Wednesday Musings

I was listening to Kelly Corrigan’s podcast this week, and these were some of the things that struck a chord with me: 

Fear of failure often comes from being judged. Instead you should have a deep protected sense of pride just for trying. 

I have found this to be so true, and I love the idea of being proud for just trying. I feel like that is so much sure what this year is about, just trying different things. 

If you don’t dare you don’t change anything, critics and cynics keep the status quo going. 

I need to keep repeating this to myself! 

Social media has caused us to seek approval from others to a much greater extent, we often judge ourselves by what is liked or not liked- if it gets a lot of likes it was a good family vacation, a good house, a good game, etc. If it didn’t get likes then it wasn’t good.  

I took myself off social media initially to give myself more time to get my work done for grad school but then I found I didn’t miss it and I realized how much I posted to not so much connect with other people, but to humble brag about what I was doing. I also felt envy reading about what other people were doing and that led to negative and sarcastic judgments about others and myself. I stayed active on LinkedIn when I was working, partly to promote my organization, and partly to get to know my network better so I could get ideas about what I might want to do in the future. During this year off I have very rarely been on Facebook or Instagram. I think social media has some very positive community benefits but I haven’t found a way to use it so that the benefits outweigh the downsides at least for myself. I found myself becoming down and negative, and that’s not the way I want to live my life. I want to encourage and support other people and I’d much rather spend my time creating my blog then scrolling through social media and feeling disheartened and unconnected.

It’s about creating the conditions so something special can happen, not about creating a plan. 

I love this, it is so challenging for me to not plan everything out because that feels like what I should do to make sure I ‘get everything done’ (whatever the hell that means!). But at the same time I have found that letting myself be more open to serendipity and exploring things I’m interested in can create amazing opportunities. Less planning, more creating!

Dare to be changed and let that changed version of you to draw up your budget, create your to do list and lead you everywhere you go.

So writing is a very different type of occupation for me, I’m not really even sure I should call it my occupation since I’ve never published anything that I’ve been paid for, I’m just attempting to write a book. I’m trying to figure out how much time I need to spend doing the work – writing or recording what I’m thinking to put in the book, researching, talking to other explorers, etc. and how much time I need to allow myself to noodle and wander in order to find and get to the ideas and thoughts that I want to record. It’s not like the more linear jobs I’ve had, which were often about getting a lot of tasks done that I can just sit and bang out one after the other. This is a more winding path that doesn’t outwardly look as productive, so how do I know if I’m spending enough time on it or I am just finding ways to avoid work? I don’t know how much of the other stuff I’m doing actually has an impact on my writing. I worry I’m being lazy.