Tara Mohr's Blog, page 8

You Are the Instrument of Your Work

To listen to an audio version of this post, click the player below or you can download an mp3 file here.

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You are the instrument
of your work.

 

A few months back, I began noticing more how what I do in my “non-working” time affects the quality of my work.

When I break a sweat in a dance class in the morning, I can write with a different kind of clarity and alertness in the afternoon.

If I take time to meditate, more ideas come to me in the hours that follow.

When I make space in my calendar to work through a fear (even one entirely unrelated to work), I end up with a renewed lightness and energy that leads to better coaching and teaching.

I started to get it:

I am the instrument of my work.

Whatever I do that tunes the instrument, impacts the work.

Now, before I continue, a little digression to explain some context here because “I am the instrument of my work” can sound like it’s all on my shoulders to do the work, and that’s not how I experience my work at all.

If I’m the instrument, I’m not the music. I’m also not the player of the instrument. So I say “I am the instrument” knowing the work itself comes from Life/CreativeForce, but my mind/heart/body/being is a kind of instrument that energy moves through, when I’m open to it and show up.

When I’m teaching, writing, speaking, coaching – that’s time when that instrument is being played. I want to have some concentrated periods of that every week. But every week I also need to take time – ample time – to tune the instrument, to change the person that the music is coming through.

I tune the instrument of me when I move my body, pray and meditate, process my life and my feelings, and also simply when I do the things that bring me joy. Some of the tuning is about releasing what I need to release. Some is about absorbing new ideas. Some is about steeping in joy, about upliftment.

Yes, this is all self-care, but it is not only self-care.

It is also the responsible preparation needed to do good work.

If you do artistic work of any kind – painting or designing or performing, let’s say – it’s probably easy to see how you as the creator/artist are literally the instrument of your work. The state of your mind, heart, and body will shape the work.

But if you do knowledge work or creative work of any kind – consulting or research or lawyering or investing, for example – this is also true for you: you are also the instrument of your work. You are literally the material that work is being drawn from, and the energetic quality of that material, its health and vibrancy, determines what kind of work gets produced.

If you do caregiving work, you are also the instrument of your work. The fabric of your being determines the kind of care you give.

Even if you wouldn’t define your work in any of these ways, you are engaged in the larger creative project of designing a life, so you too are the instrument of a major creative work, and you too need to tune the instrument that is you if you want that work to unfold in some particular way.

For all of us, the things we do (or don’t do), the things we fill our lives and days with, the things we practice, dramatically change the fabric of us and that changes the work we produce.

We are living in a time when ideas about industrial labor, such as the idea that work time and productivity are linearly correlated, get applied in roles and types of work where they absolutely don’t hold true.

Not convinced? Consider research findings like these:

One study found that five-person teams that meditated solved group problems faster and with fewer interactions (so literally, more efficiently) than the control group.* Another study found that listening to music – for a mere five minutes – improved problem solving ability, while others have found it increases productivity and creativity, even in tasks like software development.** Numerous studies have shown that physical exercise not only improves creativity and alertness in the short-term, but that regular exercise actually grows the regions of the brain associated with memory and cognition.***

If we really grasped the importance of our state of being to the work that we do, and the plasticity of that state of being, I think we would structure our work days and weeks very differently. I predict that if we spent let’s say, 50% of our work hours “tuning the instrument,” and 50% of it doing the explicit tasks involved in our work, we’d be shocked by the productivity gains. And, I mean real productivity gains – the meaningful traction toward our big goals that comes from insight and flow, not the false productivity of ticking things off the to-do list.

Now, I get it… most of us can’t suddenly take 20 hours a week to tune the instrument. But we can all think creatively about what we really need to be doing in our jobs – and what doesn’t need doing – and carve out a little more time for tuning the instrument that is us. If you work independently, you have more freedom to invest time in tuning the instrument of you, but you still may have to go up against a lot of your deeply held beliefs to do so – beliefs about what’s “real” work-time, about striving, about indulging your own joy, pleasure, and personal development. If you work for an organization, you may be challenging your own beliefs but also navigating around an organizational culture that sees formal work-time as far more valuable than time spent changing the state and capacity of people to do the work.

