Mar 21, 2021 | Action, Courage, Intention, Leadership, Vulnerability
“Embracing the suck” is part of the path to mastering anything new says social scientist, Brene Brown.
These days, my “new” is learning to write the stories of the amazing, courageous women I’ve interviewed for my book…I’m learning to be a storyteller, essentially. And it’s hard!
It’s hard because
- I feel responsible for someone’s story. I want to write it in such a way that I honor and convey the core essence of their narrative. I want my reader to really see the women and their experience.
- I’m so accustomed to business writing, which is all about keeping the message short, direct, and to the point. Storytelling requires me to develop a style of expounding, elaborating, and being more colorful and emotive in my writing.
- I’m working to find the balance of staying focused and on point, yet sharing enough that my reader is drawn in, as if riding a wave beside my “character,” following the rise and fall of the story’s build, the peak, and the close.
The work is stretching and challenging me in new ways. The difficulty persists, but so do I. I show up even when I don’t feel creative. I make myself write – “just get words on the paper,” I tell myself, “and the flow will come.” I feel myself growing, not only in my ability to write the stories, but also in how I tell stories to others. I’m learning about the art and delivery.
This path, and sometimes anguish, of learning something new is what I refer to as The Learning Curve. I have the (ahem) joy of being in it right now!
The Learning Curve
Whenever we come up on a learning opportunity, we have a choice of two ways to go:
- We can decide to go for it, or
- We can choose to stay right where we are…“the comfort zone”
If we choose to go for it, we’re sure to have some new muscle building with a likely series of trying the new thing and failing. It’s like learning to ride a bike as a kid and taking the training wheels off for the first time. We’re gonna fall – probably over and over and over again. Attempting and failing is hard, it’s embarrassing, it…sucks. It makes us want to quit!
If we decide instead to stay the course of where we are, it’s easy. We’re comfortable. It feels good. In other words, we can “do it in our sleep.” But we also miss out on learning new things, opening up possibility, and even discovering something we might love or be really good at, that we had no idea of before.
Anytime I come up on something new – it could be a job opportunity, realizing I need to develop a skill, or fixing something in my house – I think about The Learning Curve and weigh my options: Do I really want to do this? Is it worth it? What’s the worst-case scenario?
Sometimes I decide not to take on the challenge, and I pass on the potential promotion, delegate the task, or call that plumber. That can feel really good – and necessary. But sometimes I decide to step up, stretch myself, and I go for it, I take the leap, I DIY it. And there’s a thrill in that too. Even though it brings pain with it, which it is certain to do!
What new thing are you learning these days? How’s it going?
Hi, I’m Jeanie Duncan. I work with individuals and organizations as a transformation partner to help them unlock their Truth, discover authentic value, and create meaningful impact in the world. I believe when we are truly aligned with our purpose, we can live and perform at our highest potential. With over 25 years of experience as an executive, CEO, consultant, coach, and writer, I offer strategic, knowledgeable, and experienced guidance for those who are ready to take the courageous leap toward true transformation.
Nov 17, 2020 | Creativity, Focus, Intention
A few weeks ago, I began the practice of “morning pages” again, and I feel the shifting of my internal tectonic plates.
For those unfamiliar with morning pages, the tool comes from Julia Cameron in her book, The Artist’s Way, where she guides readers on a path to freeing their internal creative self, and introduces this pivotal daily morning writing ritual.
The idea is that you awake and, first thing as you rise, free write for about 30 minutes, emptying yourself of thoughts, ideas, wonderings, and such. Keep the pen moving for 2–3 pages’ worth and whatever comes, comes. The purpose isn’t to produce anything spectacular, although sometimes you might! Simply write.
For the last ten years, I’ve been on again, off again with this practice. Every time I start back, I wonder why I ever stop. For in these pages over time, I’ve scoped out a yearlong sabbatical, launched a business, and discovered and claimed my identity as a gay woman. Shifting plates…
I think of morning pages as a writing meditation of sorts – I watch my thoughts and feelings flow from my pen onto paper as I release about events, experiences, and dreams, and with them, anger, fear, love, joy, loss, excitement. I let go, I imagine, I question, I leap. I’m safe here – free to be whoever I am in this space and be with whatever emerges.
A practice so simple, yet I feel its quake. This time, it’s revealing my inner creative, me claiming who I am as a writer. A professional writer. Not an amateur, or hobbyist, and my craft isn’t play or my sidekick – although the roar of resistance sometimes tries to convince me otherwise.
This time around while reading The Artist’s Way, a particular passage really stood out to me – the one where Cameron describes the shadow artist…
“Artists themselves, but ignorant of their true identity, shadow artists are to be found shadowing declared artists. They often choose shadow careers – those close to the desired art, even parallel to it, but not the art itself.”
