When do you stop pushing?

Yesterday I was talking to publisher and entreprenuer Paula Bisacre about how it sometimes feels like you have to constantly push, push, push to create a life that has meaning. This is a conversation I have had many times over the years with different people: Why can’t my life be easy? Why can’t I be like those people who seem to find happiness so effortlessly? Why can’t I be less complicated? Why does my Inner Critic have to be so critical of me? Why can’t I just have a simple life? Why do I have to work so hard?

While contemplating this idea, I took a break to play with my daughter. She is currently learning how to stand up. I put a box of diapers in front of her. She grabbed the sides and pulled herself up into a stand. Wobbling back and forth, she practiced balancing for a good ten minutes. Then with little grunts that showed just how hard she was working, she pulled one hand off the box and waved it in the air like a bull rider. She was so pleased with herself that she grinned and giggled even as she continued to struggle. “I did it! I did it!” she seemed to be thinking. It brought tears to my eyes watching her work so hard.

But then something happened. She stood up straight, let go of the box with both hands, pushing herself backward as she did so with absolute faith that I would be there to catch her. She was in free fall for a few seconds before her tushy hit my lap. Then she snuggled into my shirt and smiled.

My daughter stopped pushing when she needed a break. It was that simple.

But she can still listen to her body. Her movements are dictated by her energy and she doesn’t know how to ignore what her body needs. When I try to take breaks, my Inner Critic, The Heavyweight (TH), immediately starts yelling at me:

TH: What are you doing?!!! You lazy, son-of-a-b&*?%!!!! Move! Move! Move! Don’t you know that you are going to fail if you just sit on your butt and do nothing?!

ME: But I’m so tired. I just need a break.

TH: Take a break and you’ll never get up again!

ME: Just fifteen minutes. That’s all.

TH: You are such a loser! This is all because you’re fat and stupid! You have no self-control!!! Etc. Etc. Etc.

I don’t know about you but I would rather be like my daughter. I would rather listen to my energy and push when I need to push and relax when I need to relax.

When do you stop pushing? When you need a break. Even if it’s only five minutes here and there to begin, start building breaks into your life. For the next few days, pay attention to your energy levels. When you get cranky or feel de-energized, stop and take ten really deep breaths all the way down into your belly. Put on some beautiful music. Visit a flower shop. Call up one of your beloveds. Watch your all-time favorite movie.

How to tell the difference between the voice of the Inner Critic and your Gut.

What if The Heavyweight and your gut instinct are talking at the same time, telling you what to do? How do you tell them apart?

Here are some hints.

Let’s say you have a choice between going to grad school and not going to grad school.

The first thing to watch out for is, who’s on which side? You might think The Heavyweight is the hesitant one, stuck in the mud and going nowhere. But The Heavyweight actually loves it when you panic and flail around and do things that aren’t really right for you. The Heavyweight doesn’t want you to take time to listen to yourself. So your gut instinct is often the one putting on the brakes!

The next thing to look for is, who’s doing the hard sell?

The Heavyweight (TH): “You should do it. You’re going to feel so good when you’ve got that degree. It’ll be a major accomplishment and you’ll be able to tell everybody about it and you’ll feel strong and powerful.”

Gut Instinct (GI): “Don’t do it.”

TH: “Yeah, but you really want to be a success and this is the easiest way to be one. You’re just afraid. Fight your fear! Everybody’s expecting this from you, you don’t want to disappoint anybody, especially yourself. Look how many other people go to graduate school! Look where they are now! Making more money than you.”

GI: “You heard me. Don’t do it.”

TH: “Oh yeah? Give me one good reason why not. What’s going to happen? I’ll tell you what’ll happen if you don’t go. You’ll regret it. Seriously, why shouldn’t you do it?”

GI: (silence)

TH: “Hello? Hello! Why not?!”

GI: (silence)

TH: “See? It can’t even give you a good reason and I have, like, ten! You should do it!”

GI: (silence)

The Heavyweight doesn’t just state its opinion. It explains it, justifies it, rationalizes it, defends it, and threatens you about it.

Your gut is your best friend, but it’s not chatty. It speaks up once, maybe twice; then it shuts up. When you know what you truly want, you don’t have to prove why you want it.

And when it’s time for you to take action, your gut will be just as straightforward. Instead of saying “Don’t do it,” it will say, “Do it”; simple as that.

Can you come up with some examples of times when you have heard the Inner Critic and your Gut at the same time? How did you know which one was which?

Turn your fear into a game and you’ll feel like less of an idiot.

