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Good Enough is Good Enough

posted 28th August 2010    Written by: Renee    CATEGORY: Creativity, Inspiration, Renee, Season 3, What I've Learned

I sat down to write this post and got halfway through it and decided there was no fluidity, no form, no voice, and the whole thing was crap.

It’s writer’s block and it terrifies me. As someone who thrives on feeling productive, knowing that I just scrapped an hour’s worth of work makes me feel helpless and worthless.

I pride myself on my writing efficiency. In undergrad, I could knock out a three-to-five page paper in less than an hour. It would be a coherent, comprehensive work, too. Often, these papers would earn A’s, especially if it was for a class I really enjoyed.

Today? The writing isn’t coming easily. So instead I refill my glass of water… tap out a couple more words…  I check the mail… reread what I’ve written… I grab some string cheese from the fridge… delete a paragraph… I put another coat of nail polish on… and decide, screw it, this idea is not happening today.

And what can I do? How do I find inspiration when my energy turns negative? How should I expect myself to produce top-notch content when I feel sour about every word I type? How do I keep that Judgey McJudgerson voice in my head from constantly judging?

Is there anything more frustrating than not accepting what you produce? Be it music, art, writing, calculations, or whatever your line of work may be. It’s like, you don’t accept it so your client or readers or whatever sure as hell won’t accept it, either. But you know you’re your worst critic, so you try to look at it with someone else’s eyes and it actually just looks worse than you thought it did and please would that judgey voice STOP being all judgey in my head?

You’re certain when you submit it, it’s all mumbo-jumbo and you’re certain you’re just about to be fired because whatever you just submitted is total crap and your four year-old goddaughter could have created something way better than this. Is it naptime yet?

But then I take a step back. I take a deep breath. I roll out the tension in my shoulders. Each article, blog post, paper I write doesn’t have to be perfection. It doesn’t always have to break glass ceilings and burst through uncharted territory and thrill each and every reader. But it has to reach a level of acceptance.

One of my idols, Jane Fonda, writes in her autobiography, “Good enough is good enough.” Sometimes, that’s the best I can do and if I put forth good enough effort, then it’s good enough for me and it’s good enough for my audience. I can be proud of that.

I’m afraid of silly things—revolving doors, salmonella poisoning, things that go bump in the night–but I’m most afraid of not living up to my own expectations. I need to let myself off the hook from time to time and for God’s sake Renee just relax. Being authentic doesn’t mean being perfect, it means being the best version of yourself and meeting yourself where you are and being OKAY with that.

It’s gonna be okay. Relax.

[photo credit: AndWat]

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Well, this is Embarrassing.

posted 4th June 2010    Written by: Molly Mahar    CATEGORY: Job/Career/Work, Molly

I could start off with a long drawn explanation of why I shouldn’t be sharing my struggles with you guys.  But I won’t.  I’m just diving in…

I’m in a creative funk. I’ve been avoiding blogging, writing, commenting, or tackling any sort of creative work that requires me to be on.  Because I feel utterly and completely off.

It sucks.  I don’t like it one bit.  It’s like I’m that desperate last girl in gym class, waiting to be picked for a dodgeball team, but somehow I’m forgotten, and balls start flying across the gymnasium, and all I can do is stand there and get pummeled.

It’s humbling.  And painful.  And oddly lonely because as the proud mama of this site, I get to watch amazing posts by the ridiculously talented Nicole, Heather and Katie go live, and I’m just sitting on the sidelines.  Stuck.

I don’t know if it’s Joy Equation burnout or the aftermath of reading basically everyone who attended Bloggers in Sin City‘s (which was an amazing trip!!) entire blogs or the unfortunate timing of my first big launch just as product launches are getting slammed by the internet cool kids, but it doesn’t really matter.  The end result is the same.

Stuck.  Unmotivated.  Stuck-stuckity-stuck-ville.  Wanting desperately for my creative angel goddess muse to visit again, but am afraid she’s totally pissed at me for something I don’t even know that I did.

And I don’t have enough experience under my belt in creative matters to know what I should do. Is it just a little writer’s block? Should I push through it, regardless?  Force myself to write every day just to get back into the habit? Or do I retreat for a bit and just relax, confident that my mojo will return?

What do YOU do?

I know one thing I must stop doing–playing the comparison game.  During these last two weeks of brick wall blank screen time, I’ve developed  this horrible habit of getting sucked into the internet vortex of blog/launch/life comparisons.

I read an amazing post and get jealous instead of inspired. I start letting my Negative Nellie run wild with “You’ll never be able to write like that” or “You’ll never have that many loyal followers” or “You’re just not good enough to make it as a blogger, coach, teacher, internet rockstar”.  My Negative Nellie is loud and shouty and likes to be right. And when I’m already feeling beaten down, she wins most of the battles.

Obviously, I know this is NOT what I should be doing. It’s one of those mind tricks that always leads to disaster and feeds all my inner demons.  But it’s like I can’t help myself.  Seriously.  It’s a new found addiction.  Internet spiral of comparison-fueled unworthiness.

The logical smarty pants life coach side of me has plenty of advice for the moping-I-just-want-to-wrap-up-in-the-Big-Man’s-sweatshirts-and-discover-new-shows-on-Hulu side of me.  But the mopey-lets-just-reply-to-email-and-reorganize-my-desktop side doesn’t want to hear it.  She’s stuck.

And being stuck sucks.

photo credit: throninside

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