In the context of our conversation here about women’s voices, this idea of tuning the instrument has more layers of significance. How do we as women need to tune the instrument of ourselves so that we can contribute to a collective re-imagining of our society, away from patriarchy and toward something else? How do we need to tune the instrument of ourselves so we can stay closer to the voice of wisdom inside of us than to the chatter of a dysfunctional culture?

Can you imagine what our world we be if we allowed ourselves to even imagine an economy built of people – both women and men – who were given time and resources to tune their instrument, and then produce from their rested, nourished, inspired selves?

We can make anything with these instruments of minds, hearts and bodies we’ve been given. But we can also become anything, monsters or givers of grace and everything in between. What we absorb, what we practice, shapes what we become.

With love,

Tara

 

Citations

* http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/002188637901500407

** http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0305735605050650

*** https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/regular-exercise-changes-brain-improve-memory-thinking-skills-201404097110

Photo by Μιχάλης Δουνδουλάκης

How Being Judged Impacts Our Work

To listen to an audio version of this post, click the player below or you can download an mp3 file here.

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In thinking about my kids’ education, I’ve been reading a lot about learning and creativity.

There’s one thing I read recently that I can’t stop thinking about, and if your work requires you to learn new things, to be creative, or to share your work with an audience, this matters a lot for you.

A host of studies have looked at the impact of evaluation on individuals’ performance at various skills and tasks. When people know someone is observing and evaluating their work, do they perform better, or worse?

The answer turns out to be: it depends, in a very interesting way.

If a person is already highly skilled at a task, the presence of an evaluator makes them perform even better. But if they are beginners at some subject, or just aren’t particularly skilled at it, the presence of an evaluator worsens their performance. It has the opposite effect.

There are dozens of studies showing this, measuring everything from skill at multiplication tables to free throws. For example, in one study expert pool players increased their success rate by 12% when they knew an evaluator was present watching them. But novices performed 30% worse when evaluators were watching.*

We can all cite experiences in our lives that match this pattern. When you did really well all semester in school with a particular subject, and then on the final exam, you absolutely shined, taking your comprehension to a whole new level. Or, you performed your very best at a sport on an important game day, when lots of eyes were watching.

We’ve all had the opposite experience too – when we were still learning something new and then an audience or judge of some kind caused us to flop.

The hypothesized explanation for these outcomes is this: when we are relatively competent at something, the presence of others acts as a kind of physiological stimulant, allowing us to bring even more alertness and energy to the task. Yet when we aren’t as competent, the knowledge of an evaluator also has a physiological impact – in this case, anxiety, that interferes with our performance.

Understanding this dynamic might help you think differently about the grade or feedback you get on something when you are new at it. It also means you might think about creating spaces where you can practice and learn for a while without someone evaluating you, or without you evaluating yourself.

Interestingly, some studies show even an imagined evaluator in our minds can have the same negative effect on performance when we are beginners – so how we think about our work really matters.

In my next post, we’ll dive into how evaluation impacts creative work specifically – stay tuned for that.

Some questions to think about today:

 When has the presence of an evaluator or judge helped you perform better? When has it caused you to do worse?
 If you are engaging in something new, how can you create a space that is protected from evaluation for a while as you learn and develop your skill at it?
 What happens if you let go of self-evaluating thoughts (“Is this good?” “This is bad…” “I am horrible at this…” etc.) when you are working on a new kind of task or a new skill? (See the Inner Critic chapter from the Playing Big book for help in doing this!)

With love,

Tara

Research citation for this post:

*Michaels, J.W., Blommel, J.M., Brocato, R.M., Linkous, R.A., & Rowe, J.S. (1982). Social facilitation and inhibition in a natural setting. Replications in Social Psychology, 2, 21-24.

 

Dawid Małecki

Lessons from Preschool Graduation

This week my four year-old son said goodbye to the first teachers he ever had, two of the first adults outside our family and home who meant something deep and real to him.

Now, he moves on to a new classroom, new teachers, a new school year.