Pick a physical thing you can do that will remind you of a person you believe is extremely confident. Then do it. Wear sunglasses inside. Wear an evening gown around the house. Put on a suit so you can step outside of yourself for a little while. It’s silly sometimes, and you don’t ever have to admit your strange antics at a cocktail party, but your Inner Critic is smart. The Heavyweight knows how to undercut you. If you use humor and games to get around it, you’ll find its power over you is reduced.

One of my first assignments as an editorial assistant at a city magazine was to dress up and attend charity events that all the rich and famous people frequented. I had to wander around with a photographer who would snap their pictures while I asked them their names.

As soon as the assignment would fall on my desk I would go home and worry for days about the upcoming event. Even though I’d lost about 70 pounds by then, I was still overweight and for a shy girl who didn’t want to draw attention to herself or her body, it was excruciating to have to walk up to these fancy people and engage them in conversation.

Since Clare and I had vowed to do something we were afraid of every year, I decided I would take an acting class and try out for a play. I’d loved acting in junior high and high school but had quit because in my senior year, while onstage playing Tevya’s wife Golda in Fiddler on the Roof, I heard the boys in the front row making fun of how fat I was. I had not performed since that night.

In the Method acting class I signed up for, I learned to come up with three physical things I could do that would help remind me of the character I was playing. I wondered if that technique might work in my real life. So in the hours before I had to cover yet another ball for the magazine, I decided to create a character: Confident Jacque. I chose three things I thought a confident person would do – shake hands firmly while looking people in the eye, walk with a straight back, and clasp my hands casually in my lap instead of shredding the nearest napkin, menu, or program to bits.

I set out to the ball of the season with a nervous flutter in my stomach and a curiosity to see if my experiment would work. Truth? The first time I did it I felt like an idiot. I mean, come on. I was faking it. I was play-acting like a 5-year-old. Sure, I could shake somebody’s hand and look them in the eye but I was still the kid that didn’t want to be noticed for fear that the attention would turn to hurtful teasing.

But I kept at it. I discovered that when I stopped slouching and walked with a straight back, my head automatically came up and my gaze with it. Because my body appeared to be more engaged and open instead of closed and disinterested, people began to respond to me differently. And with each positive interaction, I gained in confidence. Pretty soon I added another physical act: I looked people in the eye, smiled at them, and said “Hello,” while walking by.

The more I practiced, the more the confident actions began to seem like things I would do. Today, I am Confident Jacque. Even though I sometimes still feel like a complete idiot or too shy to ask for what I need or want. And then I practice again. For instance, this morning I felt too dumb to be writing advice about how to achieve your dreams. I’m only 36 years old. Who the hell is going to want to read anything I have to say? What do I know? So I chose my three things: 1. I painted my nails red because a sassy, confident woman would have written this. 2. I dressed up. I work in my home office and I can take myself and my work more seriously when I’m in a suit than when I’m in my pajamas. 3. I sat up straight in my chair. A confident writer would sit up straight with lots of energy, not slouch at the desk like a college student working on a term paper.

If you’re reading this smackdown, it worked. So what games do you play so you’ll feel like less of an idiot?

How do you figure out your true purpose?

This morning I was thinking about how I will teach my stepchildren and my daughter how to find their true purpose without getting sidetracked by the Inner Critic. I know from experience that The Heavyweight is so talented it’s scary. I mean, sometimes its voice sounds just like my own. And it has this fun little game it likes to do to me. First, I have this great idea about what I’m supposed to be doing because it feels like my “true purpose.” And I start doing it. Then it slams me with all the other great ideas that I could be doing and am not. So I start to spread my attention to everything, and I don’t finish anything. My vision of what my purpose is fades as I start panicking about all the things I haven’t done. I get lost in the choices.

So how do you figure out what you’re supposed to be doing during your time here on this planet? Here are some things I’m going to teach my children:

• Close your eyes. When you daydream what are you doing in your dreams?
• Find your bliss. What things make you happy? When are you most energized and excited? For the past ten years every time Clare and I discussed how to face our fears and create a life on purpose, I was totally jazzed. That was a guidepost for me.
• Follow your jealousy. Use your ugly feelings to help you identify your own desires. If you’re jealous of someone, consider why? What is it they have that you want? How can you manifest that for yourself?
• Don’t be afraid. What makes you feel connected to your personal power source? When do you feel most confident? When do you not only believe you are on the right track, but you simply know.

I’d love to hear if you have stories about how you found your true calling or ideas about how to do it!