“Artists love other artists. Shadow artists often gravitate to their rightful tribe but cannot yet claim their birthright. They want to write. They want to paint. They want to act, make music, dance…but they are afraid to take themselves seriously.”
“In order to move from the realm of shadows into the light of creativity, shadow artists must learn to take themselves seriously.”
I thought, “Could this be me?”
As I process coming out of this creative closet, it feels like the fruition of a decades-long crescendo.
- As a child, I grew up with arts and creativity. My older sister, Melinda, and I took piano lessons and played our entire childhood. I performed flute in the school band, sang in my church choir and school chorus, wrote for my school yearbook and newspaper, and took up photography as a hobby when I got a camera for high school graduation.
- In college, I studied journalism and wrote and photographed for university publications. And although I didn’t plan it, my early work out of college took me down a professional path of nonprofit arts administration – my first job with a private music academy, and a dozen years later I became CEO of an urban arts council…truly my dream job.
- When I left that post, I took a sabbatical for a few months to gain clarity on what would come next in my career. How did I spend the time? I painted for the first time in my life, I learned Spanish with my son, I took up guitar lessons again, and I started a blog as a new writing challenge – all arts-related pursuits. I’d spent so many years helping arts organizations and artists build capacity and develop resources, that I was drawn to finally explore my own creativity again. The space and playground of the sabbatical inspired me to start my own business focused on my passion of helping people and organizations transform.
- So attracted to artists I am, that I fell in love with one, and in October this year, I married Lyn Koonce – a professional contemporary folk musician. Music fills our home, and I have a front row seat to her amazing work and recent new album launch.
As I reflect back on this trajectory through my recent morning pages, I can see how central art and creative expression have been to who I am and who I’m becoming.
If indeed I have been the shadow artist Cameron describes, I feel myself emerging from that and claiming my artist self. I’m a bit in awe of the revelations that come from this practice. Plates shifting…
Hi, I’m Jeanie Duncan. I work with individuals and organizations as a transformation partner to help them unlock their Truth, discover authentic value, and create meaningful impact in the world. I believe when we are truly aligned with our purpose, we can live and perform at our highest potential. With over 25 years of experience as an executive, CEO, consultant, coach, and writer, I offer strategic, knowledgeable, and experienced guidance for those who are ready to take the courageous leap toward true transformation.
Oct 27, 2020 | Action, Courage, Creativity, Focus, Truth
Fear. Self-sabotage. Procrastination. Self-doubt. I’ll bet you know some of these “characters” first-hand. I do. I know all of them…and then some, sometimes all at once! Right now, this is where I am.
Earlier this year, I shared that I’m writing a book. It’s a book on knowing and living your truth. I’m embarking on this, my most creative undertaking yet, and as I do, it’s awakening Resistance (yes, with a capital “R”) like I’ve never experienced. I’ve done hard stuff in my life. I’ve done big things, creative things and things that have terrified me. But this venture has me searching for a new way, new tricks, props – anything! to keep me focused and move me through the process.
What’s helping most is a platform of sorts that I call “Do The Work.” It may sound ridiculously simple. It kind of is. And yet, it’s bullishly hard. So, I have little reminders, like the sticky notes pictured here, posted around my office and home to keep it front and center. This maxim is becoming my #1 defense to the Resistance – this multi-headed fire breathing monster – I experience every day.
First, it has helped me to acknowledge that this project isn’t really about writing a book. In the beginning, I thought I was simply writing a book. Instead, it’s a meandering, soul quaking undertaking to:
explore what it means and what it takes to know yourself at your core
understand and challenge your deeply held beliefs
get clear on what you most want and desire in this life
realize you’re always in choice to claim and act on that desire
know that it takes a hell of a lot of courage to take that action and live the life you most want to live
What I now know is that when you begin work like this…a deep, life transforming undertaking – where you stir up the molecular juju within yourself – you awaken God and all her angels as well as the darkest dragons and demons. Daily, the battle between these allies and adversaries rattles my bones! If this sounds intense, it’s because it is.
This project as a whole is much less about the art and skill of writing (although this is important!) and far more about – Doing The Work – the discipline of showing up every day, committing this as a core part of my professional full-time business, and engaging in the physical activity of producing words on paper.
This project is also acknowledging a very important shift in me that writing is not my fluffy, amateur, side kick hobby. It’s my profession. I’m a writer. There. I said it. I AM A WRITER. My internal battle to slay the dragon is as much about claiming and owning who I am as a writer as much as it is the writing process and content itself.
