Blog - Melissa Dinwiddie | Create the Impossible™ | Innovation Keynote Speaker & Consultant

March 17, 2013

The Golden Formula In Action: Self-Awareness + Self-Compassion Save the Day

Have you taken the Strengthsfinder 2.0 inventory? Buy the book and inside you’ll find a sealed envelope with a one-time code to take the test, designed by the Gallup Poll folks, which purports to tell you your top five strengths.

According to Strengthsfinder, my top strength is Connectedness, and my next highest strength is Achiever.

Anyone who knows me would not be the least surprised at this second one.

That number two strength, Achiever, means that one of the features of being me is a constant need for achievement.

This can be a good thing, as it drives me to keep going, growing, and reaching.

It can also be a not-so-good thing, as I’m prone to feeling pretty unhappy on days when I don’t produce much. Face it, I’m happiest when I feel like I’ve been really productive.

Here’s what the Gallup Business Journal has to say about the Achiever type (emphases mine):

Your Achiever theme helps explain your drive. Achiever describes a constant need for achievement. You feel as if every day starts at zero. By the end of the day you must achieve something tangible in order to feel good about yourself. And by “every day” you mean every single day — workdays, weekends, vacations. No matter how much you may feel you deserve a day of rest, if the day passes without some form of achievement, no matter how small, you will feel dissatisfied.

Yep. That’s me to a T.

Not surprisingly, this can make it hard for me to truly relax.

A real vacation I can enjoy (though I also confess that my vacations tend to be pretty oriented toward doing something, rather than lying around doing nothing). However, a “hooky day” that becomes a “hooky day” because other stuff gets in the way of my intentions, or because I’m just tired or feeling rebellious, that leaves me feeling yucky.

Take yesterday. By any reasonable measure, yesterday was a great day:

I had a therapeutic massage, and the fact that I only winced a little, rather than begging for mercy for half the time, indicated great improvements.
I walked to and from the massage — 40 minutes of brisk walking total — which felt great, and meant I got to check off my “I exercised today” box in my goal-tracker app, without even having to go to the gym! (Did I mention I’m an Achiever?)
I got my hair cut.
I got some wonderful “quality time” with MB.

MB and I even made a start toward implementing the new backup system we have planned for my new iMac, which involved much untangling and unplugging of cables (many of which turned out — lo and behold — not to be plugged into anything (!)) and initiating transferring my computer backups to a brand, new backup drive. This counted, big time, toward my long-term clutterbusting goals (even though it has temporarily made my studio even more cluttered…)

A good day, right?

Yet when I went to bed I felt frustrated. Dissatisfied. I never got to the projects I’d intended to make inroads on, which left me filled with a sense of “I’m not making any progress,” which in turn led me down the road to hopelessness, despair, and “what’s the point?”

The Golden Formula to the Rescue!

Years ago I might have wallowed in this state of unhappiness for days. This was never helpful (still isn’t), and usually led me to be even less productive the next day, rather than more, creating a rather vicious cycle.

Thankfully, over the years I’ve evolved a much more useful response. Last night, when I noticed my feelings heading down from dissatisfaction toward despair, I whipped out my Golden Formula:

Self-awareness + self-compassion = the key to everything good. (Click to tweet this!)

So what does that mean? How does one actually apply this formula in practice?

Here’s a peek at what works for me and how I used it last night:

1) Notice the feelings.

My first step is the opposite of what I used to do. Instead of trying to stuff the feelings or make them go away, I instead practice self-awareness or mindfulness.

I consciously notice my feelings, as if “stepping outside of the distress” to look at it from the outside, from a place of neutrality.

I observe with curiosity, rather than judgment.

“Huh,” I might say to myself, “I notice I’m feeling dissatisfied. I notice a sense of despair starting to creep up on me.”

Practicing mindfulness this way is like looking at myself-in-my-distress as a fascinating creature under the microscope. And because I know that feelings are transitory, I can more easily separate myself from my feelings.

This practice of self-awareness doesn’t make me feel better, in that it doesn’t make the lousy feelings stop, but it loosens their grip on me. Something about separating myself from my feelings makes them easier to bear. It helps me become more comfortable with my discomfort.

