Expectations…
 
Good evening dear reader & welcome to my world this week. In my last two articles I have been discussing the need one should take for reflection, & sharing with you my thoughts & conclusions. This week was relatively easy, as I have had time to sit @ airports for a few hours over a couple of days. In the beginning when I began writing weekly, it was easy. There was no pressure. There were no outside eyes. There were no expectations.

When I started writing, whilst initially I had some objectives, I also wrote about what I wanted to write about. I wrote because I wanted to get my thoughts down. I wrote because I felt like I needed to write. However, after a few months of sharing my work things began to change.

As I developed an audience, I noticed I began judging my work. In the beginning, I was just happy to get my ideas down on paper, but now I felt like they had to be “good” ideas. I began comparing new articles to my most popular ones by the feedback I received. I was constantly measuring everything I wrote against my internal standard of good & bad ~ even though I did not know exactly what this meant.

Thankfully, I did not let my self-doubt stop me from writing. I figured this was part of the creative process for anyone who created things consistently. I told myself the judgment & self-doubt was just a toll one has to pay to continue the journey & create better work. 

In a way, this is true. Everyone deals with self-doubt ~ artists, creators, entrepreneurs, athletes, parents. But in a way, I was wrong. Self-doubt is not a cost you have to pay to become better. Whilst away one of the many things I read was a book review by James Clear on ‘The Inner Game of Tennis’ by Timothy Gallwey. [1]  It is a book about life, not just tennis.

In particular, there was one quote from Gallwey which made both him & I pause & rethink our early months of writing & self-doubt.

“When we plant a rose seed in the earth, we notice it is small, but we do not criticize it as “rootless & stemless.” We treat it as a seed, giving it the water & nourishment required of a seed. When it first shoots up out of the earth, we do not condemn it as immature & underdeveloped; nor do we criticize the buds for not being open when they appear. We stand in wonder at the process taking place & give the plant the care it needs at each stage of its development. The rose is a rose from the time it is a seed to the time it dies. Within it, at all times, it contains its whole potential. It seems to be constantly in the process of change; yet at each state, at each moment, it is perfectly all right as it is.”
—Timothy Gallwey [1]

Ambition & contentment are not opposites, but we often make the mistake of thinking they are incompatible. On the one hand, experts tell us we should be mindful, focused on the present, & content with our lives regardless of the results. On the other hand, coaches & champions tell us successful people out work everyone else, & we must never be satisfied, & complacency is undesirable. The rose seed, however, is both content & ambitious.

As Gallwey says, at no point are we dissatisfied with the current state of the rose seed. It is perfectly all right at each moment. Yet, it is also incredibly ambitious. The rose seed never stops growing. It is constantly seeking to get to the next level. Every day it is moving forward, & yet, every day it is just as it should be.

It is important to realize, just because you are at Point A & someone else is at Point C it does not mean you are doing bad work. In fact, there is no bad work or good work. Just as there is no such thing as a rose seed or a bad rose bush. There are just points in time & repetitions completed.

Release the desire to define yourself as good or bad. Release the attachment to any individual outcome. If you have not reached a particular point yet, there is no need to judge yourself because of it. You cannot make time go faster & you cannot change the number of repetitions you have put in before today. The only thing you can control is the next repetition.  [2]

Thank you for taking the time to be with me once again. I hope my journey may encourage you also. This is Kenn Butler in Paradise, Nelson. With my best wishes for another week…                             I look forward to being with you all again soon.
 




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