the GateWriters who don’t write are having this second problem. They are used to dealing with the failure mode of “I suck because I’m not writing” and don’t want to address whatever issues might come up if they actually did write: “I suck because I’m not selling” or “I suck because I’m not selling enough” or “I suck because now I have to make business decisions” or whatever.

But I see this problem everywhere, not just in writers. We make ourselves at home with a certain problem, and settle in for keeps. And in the process, we get stuck. We can’t move on; we can’t grow.

Our identity and our personal narrative become entwined with our pain. I’m the girl whose mother died when I was only nineteen. That’s not who I am anymore. It is, however, who I could have been. It is who I was for a period of years. And then I let go and moved on. Instead I’m the girl who loved her mother very much.

Pain can be your friend. It will be lurking nearby for your entire life, and that’s okay. It means you’re alive, and it reminds you that you care what happens. It can push you forward instead of holding you still. It can give you focus instead of causing you to scatter. It can make our priorities clear to us.

If you could shed one “if only” or do one thing that makes you frightened, what would it be?

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