Remember that 1980’s bestseller, “Everything I Need to Know, I Learned in Kindergarten?” Well, I don’t have to wait till my son’s kindergarten to learn the important life lessons – I’m getting plenty of them from his preschool.

​​​​​​As the last day of school drew near, the children worked together on a poster. Each child shared how they were feeling about the transition – happy, sad, or both – both happy and sad.

The teachers spoke a lot about this idea of feeling both happy and sad about a change. They illustrated it in all kinds of ways:

They used their hands to push half of their mouths down into a frown while the other half grinned.

They drew smiley and sad faces right next to each other on the page.

They listed out the things that excited them about the new year, and then, in the next column, listed the things that made them sad about leaving this chapter behind.

Again and again, the teachers named it so explicitly: that we can feel opposite emotions without those feelings “conflicting” in any way. Neither has to win out. They can just live side by side.

One day when I was in the classroom, I watched my son’s teacher put her hand on her heart and talk with ease about feeling both sad and happy about the class moving on. And I wondered about the things in my life I might have done differently, the doors I would have walked through, if I had really known it was okay to feel both eager for and sad about a change, and to then walk through that door to the other side.

Too often, we don’t pursue the healthy changes​​​​​​​, the leaps, that would bring sadness intertwined with happiness, or fear intertwined with excitement.

​​​​​​​Too​​​​​​​ often, we try to talk kids (and adults) out of their legitimate sadness by reminding them of the good stuff. There’s a fine line between encouraging positivity and gratitude and squashing sadness that needs room to be.

In developmental psychology, the ability to hold mixed emotions is seen as a key milestone of maturation.

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Can a person do courageous things without being at home with mixed emotions? I don’t think so.

Can a woman find equanimity in the midst of a complex, layered life if she isn’t at home with mixed emotions? I can’t see how.

Can she move and grow, can she be a part of the flow of change that is life, without comfort with mixed emotions? No.

So I pass on this idea from my sweet boy’s teachers today: that we really can feel a whole mix of things, and that we usually do, in times of change. And we can make change anyway.

How can you say yes to the changes that you know will pull you forward but that also bring some grief or sadness with them?

How can you discern between the sadness that says, “stop, don’t make this change” and the sadness that is simply to be felt and moved through?

How can you hold more space for yourself to have mixed emotions, in big and small ways, beginning today?

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With love,

Tara

P.S. If you are a reader here, and you’ve not yet had the chance to check out my book, Playing Big, it’s a great way to get going on realizing your playing bigger dream. You can find all the links to get your copy here.

 

Photo Credit: rawpixel

Mindfulness + Work with Dr. Leah Weiss

As I’ve shared, I recently read the fantastic new book, How We Work, by Dr. Leah Weiss. Leah’s background is fascinating. She’s a licensed social worker, has a PhD in Theology and Education, has trained extensively in mindfulness and now teaches a pioneering course at Stanford Business School called Mindful Leadership.

Here’s what the Dalai Lama (yes, the Dalai Lama) had to say about this book:

“I have long thought that what the Buddha taught can be seen as a highly developed science of mind which, if made more accessible to a lay audience, could benefit many people. I believe that Dr. Weiss’s book, in combining such insights with science and good business practice, offers an effective mindfulness based program that many will find helpful.”   – His Holiness, the Dalai Lama

 

Today, I want to share three powerful ideas from the book:

MINDFULNESS INTEGRATED INTO LIFE.

Leah writes, “I actually had plenty of time to practice [mindfulness], I realized, because practice wasn’t something I had to take time out of working or mothering or living to do. In fact, working, mothering, and living — life — were all opportunities for practice. There is a saying in the Mahayana tradition of Buddhism: ‘Take all of life onto the path.’ Freed from the confines of the cushion, meditation could include all of life.”

I especially loved her articulation of this piece of wisdom: “The back-to-back demands and busy-ness of our days do not stand in the way of our purpose in the world; they represent a chance to realize it.”

In our conversation, we’ll talk more about how to do this — the practical ways we can bring mindfulness into our lives moment to moment. For today, find a moment to pause, and simply bring mindfulness to the situation: What am I feeling right now? What sensations do I notice in my body? What emotions am I experiencing? With awareness, we have a space to self-reflect, to question our assumptions, or to take action to redirect our attention to where we desire it to be.

