I’ve been doing pretty good with the Daily 15 minutes of writing. That is, until I got complimented on my writing and now, I’m feeling a lot of performance anxiety about this exercise. However, I know I’m being ridiculous. After all, the exercise is for me to unloose my creativity, push past fear, and add a new discipline of training myself to write (and to write quickly and cogently).
Expectations are a funny thing.
Too few and I don’t push myself. Too many and I feel crushed.
What is the Goldilocks Zone of expectations?
I wonder if I burden myself with expectations because I do not wish to acknowledge my wants instead. Thus, instead of being honest with myself about the desires of my heart, I mask them in these crushingly unrealistic expectations.
Is this my sneaky way to slip under the radar and acknowledge (however peripherally) my own wants and desires?
Ugh. This is terrible. This whole piece is crap.
[clickToTweet tweet=”I’m having a hard time writing because I don’t want to feel my feelings today. And because I am closed off from my feelings and not writing from a place of truth, the words become stilted. #amwriting #truth #thefeels” quote=”I’m having a hard time writing because I don’t want to feel my feelings today. And because I am closed off from my feelings and not writing from a place of truth, the words become stilted.” theme=”style1″]
My words feel clumsy and ill-fitting. All limbs and joints but no meat or soul.
I am very tempted to start over another 15 minutes. (I mean, who is going to know? Who will care? Only I, in my pedantic fashion.)
And truthfully, there is no harm in just starting over. Why is this Daily 15 minutes session today so fraught with portent and seriousness? When really, it’s just a means to an end.
Oh, how I wish I learned some semblance of this lesson as a child (or even a young adult).
I hope for my children to learn that there is no shame in starting over. There is no shame in trying and choking. There is no shame in putting in the work – no matter how belabored or wheezy. That in life – and especially writing – you can always edit and improve a garbage attempt. But you can’t fix what isn’t there. You can’t improve what you never try.
What is it they say? I saw a video recently of Will Smith talking about failing forward and failing fast. That you learn more from your failures than you do from your successes and that the surest way to succeed to is to fail and fail as quickly as possible. Get those failures out of the way to prepare and teach you to do it better.
The more I practice this daily 15 minutes, the better I will become. There will be days like today where the work was not so good. But there will be other days when the words just flow and seem amazing and profound with little effort expended.
[clickToTweet tweet=”I wonder if I burden myself w #expectations bc I don’t wish to acknowledge my wants. Thus, instead of being honest with myself about the #desires of my heart, I mask them in these crushingly unrealistic expectations. ” quote=”I wonder if I burden myself with expectations because I do not wish to acknowledge my wants. Thus, instead of being honest with myself about the desires of my heart, I mask them in these crushingly unrealistic expectations.” theme=”style1″]
Oh, I just figured it out. (Or remembered.) I’m having a hard time writing because I don’t want to feel my feelings today. And because I am closed off from my feelings and not writing from a place of truth, the words become stilted.
The best writing expresses the deepest truths of our existence. It doesn’t matter if it’s satire, comedy, fiction, or non-fiction.
Good writing exposes our heart.
