My Green-Eyed Monster

Here I sit with no shortage of topics to write about or projects to delve into. It is snowing outside with no signs of letting up until early tomorrow morning - or so says the weather report. Which should mean that cozy in the confines of my home/office this should be a very productive day. But if you ask me how many words I have written (it is now after 1PM) the answer would be to count back to the first word in this paragraph.

Eighty-five.

Not very impressive.

But that - I have come to realize - happens.

That is part of the struggle of being a creative.

That is the angst of being a creative with enough left brain tendencies to be annoyed with myself when not accomplishing what I think to be a day's work.
That is what will reoccur no matter how many times I  have gotten to the other side of this quagmire.

I am always surprised when I am in this spot. I wanted to believe the last time was - the last time. I am no less frustrated than I was before. I know all the tricks to get past this. 

Set the egg timer. 
Sit. 
At my desk.
Don't move until it goes off. 

But that does not mean that any of them are going to work.

The Resistance - as Steve Pressfield has so eloquently described it - is my green-eyed monster. 

Everyone has one. Mine comes equipped with little gray pellets it shoots at me than make either want to take multiple naps or do a lot of laundry. And sometimes - just when I think I am about to rise above it - my monster shoots another set that sends me off to Facebook or Twitter so I can read all the great stuff other people are writing or doing while I am just making my list. Rather than inspire me or egg me on - it makes me want to take- yet another nap.

Until something happens.
Like now.
And I get to hit publish.




Like this blog? Don't want to miss the next one? Sign up here to have it delivered right to your mailbox!

It All Comes Back To Here

I know this place. I've been here before. Right before I am about to embark on something new this fire starts within me that screams STOP! Danger Zone! Get out while you can! And it is all I can do to keep it at bay.

The weirdest thing about it is you would think it would make me want to run. Move to some less expensive city where no one knows me and get a job at Starbucks. (I hear Starbucks gives their employees  health insurance, a lure if ever there was to aspiring to become a barrister. But I digress)

Instead of the urge to flee I become frozen. My brain locks. And I come up with 101 things to do that are not on the task at hand. Like writing this blog.

Yes, I am right on schedule for my next book, part guide, part manifesto on creating more time for your life. Which means if the demons trying to get in the way of my time line don't win, somewhere around May 15 you will be able to buy a copy.

The irony is that I wrote this book to help others with exactly these kinds of hurdles and here I am avoiding writing the book blurb and checking the last set of edits. I am not listening to my own wisdom. I hate when that happens. But I know why.

I am afraid. I am always afraid when I am here. I am afraid of failure. I am afraid of success.

And even though I know this is the good kind of fear, the kind that pushes my boundaries and propels me forward, I still tremble.

I know where to start. With the timer. My secret sauce. The source of inspiration for this new book. You'll learn more about the timer soon. But for now let's just say I'm test driving the content.

The Toll Booth On The Information Highway

Change will always occur, whether we want it to or not. Sometimes it is for the betterment of the world and other times we question it. We seek it in our lives, for we know without change things can get boring. Change is borne of desire for something different and so is what keeps us alive.

Yet so many of us avoid change. We hold on to what is, convinced the devil we know is better than the devil we don't. Or we worry that the change will affect our little acre of land in this world. So we resist it, holding on tight until our knuckles turn white trying to stop it.

Right now there is legislation in Washington trying to pull the reins in on change. It is funded by those who fear they have the most to lose. Financially. It has been written by those who don't fully understand the infrastructure much less the implications of what they are trying to control. What they do understand is the Internet is basically free. And while we say we are the "land of the free" we prefer to figure out ways to charge everyone for everything.  Ironically, it is one of the few pieces of legislation that has bi-partisan support.

The interesting thing is the same people trying to curtail the change are the ones who dismissed it early on.  They thought things like the Internet and the free exchange of information were a passing fad that would have no effect on their brick and mortar establishments. Turns out they were wrong and now they want to try and stop it. Without really understanding what they are doing.

Should there be rules of the Internet highway? Of course. But don't try to push through ones like SOPA and PIPA whose primary interest is to erect a toll booth on what was a freeway.