Do Something Silly

Yesterday our furnace died. No heat. Okay, fine, a minor (expensive) setback. Then when my husband was cooking dinner the entire grill caught on fire. Seriously. It didn’t help that the day began with an assault by The Heavyweight. “How will I make money?” “What if something happened to one of us and we didn’t make enough money to keep our house?” “What if we couldn’t pay our mortgage?” “What if I fail?” “What if we have to move in with my parents?”

If you’ve read the About section then you know that we’ve been calling each other for smackdowns for the past ten years. In a phone call yesterday morning this is the smackdown Clare suggested for me: “Do something silly this weekend. When I talk to you Monday I want to hear what you did.”

So far this weekend I’ve played TV freeze tag and toilet tag with the kids. I’ve walked my dog singing Old McDonald Had a Farm at the top of my lungs. I’ve pretended to sing Italian opera along with Paul Potts. This afternoon I might do a crazy dance to Madonna or Kylie Minogue or Justin Timberlake. I’ll play Ghost in the Graveyard or Kick The Can. I’ll jump in a pile of leaves. I’ll use the inside of our garage as a giant canvas and paint something huge. I’ll eat a Newman O cookie by taking it apart, licking off the frosting middle part and eating each side in little nibbles so I can savor the entire experience for at least five minutes.

How about you? What silly things will you do today?

Smackdown Success Story: Stephanie Watson

Stephanie Watson is the author of Elvis & Olive, a children’s book that was published by Scholastic in April 2008. She knows plenty about smacking down her inner critic. And she does a helluva job at it, too. Besides her first novel, she has two more books she’s working on and a busy career as a freelance writer. Here she talks to us about her strategies for smacking down The Heavyweight.

Do you have an active inner critic?

Who doesn’t? Mine works over time. Really diligent. A very hard worker.

When things are going well the critic likes to say things like, “This won’t last,” or “You’ll be discovered soon.” And when it’s difficult and the writing is not coming as easy as I like it to, then the critic says, “See what did we tell you before?” So yeah, it’s something that will always be with me and I feel will always be a companion but it’s about finding a way to trick the critic or somehow leave him behind. There are all kinds of things that do seem to work. I like trying a bunch of different things. No one thing works forever. It seems like the critic gets wise to your strategies. So trying a lot of different things can work well.

I really love reading books. I don’t know if you’d call them writers’ self-help books, but they are for writers, like The Courage to Write by Ralph Keyes and The Writers Book of Hope. Mostly they are filled with stories of how other writers or artists of any kind have struggled. There’s something about reading about other people’s journey through fear that gives me courage. If I hear that some of my favorite writers are battling the same demons, it makes it seem possible to get over that somehow or at least to temporarily escape the critic in order to be able to write something.

I think if you keep moving that helps. There was a big critique of this new book I’m working on and it really flattened me for a week. And I felt like if I can start moving again it will be okay. Even if the writing is difficult or not coming easy there is something about getting back into motion that seems to help a lot. The critic seems to be a slow moving beast. So if you can run fast enough… That’s something I am doing right now. I am waiting for feedback on this piece, and I decided I’m going to do this crazy thing. I’m going to write a picture-book manuscript every day for two weeks, just to be totally reckless, and like I don’t care! They can be garbage, I don’t care. Because I feel like if I stop there is too much silence and I start hearing the critic’s voice: “You suck.” It’s a lot of fun to write a picture book every day and it does seem to quiet that voice. And also at the end of two weeks hopefully I will hear back by then. If not at least I will have escaped two weeks of worrying, and I might have at least a couple of workable manuscripts that I can edit into something I can sell. Out of fourteen manuscripts there’s got to be something good. That’s a new trick.

It’s like the national novel writing month, It’s the same principle. Just run like hell, and the critic can’t keep up.

Has your inner critic kept you from doing something before?

Yeah, I think so. I think that’s what keeps me going. It’s more scary to think that I might miss an opportunity. I don’t want to ever look back and say I think, “I should have done that.” When I was in college, I was in a comedy improv group. I don’t think I knew enough to be scared about it. It was something I fell into. It was only later that I was realized that was a really scary thing to do. A few years ago I was thinking back on that and I asked myself, could I do that now? And the idea that I would not do it now because it was scary made me feel like now I have to do it. So now I’m in a comedy improv group. It’s terrifying. We perform on Tuesdays at the Brave New Workshop. It’s so scary. Every Tuesday I’m like why am I doing this? But I just want to do those things that scare me so I don’t feel bad about not having done them.