WE’VE GOT TO FEEL OUR FEELINGS, NOT TRY TO BYPASS THEM.

She writes, “The research consensus is that fighting against our feelings only makes them stronger… The ability to tolerate or accept or get curious about our unpleasant emotions is the ticket out of this cycle.”

It’s not easy of course, because we all have an instinct to avoid feeling difficult emotions (and we often make a habit out of it!). In our conversation, we will talk about what that looks like in the moment — how can we be mindful of what emotions we are experiencing (even subtly) and then what do we do next once we are aware of them? For today, can you greet a difficult emotion with simple awareness — noting to yourself the sadness, anger, frustration or other feeling present?

FINDING PURPOSE IN OUR WORK.

As you can imagine, I loved the section of the book on the importance of living and working with purpose. Leah writes, “Purpose boosts our capacity to make the greatest impact in the work we do, and to connect with other people across cultures and contexts, however powerless or lonely we might feel. We are energized, motivated, and expanded by a sense of purpose.”

She invokes a metaphor for staying connecting to purpose that I loved: in a jigsaw puzzle, there are all the pieces, and then there is that picture of the whole puzzle put together that is often on the cover of the box. How often do we remember that big picture, the whole of what we are working toward or trying to put together with all these little pieces?

In our conversation, we will talk about strategies for staying rooted in your purpose as you move through the mundane, frantic, or stressful moments of the everyday. For today, bring back a sense of that picture of the whole puzzle on the cover of the box — what’s the vision you are working toward? How does having a sense of it change how you move through today?

You can get your copy of How We Work: Live Your Purpose, Reclaim Your Sanity, and Embrace the Daily Grind here.

With love,

Tara

 

photo credit: Matt Hoffman

“The Detours”

This was one of the things Jadah Sellner and I talked about in our recent conversation for her podcast, Lead with Love.

I’ve come to believe that straying from our soul’s path is simply a part of the human experience. I have never met a person who did not fail in their allegiance to their truth, who did not veer away from what gave them joy.

There is something very core to the learning we are supposed to gain here that has to do with getting lost and then finding our way, veering off our paths and then turning back.

Through that contrast we can see who we are, and what we truly want to claim. We are meant to be lost and found. We are meant to take detours but then return to our road.

So today, recognize the value of the detours you’ve taken or the one you are in right now.

And if you don’t know Jadah yet, or you’d like to hear our conversation, check out her work and our episode here.

Love,

Tara

 

photo credit: Mike Enerio

Taking Reflection Time

In Dr. Leah Weiss’s fabulous new book, How We Work, she shares a fascinating study about the power of reflecting on our work.

In the study, conducted by Harvard Business School professor Francesca Gino, three groups of IT workers underwent a 16 day job training.

One group of individuals simply took the training.

The second group took the training and, for 15 minutes at the end of each day, wrote about and reflected upon what they learned that day.

The third group did this reflection writing and also spent five minutes sharing their writings and insights with another employee.

At the end of the training, those who reflected performed 22.8% better on a final test than the control group did. Those who reflected and shared with another person performed 25% better on the test.

It’s powerful to see the data so clearly, isn’t it? What a fabulous reminder that reflecting on our experiences and articulating aloud what we’ve learned dramatically impacts how much we are learning from our experiences.

• Do you currently have time and space built in for reflection on what you are learning? Even if you aren’t in formal training like those in this particular study, every day you are learning from the successes, failures, challenges, conversations, and feedback that you encountered that day. What was the learning from that day’s success? From its challenge? From a conversation with a client or colleague? Can you build in a few minutes daily, or weekly, to reflect on this in writing or aloud?

• Who in your life can you share your learnings with? Can you build time into team conversations or 1:1 meetings for sharing reflections on what is being learned? Or, is there a support person in your life like a coach whom you could have this kind of conversation with? A peer mentoring partner?

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• What about applying this principle in your personal life? In some sense we are all in an educational training program every day – life. The curriculum is really something, isn’t it? Can you make space to journal about what you are learning about yourself, about others, about life, from the day’s or week’s experiences?

