When you say you’ve tried everything and nothing works, what do you actually mean?

That you’ve tried all the things you know to try?

That you’ve tried all the things you are interested in trying?

Because, even if I don’t know you, I do know that you have not tried ALL the things. That’s just not possible.

I say this because this morning I sure feel like I have tried all the things!!

But, if I am honest with myself, I have actually been extremely choosy about which things I try.

As we should be!

OF COURSE I don’t advocate for doing a ton of shit you don’t want to do.

AND your dream is here to grow you. It’s going to stretch you. Some parts are going to be uncomfortable.

So it’s like I have spent a lot of time looking for the most comfortable to do the thing I want to do, and now it’s time to… just do it.

Do the work I have not wanted to do.

But this brings up a quandry.

Creative Dreaming is NOT about working your ass off, or following someone else’s, or society’s, rules about “how you should do things”

There are huge swaths of grey area here. Like, there are ways to make an annoying task less annoying. There are a million productivity hacks out there.

But before exploring those, we need to be with the parts of us who don’t want to do the thing. Listen to them.

We need to validate our actual experience.

There are no hacks for this.

But if you just go with the hacks and ignore what parts of your own self are telling you about why they don’t want to do the thing… well, ugh. That can lead to productivity, for some people, sure. But at the cost of wholeness.

So when I talk about making an annoying task less annoying, I want to stay VERY FAR AWAY from productivity life hacks, lying to myself about how I feel and what I want, or any form of bribing myself to do things I do not want to do.

How can I GENUINELY make it FEEL RIGHT to do these things?

Maybe there are hard things to be done. Maybe some parts are uncomfortable. But does it FEEL RIGHT? Am I acting in alignment with my own values?

Am I really listening to myself about HOW to proceed?

That is an especially tricky question to answer when we don’t know how to do the thing we want to do because we haven’t done it before. So we have to leave space for experimenting and learning.

But if we keep making space for our actual feelings, and listening to the parts of us who don’t want to do the things, we do find answers.

I have come to a place where I know - it’s time to do some of the things I have been avoiding.

I even feel somewhat energized to figure out a plan for how to do them. To get some help to move out of my comfort zone.

This is the part that is so hard to put into words because it's entirely non-linear.

But when you STAY WITH IT you do WORK THROUGH IT. Even though it often doesn't look like WORKING THROUGH until you've already worked through.

So - keep showing up!

 

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