Sunday night musings

So another weekend has come and gone and here I am on Sunday night, trying to make the most of the final few of the forty-eight hours we are given to recuperate for another week. But instead of indulging my ego and drinking a bottle of red wine to avoid thinking of Monday morning, I'm drinking wine and using this time to be productive and nurture my goals and think about what I'm going to do this week to work towards my dreams (that is to be a published writer and contributor to whoever will have me!).

Seriously though, I'm tired of feeling defeated on Sunday night because somehow, over the weekend, my goals and dreams didn't materialize in time for the alarm on Monday morning. Maybe this change in attitude is partially due to a fantastic dinner I had with a dear friend whom I've known for now more than half of my life. We were catching up after not seeing each other since January (an issue deserving of its own post), talking about our lives and what we want to be doing and it became so obvious that despite our dreams and possessing the abilities to achieve those dreams, we hold ourselves back, self-sabotage and procrastinate, all while watching other people with less experience or skill succeed.

It got me thinking about something I think we overlook on a daily basis - how important it is to encourage each other to pursue our dreams. I will be the first to admit, that until recently if I saw someone, especially another woman, who was successful and appeared to have what I wanted, I was so jealous. That jealousy manifested itself into hostility often towards people I barely knew. It was as if I was looking at life like there was a finite amount of success to go around and each time I saw someone else who appeared to have it, it somehow lessened my chances of succeeding. It's embarrassing to admit and is petty and completely unproductive. What I should have focused on was drawing on their experience and learning about how they achieved their success. My sister gave me a proverbial kick in the pants this past week in that regard, pointing out how ridiculous it is not to learn from the people I have around me for fear of looking like I don't know what I'm doing. As she said, people are usually pretty happy to discuss their own success, so after this post is done, I'm going to take her advice and send an email to someone who has achieved what appears to be success I would like to replicate.

The bottom line: We need to believe in ourselves but we also need to know others believe in us too. Having girlfriends and family who follow up (read: stalk you) and make sure that you are actively working on your goals (read: not procrastinating) is essential to succeed. I recently had my husband, my sister and my cousin all asking me about my progress on finishing an article I had been working on for two months. They were interested in knowing how I was doing, but more importantly, knew that eventually, I would tire of hearing myself make excuses for why I hadn't finished. (I am happy to say, I've finally finished the article and sent it to the travel editor at the Globe and Mail last week. While it would be nice to be published, I'm just so happy and extremely proud of the finished article regardless of if it ends up in the paper or not).

So now I am returning the favour. I've promised my dear friend with whom I dined on Friday night, that I will haunt her via text message, checking in to see if she set aside time to work on her business plan for a business that is almost undoubtedly going to succeed. You know who you are and I'm coming to get you! As a very smart man once said to me, you owe it to yourself to do this.

A lot of inspiration comes from doing

The blinking cursor is like a child jumping at me to get my attention – anxious, persistent….annoying. So to pacify it, I start writing. And so that is how the story goes. From that leap to just start writing I rediscovered how much I enjoy writing. No...how much I LOVE writing.

I had pushed that passion aside for awhile, but one particularly frustrating day when I was also feeling very defeated (I'll never start my business! I'm not original!) and sorry for myself (I'm doomed to toil away for years in this cubicle!!), I realized I needed an outlet for how I was feeling. So I just began writing. Writing about anything and everything I wanted to explore, externalize, criticize, analyze or just enjoy reflecting upon. This was the best thing I could have done and it led me to take note of some things that often hold us back (I'm assuming I’m not alone in this boat):

• Anne Lamothe is right – writing means getting it all out on paper, starting with a 1-inch frame of vision and not giving a crap because first drafts should be shitty. It’s like the go-button for verbal diarrhea. But amidst the outpouring of ideas and words, may be a few gems that would never have seen the light of day had you not plummeted through paragraphs of garbage first. I am actually quite amazed that this really works. Our brain works in crazy ways our conscious mind can't even get, and we have so much stored in there, but often no desire to go sifting through the clutter. Seeing what develops or is uncovered in your own mind is like watching your own hand moving on a Ouija board. It's all in there and seems to take on a life of it's own when the dark corners are lit up and swept out.

• This leads to my second insight – just go with it. I’ve made a point to consciously recognize potential material from the most trivial, mundane things to the completely obvious. I let my mind wander now, with an awareness of an observer, wondering where it will take me. It’s pretty fun and has validated daydreaming. Letting your mind wander is way more productive than we are raised to believe it is. I think the notion to curb daydreaming was probably set out by the "doers" in society. They were probably just jealous of a daydreamer's creativity.

• We are our own worst enemy. Sure, we’ve all heard it before, but this enemy takes so many forms and appears at so many times in our lives, that I firmly believe we often don't recognize this enemy staring us in the face. We mistake it for our practical mind, or tell ourselves we are being realistic when in reality we are stopping ourselves in our tracks. This goes hand-in-hand with Anne Lamothe’s chapter in Bird by Bird, called ‘Shitty First Drafts’. It really puts into perspective how contrary our own mind can be. We cannot create and criticize at the same time. Our brains won't allow it. That’s why the first draft (or the brainstorming or the daydreaming, or the wish-listing) should be allowed to incubate and grow away from our critical mind that can't help but pick it apart. This not only to writing but also to our aspirations in life. For example, I realized that I’m the one telling myself that my writing isn’t good enough, or I’m not established enough or different/unique enough or that someone already is doing this or that, so why bother at all??!! You get the picture. I’m stunting any possibility for growth with that kind of thinking. I’m not letting my aspirations incubate and grow to see where they lead.

• Lastly, although my husband said this a while ago (and yes, it is yet another example of him saying something, me not ‘getting’ it the first time around, and then months later, having a ‘Ah-Ha!’ moment as the pieces fall into place). He told me when I was plotting my way to entrepreneur extraordinaire as writer (I'm writing a book) and decorator of kid's rooms and painter of artwork for children (I want to start a business), to put all the planning and number crunching and dream-busting self-criticism aside and “focus on creating" first. I scoffed at this horse-before-cart-mentality. Why on earth would I want to have paintings just sitting around with no business set up through which to sell them? But he couldn’t have been more right. There is a certain power and inspiration that comes from doing, especially when you are doing it because you love it. Though I haven’t landed any blog-writing jobs or a freelance assignments, nor have I been hired to consult on an interior design for kids segment in my favourite magazine (Style at Home btw, if any of their editors are reading this), I am writing with a renewed passion and less self-criticism.

I hope that I am honest and don't limit myself, that others will also see how genuine and passionate I am in my work. Who knows? Maybe it will pave the way for some welcome changes to my incoming-earning years ahead of me.