Hi again, writer friends,
I’ve been all about the mindset and inner work lately.
I realized that while hustle and grind were enough to get to a six-figure income, if I wanted to grow beyond that, I was going to need some magical thinking. I needed tools that could help me get out of my own way and eliminate a pervasive sense of unworthiness. I needed to learn how to allow for success, without the guilt and sabotage that I’ve gotten so good at.
I understood that if something wasn’t working, I needed to take responsibility for the energy I was bringing to the situation.
A mentor asked a question that shifted things dramatically:
What’s the one area of your life in which you’re completely solid, and what are you doing in that area that you’re not doing in parts of your life you want to improve?
For me, the area where I’m solid is relationships. I have excellent relationships with both my parents and my in-laws, all of whom I get very excited to see and spend time with. When I choose to, I find it easy to make friends. I have friends from thirty years ago that I’m still very close to, and friends I made less than two years ago that are now a big part of my life. I’ve long said that I attract incredible people to my life effortlessly. And the crowning achievement of my life, of course, is my marriage, which is the safest and truest place for me, and to which I bring my whole self without reservation. People talk about marriage being work and/or compromise. I’ve never had to—or desired to—do either of those things.
Contrast that, however, to my publishing career where four agents, several false-starts, and far too many compromises later, I feel insignificant, let down, and twisted out of shape into a pretzel, for people who were never going to appreciate the acrobatics.
The problem is not the people. The problem is, as it always has to be, me. My energy. My lack of clarity. My expectations. And my lack of definition for what I will and will not accept.
I realized, after my mentor asked the question, that I’m excellent at two things:
1. Identifying what I want.
2. Articulating what I want.
In relationships, I do this effortlessly. I ask for what I want and, if I don’t get it, I ask again. I do not apologize for asking, and I have no worthiness issues around receiving. In relationships, I’ve never felt the need to be anything other than who I am. I don’t try to change myself to make people like me. And if someone doesn’t approve of what I do or how I act, I don’t make it mean anything about me.
When I started writing, I brought this same attitude to freelancing. Either a client was a great match or they weren’t. I have no fear or scarcity around letting a client go. Clients are like buses—if you miss one, you can catch the next. I don’t try to change who I am or how I work in order to make clients like me. And if it turns out we’re not a fit, I don’t make it mean anything about me.
In my publishing career, when it didn’t work out, I didn’t (actively) try to change who I am in order to make them like me, though compromises were made.
But I made it mean everything about me.
I spent two straight years attacking myself for the outrageous act of being me.
No wonder then that marriage is easy and fun, freelancing is easy and fun, and publishing has been difficult and draining.
Again, it’s not about them. It’s about me. My lack of boundaries. My inability to articulate what I needed at various points in my relationships with agents and editors. And lowering the volume of my needs slowly and steadily over the years in order that these agents and editors like me.
Understanding and acknowledging your part is the first step, they say.
I’ve understood. I’ve acknowledged. I’ve learned from my mistakes.
I’ve increased the volume on my desires again, all the way to the top. Either I’ll get everything I want in the way that I want it, or I won’t.
I’ll be fine either way, because this time, I won’t compromise. And if it doesn’t work? I won’t make it mean anything about me.
Cheers,
Natasha