I'd like to send you to other websites for more information on what is going on. But according to the pending legislation I may no longer be able to do that. Parts of these laws would curtail bloggers like myself from linking to anything without express permission and in fact possibly shut me down if I linked to something, somewhere that was not in full compliance with the new rules. Their justification? That someone, somewhere is not getting their nickels worth of royalty on possibly copyrighted material. 

So to give you a taste of what that world might be like, I'll leave you to fend for yourselves if you are interested in more details. Turn on the TV. Buy a newspaper. Spend some more money.  Imagine a world without Google.

Hard

Some days it's all so hard. Fill in the blank for "it".

Your job is difficult.
Writing the book is taxing.
Starting your business is grueling.
Trying to get the new funding is onerous.
That Pilate's stretch is arduous.
Your relationship is wearing you thin.

Some days it's all so tiring that  I for one just want to go lay down on the couch and wait until the hard part passes.  Curl up with a trashy magazine or the remote, a big cup of tea and a blanket and linger.

Except I rarely do that. Most of us don't. Guilt gets in the way. We keep pushing. And we wonder.
Why is it so hard?  
Should it be?
Is the exhaustion we are feeling a sign maybe what we're trying to do isn't right? Or is this just simply the resistance that Steve Pressfield talks about or the "lizard brain" as Seth Godin calls it trying to sabotage us?

That answer is rarely easy. Most of the time it is the resistance to that  next level we are reaching for. That's part of the deal when you choose an unconventional life. It's also the reason why so many opt for a more conventional route. Happier does not mean easier.

But this is where so many of us get tripped up. We bail out because we think things are supposed to be simpler. We live in an On Demand world and so we wonder why is this not happening on demand? We're not making the progress somebody thinks we should be making so we press the button on that remote to  switch to the next screen.

Sometimes it's not the resistance. Sometimes it is time to change the channel. But how do we know that?

I'm not sure there is an easy answer. But I think it  involves pressing the pause button instead of stop and engaging in the underrated activity of breathing long enough to get out of your head and back into your body. Then listen. Your body will tell you what to do next. It might be as simple as writing a blog.

What do you do when it all seems to get too hard? 
How do you tell the difference between resistance and wrong?

The Resistance Lives

The word keeps popping up everywhere I go. Resistance. So it shouldn't really surprise me that when I heard my crush, Seth Godin was going to be at Borders at Columbus Circle with some other writer, that person turned out to be Steven Pressfield, the author of The War of Art.

The Universe is like that. When it wants to make its point, it keeps hitting you over the head.

The concept of The Resistance is what The War of Art is all about. I admit, I would never have picked up a book with War in the title. I'm just not drawn to those stories. But after listening to Seth Godin and Steven Pressfield engage in a lively, poignant and for me timely discussion about The Resistance I took a copy of this slim book home with me. And yes, I read it in its entirety.

When Seth refers to Art in Linchpin, he stretches the word beyond the traditional definition. Steven Pressfield speaks to Art in reference to his own writing. The common thread is that no matter how you define Art, Resistance to it will be there. Every day. Resistance to doing the Work. And without the Work there is no Art.

I have been resisting my Work. As I am getting all the details together for my coaching practice, my fiction has taken a back seat. The conversation in my head has been going something like this. Is the coaching taking away from writing ? And if it is, am I using it as a form of resistance? Should I not coach? But I want to coach. I like helping people. I feel that pull in the same way I feel pulled to write. I'll write later, after I get this page finished. But not a page is finished yet. Not the coaching page for my site or a page of fiction. No Art. Of any kind.

It's been a heated discussion. The Resistance morphed itself in the form of the debate and endless chatter in my mind. The Resistance has been winning, coming up with all sorts of reasons not to sit down and do The Work.

I never expected all this Resistance. I imagined when I was still handcuffed to the chair of my Corporate office that when I was on my own there would be no Resistance. But that was because I saw the Resistance as someone or something other than me. When the truth is The Resistance is my own terrorist plot, one that lives inside trying to stop me from doing my Work. Somedays the security level is on high. Somedays less. But there is never a day, where it's threat does not exist. It's just up to me to be on alert.

Woody Allen said "Eighty percent of success is showing up" He left out the part that once you show up, you have to sit down and do the Work. That is if you want to create Art.