I’m thrilled that I’ll be talking in-depth with Dr. Leah Weiss, author of How We Work, about this topic​ of reflection at work and other key topics for productivity and meaning at work – from purpose to mindfulness and more. Dr. Weiss teaches the Leading with Mindfulness and Compassion course at Stanford Business School, and has a fascinating hybrid background in social work, Buddhist meditation, theology and education.

About her new book, The New York Times Book Review says, “Weiss’s approach to greater satisfaction and success at work is steeped in evidence-based science. And it’s not just philosophical; there’s plenty of practical advice.”

Love,

Tara

 

Photo Credit: Kari Shea

If Your Calling Doesn’t Pay the Bills

Yes, it can be a tremendous blessing in our lives to do work full-time that feels like a calling.

But I’ve also never met a calling that cared whether or not it was the way the bills got paid. And over the past ten years I’ve talked to many, many people about their longings, their callings, their dreams.

The callings that come to us want to be respected, not ignored or rationalized away. And they want us to give them expression in some way – but often small ways and small hours are plenty – plenty for giving us huge joy and fulfillment, and for bringing good into the world.

Whatever it is for you – that form of making art that is calling to you, that way of working with people, that project you’d love to do – just give it some air, some time, some of your allegiance and energy. That’s all it needs.

xo

Tara

 

photo credit: rawpixel

If You Wish You Had More Self-Discipline

You can listen to this post in audio, too. Click the player to download an mp3 file.

Where we think we need more self-discipline, we usually need more self-love.

Several weeks ago, I noticed that those words from the Playing Big book were being shared widely on social media, with people taking the time to format them and give them their own visual expression.

Everywhere they were posted, they seemed to resonate strongly with readers, and that has intrigued me. So I thought today I’d delve deeper into this topic. What do these words really mean? What do they ask us to do differently? And what about this idea are we so hungry for and why?

We tend to think we need more self-discipline when we aren’t taking consistent action toward our goals: we want to exercise regularly but we aren’t; we aim to meditate every evening but we haven’t been consistent; we committed to track our money more closely, but fell off the wagon.

Then we tend to say to ourselves, in some version: “If I could only be more self-disciplined…” That’s our story about the situation, that we lack willpower or discipline.

Yet I will tell you after a lot of coaching conversations that self-discipline is never the missing ingredient in these situations.

What is needed is not more self-discipline or will, but one of these three things:

1. Practical adjustments to routines, schedules, support systems. I think of one woman who believed she just didn’t have the self-discipline to get up early every day. With some self-reflection, she discovered that she really just needed to reduce her commitments so she could go to bed a few hours earlier. Then the new wake-up time became no problem. Or, I think of another woman who thought she lacked the self-discipline to save money, but you know what? She had no problem doing so once she put a monthly transfer on automation. Where we think we need more self-discipline, we need more self-love. Sometimes that self-love expresses itself through the very practical routines, supplies, support systems we put in place to get us where we want to go.

2. Inner work. Other times, when we assume that we lack self-discipline, our flow of motivation is actually getting blocked by fear. I think of one woman who had come to feel she wasn’t publishing on her blog regularly because she lacked the self-discipline. But within a few minutes of coaching around the topic, it became clear that the core issue was fear of what people would think when she shared her ideas more publicly.

Fear is tricky, and subtle, and we put lots of fancy explanations on top of it that can hide it. When our motivation suddenly dips or we find ourselves behaving in ways we label “lazy,” quite often underneath we find fear – especially fear of change, failure, or (for women in particular) fear of separating from others in our life as we step into new ways of being.

In these situations, we do not need more self-discipline (and no amount of self-discipline could get us to ramrod past our fear! Fear will always win out if it’s unexamined or unconscious.) What we need is self-love, manifest through gentle, self-compassionate inquiry into what’s getting stirred up. That can happen through journaling, sharing out loud to a supportive group or friend, processing fear through making art, or through a session with a therapist or coach.