You feel very alive when you do something that makes you feel afraid. In this book I read it talks about the gifts of fear. Fear makes you very alert and anxiety makes your mind very sharp. So you approach something you’re afraid of with anxiety, but it makes you act quickly and be clever in a way that maybe you couldn’t be if you were super relaxed about it. I like that idea that maybe being afraid is not only okay but maybe you want to be a little afraid so that ultimately you do a better job and give it more concentration. That’s another thing that helps the critic. “Yeah, I’m afraid. So?” That’s what I say to myself when I’m about to go on stage with the comedy improv. “Yeah, my hands are shaking. So?” It’s uncomfortable and my inclination is to run out the door, but I’ll just stay here and be here with that fear and do it anyway. And then it ends up not mattering that I was afraid. The same holds true for writing.

Retroactive Smackdown

For the last few weeks The Heavyweight has beaten me to a pulp. Here are a few things it has had to say:

“You’re a slacker. You procrastinate forever. You’ll never amount to anything. You’ll never finish anything.  Other people are way more motivated than you. Can’t you work any harder than this? People your age are running companies! You’ll never achieve your dreams. Who do you think you are anyway?”

Today, when I began work on a project I had taken a hiatus on, I had to apologize to myself for listening to The Heavyweight. I remembered that I couldn’t work on the project until I had finished the research I needed to do. And I just finished the research. I have been working on the project, just in another way but I wasn’t giving myself credit for it. And so this is a retroactive smackdown for the weeks I tortured myself.

Dear Self: I am truly sorry for allowing The Heavyweight to get so heavy handed. I knew you’d finish the project once you had all the information you needed to finish it. This has happened before. So next time the voice of The Heavyweight gets really loud I’ll remember that I am just getting ready to begin when the time is right and I have everything I need. I vow to read this email the next time I need to smackdown the voice of the Inner Critic. I’m not in the dreaded land of Waiting…Waiting…Waiting… I am doing what I need to do in the time it takes to do it. So back off Heavyweight!!!

Sometimes things need time to grow in the dark places in your mind before they are ready to come out. Is there something you feel you’re procrastinating about that just isn’t ready yet?

Safe to Fail

Danielle Stein wrote a profile, Queen Anne, in W Magazine about the actress Anne Hathaway. That girl has performed some major smackdowns lately and I say Brava! Check it out:

Hathaway is the first to admit that her intensity can be paralyzing. “Emily Blunt kind of changed my approach to acting,” she says of her Prada costar, who has become a close friend. “She just f—ing got on with it. She’d just jump off the diving board. I’d stop, look at the water and then jump. And suddenly I just thought, Why, her way looks so much more fun.”

She was able to shed her inhibitions on Rachel, which features an unwieldy cast of musicians, poets and performance artists portraying Rachel’s wedding guests. “Filming was kind of like going to artistic master-class summer camp,” says Hathaway. “It was not the usual movie set with big trailers and having to ask to go to the bathroom. I was always really into theater, and I’d always hoped I’d find a community of artists to nestle my way into. On this movie I felt like I had a tribe. And everyone had their own process, so you couldn’t look odd, which was lovely. I felt free of my rather overwhelming self-consciousness. I was in an environment where failure was okay.”

Love it! When she talks about the group of artists who made her feel free of her self-consciousness and allowed her to fail it reminds me of two life-changing moments. One was participating in Andre Debus III’s writing class while I was in graduate school at Emerson College in Boston. That was the first time I really felt like I could fail and learn from my mistakes and still persue my dreams. I’ll never forget the day he said, “I know I’ll see your books on the shelves somday.” And now he can! Check out Andre and his new book:  

The second time I found an environment like the one Hathaway describes was at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis. When I moved to Minnesota I knew I needed to find other people who were going for similar dreams. One of the biggest smackdowns my Inner Critic has ever received was after a reading I did at a board meeting at the Loft. After I finished, no one laughed me out of the room. Established writers whom I hold in awe asked me when the book would be published as though it was inevitable that I would publish my work. They treated me as a peer and that moment helped me begin to think of myself as a published author. My Inner Critic was seriously smacked down that day.

Anne Hathaway’s friend and colleague Emily Blunt was also quoted in that article:

Blunt believes that the combination of her recent personal trials and the filming of Rachel Getting Married have initiated a sort of rebirth for Hathaway. “She puts pressure on herself, but I think she’s at a point where she can breathe and discover her whole bag of tricks,” says the British actress. “She has this newfound sense of confidence, and as her friend, that’s very exciting to see.”

To battle The Heavyweight, that crazy loud Inner Critic we absolutely need friends like this. Friends who are excited to see us grow. Friends who are not intimidated by confidence, shedding of old skins, our successes or our failures.

Make a list of all the people who make you feel safe to fail. Spend at least an hour with one of those people each week.