Shut up, danger-loop!
A strategy in the battle of creative workers v. themselves
Today, write about how you handle setbacks. Say you’re working on your book and chugging along with it and you get a little bit stuck and before you know it, you’ve spiraled into a why am I even doing this I’m the worst writer I’ll never get this book finished much less published and who do I think I am working on this? Or, you’re submitting your work and, eh, rejections happen but after about the fourth or fifth one for this particular piece you’re pitching, old stories come up and you are suddenly feeling ridiculous for even trying.
We have all been in that mud. It’s the fucking worst and it feels very true at the time.
Write all about that today. But also, read this post about rejection.
But, while we’re talking about these danger-loops we get ourselves into, I also want you to consider what might happen if before you did anything else, you used those moments as clues to soothe and grow in your creative-self in order to move forward more powerfully.
I‘m definitely not suggesting toxic positivity. I am very anti-toxic positivity. I’m anti-affirmation.
What I am suggesting is instead of stuffing those shitty feelings down and letting them make you stop submitting your work or letting them make you walk away from your book-in-progress for years, be in the feelings and use them as a clue about what part of you may need a little TLC or assist or reframe in order to move forward more powerfully and confidently. (I’m not saying this is my favorite way to outsmart defeat and bust through nonsense, but I’m not not saying that either.)
The idea—and believe me, this took me yearrrrssss and a lot of extremely mean self-talk to figure out—is to use the shitty feeling as a map to help you surface something powerful in yourself. Especially if the shitty feeling involves a loop you get stuck in regularly. This is especially potent to do when you’re trying to do new things, bigger things, level up or stretch your creative practice.
That can look like, okay I’m feeling fucking terrible and like the world’s worst writer and I feel silly for trying so hard when it seems like every fucking time I even try, I end up feeling awful! So, what’s my subconscious trying to tell me? Maybe instead of just pushing myself harder or outright giving up, I need to deepen my writerly confidence a bit more and think more strategically about where I’m pitching or challenge the conventional way of gonig about this project and just let myself just be in that.
When awful danger-loops surface, I straight-up go, why’s this coming up? What’s it want me to do? The answer is never “try harder” but is usually more like: I feel nervous about all the ways this can go badly, so I’m going to take a minute and free write about that and see what strategies I might put into place to make sure those things don’t happen. It’s remarkable how soon after doing that kind of reframe that the writing starts to flow again, the pitch lands, a new idea drops in, etc. I move forward with more information and clarity for having stopped and kindly interrogated it in myself.
There’s something to be said for pausing to clear out a log-jam anytime one happens, but when our inner-monologue is involved, it almost always seems like it’s because part of the subconscious needs an assist before proceeding.
Because then you have a far more empowering plan to think about how to flex your writing chops, grow as a creative being, learn about the process, challenge an accepted convention or process and come at it more centeredly than “try harder, loser!”
Because, as the expression goes, you can’t very well keep doing the same things over and over and expect the results to just magically be different one day. And, nobody can art quite in the same was you art your art, so it is beyond essential to do it your way and honor exactly what you need and how you want your process to work.
If you want to go deeper on this kind of thing, dig into more meaningful visibility around your creative work, and bring struggle-cycles like this down a notch or ten, I have a thing for you: The Seen AF Method.
For almost a decade, I’ve helped clients work through the projects (creatively, strategically, and emotionally) like book manuscripts and book proposals, film logistics and business plans, public impact/media strategies, event plans, and more, and helped them build compounding visibility with their creative work. I‘ve recently turned that into a 6-month group program to help writers, filmmakers, artists, musicians and other people doing creative work challenge narratives around visibility and build a unique-to-their-art strategy to set themselves up for more.
Doors open August 26.
Register TODAY and also get a 1:1 “unfuck your project” strategy call. Learn more about the whole thing here, and/or book a chat with me about it here and we’ll see if it’s a good fit for you.
(Orrrrr, if you just want the “unfuck your creative project” call, you can book that directly as a one-off, too.)