3. Changing the goal. Sometimes the problem is that we’ve given ourselves what I call a “should-goal” – an aim that comes from a sense of should, often drawn from others’ expectations, or your own inner critic’s marching orders. In my own life, I’ve set “should-goals” about going to the gym, “networking” with people in my field, posting regularly on social media, to name a few. None of these things had particular resonance in my heart or soul, and because they were “shoulds” I couldn’t keep up motivation around them. Here, the issue for us is not really a lack of self-discipline, but rather that we are working toward the wrong goal – one we are never going to have a wellspring of energy toward.

We’ve got to set what I call gift-goals, goals that are resonant with our values, our temperaments – goals that feel like gifts to give ourselves. (There’s much more on how to do that in the Playing Big book). In my case, I had to find alternative versions of my “should-goals” that were more true to me – for example, getting to dance class (not the gym) and connecting with a few people I truly admire in my field (not doing a lot of networking).

So, if you are struggling with motivation or consistent action in any area of your life, I’d look at these three areas:

1) Is this a should-goal or a gift-goal? If it’s a should, start by shifting the goal into one that is more resonant for you. (Check out our handout on creating gift-goals, here).

2) If it’s a gift-goal, is there a fear blocking your motivation? How can you feel it, unpack it, move through it – all with loving-kindness toward yourself?

3) Or, do you simply need to change the practical pieces – the time you’ve made available, the level of support you’ve put in place – to make it easier for you to take the action you want to take?

Last but not least, I think we have to pay attention to the resonance of this idea. The spread of these words across the web tells me that many of us recognize that something about our stories regarding self-discipline has lead us astray, and is false. Some part of tus knows that there is possibility in bringing self-love to those very places. If you work with people – as a coach, facilitator, counselor – how can you bring more of this idea forward? If you are a friend, a parent, a partner in conversation with others about their goals, how can you bring more of this idea to those conversations?

Want to set gift-goals or work with others on setting theirs? Grab my PDF on creating gift-goals here, with journaling prompts and coaching questions to help you do just that.

With love,

Tara

Making Time for What You Love

A few weeks ago, I headed into the dance studio for a class for the first time since my daughter was born.

It took a lot to get to a class.

It took all these months for me to feel up for it.

It took being willing to give it a big chunk of time on the calendar.

It took figuring out what the heck kind of bra works for leaping through the air, for a postpartum nursing mother.

But mostly, of course, it took what it takes for all of us when it is time to be a beginner again: courage. It took being willing to experiment with a new class, having no idea how I’d fare, or what uncomfortable moments might be part of it.

I walked in, and immediately saw all the dancers doing what looked like very serious pre-class stretches. I watched myself choose not to be intimidated by that. There were moments of the class when a younger me would have felt embarrassed about what I couldn’t do, moments when a younger me would have been panicked about what I was being asked to attempt – in front of the rest of the group, no less. There were many moments when a younger me would have been critical, even ashamed, of the body reflected back to me in the mirror.

But this experience (mostly) wasn’t like that. Maybe because of being a little older, maybe because having walked through the fires of motherhood x2, this was different.

This time, I could comprehend that I was simply a newbie in this class; nothing personal about that. I was able to chuckle at myself when needed and – most importantly – I was able to enjoy.

Ninety minutes later, when the class ended, I was not on cloud nine. I was on cloud ninety-nine.

I had to keep apologizing to people for talking so much, and so fast, all afternoon, but I couldn’t stop myself – there was so much energy coursing through.

My best friend called to tell me that the contrast between the tone of my voicemail to her that morning (heavy, somber) and the one from three hours later post dance class (utterly giddy) had her amused for the rest of the day.

Why am I sharing this story with you?



Because we all have these things: the earthly pursuits that are our special connection lines to vitality and joy.

Maybe one of yours, like mine, is dance, but most likely it is not because Life/God/Source has generously distributed these pursuits among us, a part of our individuality.

Some source whispered “dance” over me and pressed it into my soul before I was born. And to you, perhaps some divinity whispered “paint” or “sing” or “run” – whatever those sacred pursuits are for you.

Today, I want to invite you to remember. What are your special connection lines to vitality and joy? Growing something in your garden? Playing the piano? Taking a solo hike? Name at least two for yourself. Remember.

