Of Success... and Naps

How am I going to make this successful??

Have you ever tormented yourself with this question?

Me, too.

I told myself when I began this site that I would focus only on creating content for the first six months. I have a lovely, Large Brain that likes to Figure Things Out; and, it can spin out into Monkey Mind Land if I allow it to think it's in charge. So, details like how many visitors I might have; whether my posts are primed for ideal Search Engine Optimization (SEO); or, how to monetize my efforts if possible: I decided nope, nope, nope, not gonna put the cart before the horse.

Focus on showing up consistently, Lorie. Challenge yourself to express your unique voice. Put the What ahead of the How for the time being. Commit to and do these things for six months, call it a personal success, and take your next step.

Feel the Zen there?

Then I came upon Melyssa Griffin and The Nectar Collective.

Oh, boy! Her content is motivating and aspirational. It dives deeply into various Hows of building an audience for your website. I love her writing voice, the topics she covers, and the can-do outlook that comes across in her postings. I admire her work and revenue results.

O! So many rabbit holes...!

What a shiny Rabbit Hole!

I easily spent a few hours on her site over a couple days. I got ideas. I joined a Facebook Group she administers. I even signed up for an e-course she has about building email lists. It's polished, thorough, and just spiffy six ways to Sunday. Plus, links off her site led me to other data, reviews, opinions, case studies, and how-to's.

More rabbit holes...

Then yesterday, I kinda freaked out. I felt inferior and inadequate when I sat down to write. I felt overwhelmed and distracted. I tried to shake it off and managed a couple feeble sentences, but in my head I heard --

Maybe I'm barking up the wrong tree with this site? I don't know about X... and, my J is non-existent. Ack! Maybe I'll never be successful.

Imagine here a sucking sound, like a toilet flushing.

Time for a Monkey Mind Shutdown.

I walked away and took a nap.

What is success, anyway?

Ask any person, and their answer will vary.

Me? For years and years, success meant that I would finally "make a living" being a creative person and entrepreneur. I'd bring in enough income to pay off credit cards. In fact, I'd bring in enough income to fund a philanthropy! Let's think big, right? Success would be winning that contest, grant, or fellowship, producing an acclaimed play or income-producing independent movie, or getting a gig with that awesome company doing X.

Success meant I'd get paid for my creative vision and output. 

Success also meant autonomy, leadership, and industry respect.

Guess what? Most of these outcomes have not been part of my path so far. If success is only defined by what I have achieved of my goals, I'm a failure.

Yep. A failure with a capital F. Fale-yur.

As such, my notions of success have evolved: working repeatedly with talented, kind collaborators feels like success. Learning to say "yes" to things that scare me in a challenging, good way, and saying "no" to things that I'm afraid to pass up due to fear of missing out - success. Trusting in stillness when I'm not sure which way to go (or my mental monkeys are haranguing me)...

Strangely enough, when I walked away for a nap yesterday, that was a success for me.

I didn't allow myself to wallow in anxious dreck. I knew if I came back around after a "reboot," I'd find my way back to the flow. I knew I'd be okay, because I believe in myself. It's taken a long time to get here, but hey, if you fall down and get back up enough times, you learn you can.

Success means getting up again, failure after failure.

You! Yes, you there.

If you sense an inner voice that calls to you to try something "crazy," change direction, make a new, different, unfamiliar choice, or even pick up your toys and go home, and you heed it, that's success. Even if it fails. Even when it fails. Because, you will learn a little something, pick yourself back up, and try again. After a nap.

That is belief in yourself, the greatest success of all, in my book.

Success-is-belief-in-self-quote

Focus, Benjamin Franklin

There's this book I love.

In The Renaissance Soul, author Margaret Lobenstine makes an analogy between folks who tend to be wired like the singularly-focused composer, Mozart, and folks who tend more toward the passionate, changing, disparate interests of inventor / statesman / polymath, Benjamin Franklin.

Guess which one I identify with?

In her book, she describes how these two groups tend to be perceived in our economy and media; Mozarts are the winners.

Look at this expert, this virtuoso. His focus and talent are undeniable! He's the best!

Yep, I've wished I had the talent, the compulsion even, of Mozart. To bear a gift (probably a burden, too) like that - maybe it would be comforting in a way, to know there's nothing else that calls to me. I could drill down, down, down, into that interest and whittle myself into the best Something Impressive. Maybe that would translate into more stable income. Or, a clearer Career Ladder to climb...?

But, I have more than one burning passion, and, they evolve. I've never been able to stick to just one interest. I've been an instructional designer, software entrepreneur, landscape nursery manager, garden designer, independent film and theater producer, and more.

My career path looks like this:

My interests look like these tangled strings...

What I loved about The Renaissance Soul is that Lobenstine describes people like me and presents the strengths inherent in our disposition.

Renaissance Souls love nothing better than to take on a new problem or situation and then dig in...until we master the challenge we've set for ourselves. And then, with fresh enthusiasm, we move on to another passion. We are lucky people who, if left to our own devices, are never bored for long.

It's true. I'm not often bored. Overwhelmed, yes.

With all my interests, I can feel scattered, and on my worst days, like a Follow-Through Failure.

Part of this is because when I grasp something, I tend to grasp the Whole Picture. I get wide, sweeping vistas of inspiration and ideas. Then I get overwhelmed and frustrated by the process of getting them out of my head and communicated or executed in full.

The other part is that I get distracted by shiny, dangly, interesting new things - a LOT.

But, Lobenstine lays out strategies for channeling and sustaining a Renaissance Soul's energies so that s/he can better see things through. One of them is to limit oneself to only four items on the Interests Smorgasbord at a time. One can add or remove new items at will; but, keep no more than four on the burners at any time.

This weekend, I felt my inner Ben Franklin chomping at the bit of a new idea. But, it's stressing me out, because as such, I didn't made the progress on my other Smorgasbord items that I planned to. Arg.

So, deep sigh. Rein it in, Benjamin. Note the shiny new idea, and let it steep.

It's not time for me to swap out anything on the smorgasbord, yet.

How about you? Are you a Mozart or a Franklin?

- Diane Ackerman

What an odd, ruminating, noisy, self-interrupting conversation we conduct with ourselves from birth to death.

~Diane Ackerman, An Alchemy of Mind: The Marvel and Mystery of the Brain

Michael Singer Quote

"You will someday come to see that there is no use for that incessant internal chatter, and that there is no reason to constantly attempt to figure everything out."

-- Michael Singer, The Untethered Soul

I love this book. It helped me grasp that I am not my loud, insistent, looping, probing, restless psyche; I am the Inner Observer of it.