Every. Single. Day. Resistance slithers in on my scene with a mission not just to slow my work or redirect it, but to derail and destroy it. It’s sneaky and cunning. It attacks not as a single strike, but rather as a slow, steady, relentless invasion. It’s deadly. And I refuse to be taken out by it. It requires me to be diligent, resolute. I engage everything at my disposal to slay the beast. In my world it shows up as:
- my other work clients needing my attention
- urgent (but not always important) project needs that spring up
- my elderly mom and her many demands of my time and focus
- a workout that I suddenly am hugely motivated to do
- the compulsion to organize my bookshelf…again, this time by title and in alphabetical order!
- monthly finances that must be reconciled NOW
- the overwhelming desire take my dogs for a walk
Early on, it tricked me. I had no idea all the attractions and distractions were Resistance.
Some of the above tasks seemed like legitimate priorities, and I thought my unquenchable desire to read more, study more, and research more were all forces to sharpen me, enhance my work, make me better. While all these certainly are important – there is a time and place for them, and it’s not during my writing time.
Resistance is seductive. The more I fall victim to Its force, the more and more and more It wants.I see you, Resistance. I’ve learned. I’m smarter now. And you will NOT beat me. You will not win.
Do The Work keeps me focused. Do The Work centers me. Do The Work has me keeping the main thing the main thing.
Now, in the mornings when I rise, I imagine the hoodie, sweatshirt, or suit I put on as a powerful, protective “Harry Potteresque” cloak – an impenetrable “Do The Work” shield to all the distractions, chaos, and fires attempting to kidnap me from my writing. I put it on. Lace it up. It’s becoming my super power.
Hi, I’m Jeanie Duncan. I work with individuals and organizations as a transformation partner to help them unlock their Truth, discover authentic value, and create meaningful impact in the world. I believe when we are truly aligned with our purpose, we can live and perform at our highest potential. With over 25 years of experience as an executive, CEO, consultant, coach, and writer, I offer strategic, knowledgeable, and experienced guidance for those who are ready to take the courageous leap toward true transformation.
Jun 24, 2014 | Courage, Intention
I have not been able to move – not one square inch – on my social media strategy. I have the most beautiful plan on paper…Really! You would be so impressed. But mostly, it just sits there.
And because I’ve had this condition for quite some time, I’ve given a lot of thought to the “why” and to “how” to overcome my procrastination.
Why my paralysis:
- My plan is complex and broad and presents me with tremendous self-applied performance pressure.
- I’m putting myself out there on the public stage, so my work must be perfectly brilliant and thought provoking, conveying wisdom and clearly articulated, intelligent thoughts.
- My dazzling strategy centers on my writing and posting a blog piece every week. Arrrgh the pressure! (see #2 above) All the other platform postings flow from this piece and from each month’s theme.
- With my business, I am it…the sole practitioner. So, when business is rolling (and thankfully it often is), I am really busy and find it hard impossible to make time to write, tweet, and post on Facebook and LinkedIn.
- Therefore, about #4, I think: “If I can’t find time to write and be present on these sites, do my prospective clients find the time?” Doubt creeps in regarding the value of planning and executing this strategy. Why write and post these amazing pieces of art and intellect when my target audience is too busy (or doesn’t care) to even read the stuff.
Moving to Action:
So, I ask myself: “How important is it to me to execute my social media strategy? My short response is “It’s really important…a 10 even!” I have the plan (did I tell you how brilliant it is?). I want to do this. I’m decent at writing. I’ve had good results from it previously (even with what little I’ve done), and many of my colleagues report impressive outcomes (the good ol’ ‘everyone else is doing it’).
How do I get off center and come alive? I’m not really sure, because nothing I’ve attempted has worked. But here’s what I’m going to try starting today:
- What would it be like if I gave myself a break? Simplify the complex, detailed plan into ‘bite size’ pieces. Instead of the pressure to execute fully and perfectly, be okay with some small, consistent steps.
- Send “the judge” on vacation.
- Quit talking about it and do it. Schedule time in realistic increments, like 15–20 minutes.
- Reframe. I’ve learned a lot from my life experiences and have access to a deep inventory of resources. Think of this as a gift of sharing rich assets with others.
- Write! Post!
- Hold myself to it and maybe enroll an accountability partner.
- Measure and acknowledge how it goes for a week or two.
- Celebrate!
- Repeat.
- And if this doesn’t go well, I can always look to other options, like hiring a ghostwriter or virtual assistant to help me.
I’m getting started today, and we’ll see how it goes. I’m hopeful!
Meanwhile, I’d love to hear from you – how do you overcome a stall and move into action?
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