1. _________________

2. _________________

Now, here’s the thing: you’d think, given all I just shared, that I would be committed to regular dancing. At times, I have been. But sometimes, I’ve gone months without dancing. Sometimes, years.

We do this – we starve ourselves from the pursuits that we most love and that best love us back.

It appears to make no sense: if these activities bring us so much joy, why aren’t we doing them with fervor and commitment, arranging life to squeeze them in however we can? In fact, the opposite is what usually transpires. We struggle to do them at all.

We take long fasts from what most feeds us. Why?

These are some of the reasons why I’ve turned away from my dearest loves in my own life, reasons I also see at play in the lives of the women I work with.

1. It takes practical commitment and creativity to make it happen. In the demands of daily life, what we most love often falls to the wayside, as we focus on paying the bills and caring for others. You may be in a culture like the U.S.’s that does not make it easy to fit in time for pursuits outside of work and family responsibilities. Long work hours, having weak community ties and living apart from extended family all add up to incredibly demanding schedules for so many of us. It’s hard to make it happen.



2. We lose touch. Something happens in our life that causes us to stop doing the things we love (we get busier, we change locations, we go through an illness or intense period of caregiving, and so on) and during it, we forget what brings us bliss.

3. We buy the lie that adulthood is about something else. We’ve consciously or unconsciously decided adulthood is about something else – responsibilities and the grind. We forget to even ask, what can I do that brings me bliss? We forget that daily life can include that question, and its answer.

4. Fear and the inner critic build a barrier between ourselves and what we love. Sometimes we’ve become paralyzed by the message that because we love this thing so much we should get “good” at it. We start to think that being “good at it,” (winning first place prize at the piano recital, getting published, doing x in a way that people will pay for) is the point. Then if we aren’t winning the medals or the clients or the applause (or fear we won’t in the future), we stop doing our thing. I am here to tell you the point was never to be good. This, your relationship with this thing, is the great romance of your life.

5. Numbness is kinda cozy. There resides in us a force that doesn’t want us to do the things that bring us alive. When we do those things that bring us alive, we feel more – all of it, the good and the bad. Old unresolved issues ask for attention. Inconvenient life and career dreams that we’ve ignored find a way back in to our consciousness, through all those energy channels that this beloved pursuit has opened up. Rising to the occasion of this uncertain, tender, complicated human experience is both far more ecstatic and far less comfortable than the numbed out, dulled down zone of stasis and soul denial. The part of us that likes comfort (but doesn’t care about joy) will lead us to fast from soul nutrients and eat the low quality junk food of distractions and busyness and empty to-do’s instead. We cannot consistently practice what we love without a larger willingness to feel our feelings, confront our real path, and accept the ongoing change and evolution that that path will bring in our lives.

6. Ego likes its shell. When we are truly doing what we most love, the experience brings us into a sense of unity with the materials we are working with, the task we are engaged in, the others around us, and the larger whole. We start to transcend the boundaries of the ego, the small self, in exchange for a larger sense of connection. Ego doesn’t like that, and we resist that change. (I’ve written more about that here.)

So what is next? Start with these steps:

1. Remember what you most love, those few most special pursuits that bring you alive. Name what they are, just to yourself.

2. It may be that you need to cry or grieve a little for the time lost in not doing them. Allow yourself to feel those feelings … and at the same time, don’t get stuck there.

3. Notice what has been a barrier to you practicing your love. Is it primarily about the inner critic for you? Or the logistical challenges? Or are there stronger drives pushing you to stay in a numbed out state? Look with compassion at what has stood in the way.

4. Put a date on the calendar to do the thing you love. Tell one supportive person about it so you are held (lovingly) accountable to make it happen!

And last but not least, if you are wanting to live a life you love, and do work that fills you with a sense of meaning and joy, check out my Playing Big Course, open for registration this week (we open registration just once a year!) You can find all the information about it, hear from grads, and get your spot HERE.

Love,

Tara

The Good News About Your Inner Critic

[excerpted from the Playing Big book and republished on Oprah.com]

 

I recently had lunch with a colleague—an executive coach and business consultant. She’s worked at the most prestigious consulting companies. Over our meal, she explained to me that she wanted to do more public speaking. She sounded eager and ready to go, uncertain only about what practical steps to take next.

