TILT #48 - Be yourself, the rest will work out

I haven’t posted for a while. One reason being busyness completing the final hurdle of my graduate school journey. Turns out graduate school is pretty hard. 🤣 One of my professors was famous for reminding us how she expected us to have “master’s” level knowledge whenever she unveiled the next batch of reading homework for our assignments. For someone returning to university 30 years after my first degree, the academic homework was a mix of OUCH + OUF!

The other reason for not blogging, if I am honest, is an old pattern rising to the surface again. Procrastination brought about by perfectionism. David and Tom Kelley in their 2013 book, Creative Confidence, noted that, “The need for control keep some people stuck at the planning stage of a project.” Ugh! Do I have control issues too?

It’s humbling to confess that I have a need for control. I want to control the depth and breadth of responses to my written work. I wish for lots of people to be moved by reading my words and be inspired to make changes in their lives. Even as I write that out loud, I am embarrassed at how self-important that sounds. This is exactly the kind of snobbery I was trying to stay away from. Yuck!

And yet, in daring to look deeper into why I want my readers to be affected by my stories, I find layers that point to the desire to be significant in this life. And to be significant in the way the world recognizes significance by focusing only on numbers as if the bigger the number, the more successful and impactful I am. While numbers might be a way to gauge my impact and legacy, it does not recognize all that is unseen below the surface. I’ve been so preoccupied in overthinking and over planning that I have stopped myself from writing. Du-uh! If there is no writing, there is no impact. Zero. Zilch.

For all my desire to impact the world, to “make a dent” à la Steve Jobs, I’m learning that truly, what I need to do is to bring my whole self into each opportunity to connect with people. If I dare to show up as my imperfect, work-in-progress self, as someone who choses to be real about my own journey, whether my learnings are perfectly wrapped in a bow or spilling over in disarray, whomever gets to hear my story will take what small nugget they need for their own journey. And if they get nothing from me, that does not mean I am useless or worthless. It simply means my story did not resonate with them and they will keep moving until they resonate with someone else’s journey.

Recently, I completed my term as a “Peer Mentor” in the Take the Leap! Program (Winter 2022). Throughout the 12 weeks, unlike writing my blog, I did not overthink or over-plan my participation. I responded whenever my spirit felt the nudge. I do not remember everything that I said during our big group sessions but I remember meaning everything I said. What a wonderful surprise then, to receive this unexpected, beautifully wrapped gift at the end of the program from a participant in appreciation for the value she found in some of my input.

Thanks, L. for this lesson, that I do not need to control everything, that showing up as my authentic self is more than good enough. The rest will take care of itself. May this moment return me to fulfilling the purpose of this blog.