Spiraling
My mom is a talker. It was a big problem for me in my childhood. We'd be standing around after church, the crotch of my tights halfway down my thighs, blisters forming from my hard plastic dress shoes, and she'd be carrying on with someone about the weather and the church service and the donuts and the youth group and really, anything at all. It was unimaginably boring for me as a child, so I developed a strategy. I began to take advantage of the gaps.
Every so often, there was a pause. Like a typewriter resetting itself at the end the page, I'd have one brief moment where she was silent and the person across from her was silent. And in that pause I had a choice: I could let the conversation continue and postpone taking off those damn tights for another forty five minutes. Or I could interrupt and redirect.
Nobody was going to save me from a forty five minute conversation about the weather but me. So I learned to interrupt.
We can work with our minds the same way.
If your mind tells you that you have no idea what you’re doing, nothing you’ve ever done has ever been good enough, everyone will laugh at you, and nobody is ever going to sign up for your workshop… Start writing those thoughts down. Put pen to paper. And then wait for the gap.
Meditation will increase the amount of gaps you have. Coaching will teach you how to redirect your mind.
There is always a gap. It's hard to spot the gap when everything is happening in your head, so write it down on paper.
When the gap arrives, you have a choice. You can get sucked backed into the narrative of how awful you are and what people will think of you… Or you can redirect the conversation. You can become an active participant.
This is the most important skill set you'll learn in your lifetime, for two reasons.
1. No thought is private. If you can tell people are having a bad day before they say something, people can tell you don't believe in your work before you even tell them what you do. Thoughts are the most important part of the equation.
2. If you don't participate, your thoughts will drive you crazy. Thoughts create feelings, feelings drive moods, and moods impact how we live our life. Working with our minds is how we create the lives we want.
Doing what you love isn’t just about making your own schedule and liking your work. This is about living a more awake and conscious life. Put your thoughts down on paper. Wait for the gap. Redirect your mind.