I offered to introduce her to a few speaking agents who I thought would love to work with her. Suddenly, she started talking about how she needed to spend some months doing small, local talks to “hone her craft.” A new narrative came out, about how she wasn’t really ready to take her speaking to a large stage. Having just watched a video of her giving a speech, I knew this wasn’t the case.

I was hearing in her something I’ve now heard in hundreds of women. I think of it as “the voice of not-me”— the internal chatter that tells a woman she’s not ready to lead, she’s not enough of an expert, she’s not good enough at this or that. It’s the voice of self-doubt, of the inner critic.

All women grapple with this voice of self- doubt in one way or another. For some women, it is most prominent around their professional lives. For others, it comes up around their sense of competence as mothers or partners. For others, it speaks mostly about appearance, body image or aging. And for others, it chatters most loudly about their creative dreams—to make music or paint or write. We are so used to living with this voice that most of us don’t imagine it could be otherwise. It’s become the background noise we live with. Since women don’t talk to one another about the most vicious things it says, we don’t hear counterarguments or get support, and we don’t learn that other women—women we admire because they seem so confident—hear the same irrational, harsh voice in their heads, too.

The costs of women’s self-doubt are enormous. Think of all the ideas unshared, businesses not started, important questions not raised, talents unused. Think of all the fulfillment and joy not experienced because self-doubt keeps us from going for the opportunities that would bring that joy and fulfillment.

The good news is less well-known: While “confidence issues” seem complex and difficult to address, they don’t need to be. It turns out you don’t have to find a magic source of confidence, dig deep into childhood wounds to find the roots of your insecurities or figure out how to permanently banish that critical voice in your head. Instead, you simply need to learn how to live with the inner voice of self-doubt but not be held back by it, to hear the voice and not take direction from it.

The inner critic is an expression of the safety instinct in us—the part of us that wants to stay safe from potential emotional risk—from hurt, failure, criticism, disappointment or rejection by the tribe. The safety instinct is cunning. If it simply said to you, “No, don’t compose the song, don’t run for office, don’t make the career change, don’t share your ideas— it’s too risky,” you wouldn’t listen. You’d probably reply with something along the lines of, “No, I feel okay about the risks. Here I go.” So the safety instinct uses a more effective argument: “Your paintings are terrible.” “Your book won’t offer anything new—there are so many books on the subject.” “Your attempt at a career change will cause you to end up broke.” The inner critic speaks up with more viciousness and volume when we are exposing ourselves to a real or perceived vulnerability—something that triggers a fear of embarrassment, rejection, failure or pain.

Many women find their inner critic speaks up most loudly around their most deeply felt dreams for their lives and work, because we feel particularly vulnerable about them. They experience the most panicky, overwhelming self-doubt when they are moving toward what they truly long to do. The inner critic is like a guard at the edge of your comfort zone. As long as you don’t venture forth out of that zone, the inner critic can leave you alone—like a guard taking a nap. Yet when you approach the edge of your comfort zone, test old beliefs, contemplate change or stretch into playing bigger, you wake the sleeping guard. The inner critic recites its lines in an attempt to get you to go back into the familiar zone of the status quo.

Now let’s turn to what you can do day to day, moment to moment. It almost seems too easy, but it’s true: You don’t have to do all that much. Recognizing the critic’s voice consciously is often enough to immediately snap us out of its trance.

Why is noticing and naming the voice of self- doubt so powerful? Liberating yourself depends on a very simple insight. You are not the critical voice. You are the person aware of the critical voice. You are the person feeling perplexed by it or bummed out by it or believing it. You are the person trying to understand it and work with it and get rid of it. You are the entity that is hearing the voice. The critic is not the core of you. The core of you is the you of your aspirations, of your wisdom.

As you name the inner-critic voice when it shows up, you begin to unbraid it from the other strands of “you”: your imagination, your aspirations, your wisdom. By saying, “Oh, I’m hearing the critic right now,” you can remember that that’s all it is and move forward despite its rants and threats.