(Side Benefit of Enormous Proportions: since I know that just about everything worth doing requires me to lean into discomfort to one degree or another, getting comfortable with discomfort is the Number One skill to develop if you want to accomplish anything worth doing! (Click to tweet this!)

2) Respond with self-compassion.

Our reflex is so often to respond to ourselves in a harsh, judgmental way. When I’m frustrated at not achieving a goal I’d set for myself, the temptation is strong to lambast myself.

But beating yourself up is not an effective long-term motivator. Self-flagellation only makes you feel worse, and with the threat of a beating looming if you fail next time, it becomes safer not to try at all.

Yikes! Talk about an anti-incentive!

Nowadays, my motto is, “Don’t beat yourself up, love yourself up.” (Click to tweet this!) I’ve found it works a helluva lot better.

From that observer viewpoint “outside of the distress,” here’s how I can react:

I can comfort myself for feeling bad:

“Oh, sweetie, I know you’re feeling frustrated. I hear you. I understand.”

I can remind myself of reality and remind myself I’m not alone:

“I hope you can see that it was actually a good day in many ways, even though it also left you feeling hugely frustrated. It was so fun to spend time with MB, and you’ve made real progress on getting an automatic backup system set up. Besides, everyone has days when they accomplish less than they’d like. And everybody deserves a rest day — it’s really okay that you took one.”

I can mentor myself to make whatever adjustments are necessary to make tomorrow a better day:

“I know you’d like to feel more productive tomorrow, so let’s think about how we can make sure that happens. Let’s spend some time journaling to figure out what you’d like to accomplish tomorrow, what might get in the way, how to avoid those stumbling blocks, and what you’ll do if you trip on one.”

(For more details on self-compassion and why it’s so important and effective, I highly recommend Kristin Neff’s book, Self-Compassion.)

All of the above is exactly what I did. And since I still have a long way to go on my goal of reasonable goal-setting, I expect to get many more opportunities to practice implementing this Golden Formula.

Bring it on, baby! I’m ready!

Meanwhile, excuse me, but sure and begorrah, ’tis a grand day to be alive! I’m off to achieve something this Saint Patrick’s Day. 😉

May the road rise to meet you.

PS — Pssst! Know someone who might benefit from seeing this today? Pass it on!

March 13, 2013

A Peek Inside My Kimono: Announcing the Book Report!

So I’m writing a book. It’s called Your Big, Bold, Creative Life: A User’s Manual, I’m 23,784 words into the rough draft (over a third done!) and if you want, I’ll share the entire process with you.

Yep, I’ll give you an insider’s view into everything: writing, publishing, and promoting.

I’ll share everything I learn about building a sustainable writing practice (writing a book takes endurance, baby!). I’ll reveal the contents of my private journal as I brainstorm not just the book itself, but also how to publish, how to crowdfund the editing and production, and how to promote. I’ll show you the steps I go through in the design process for the cover and interior of the book (including finding and hiring a designer, deciding whether to do any design myself, etc.).

I’ll share a little bit here on the blog periodically, but it feels pretty intimate to share all this stuff with The Public…

So I’ve created a special newsletter, the Book Report, just for my peeps who are really interested in this stuff, and who want first dibs on the book when it’s done (including exclusive pre-sale bonuses!)

If you want the full reveal, including a chance to get a free review copy of the manuscript, click here to subscribe to the Book Report, and I’ll send you my latest video diaries all about the book.

The first Book Report video is above — check it out! (At 10 minutes it’s a bit on the long side; I know we’re all busy, so I’ll aim to make future video diaries under 5 minutes.)

Wheeee! This is kinda scary, but also really fun! Here we go!

PS – I talk in the video above about how bringing my computer to bed made me a zillion times more productive, but Laura pointed out in the comments to my last post that bringing your computer to bed is frowned upon in some circles, and for good reason. If I were to somehow bring my iMac (ie, my Work Computer) into my bedroom, it would be a disaster. I’d have no separation between work and my Creative Cocoon, and would probably leap right down the internet and email rathole. The only reason bringing my computer to bed works for me is that in my head, this particular computer is not My Computer, it’s simply a tool that allows me to write more efficiently. So take care if you try this technique yourself!

PPS — Pssst! Know someone who might benefit from seeing this today? Pass it on!

March 7, 2013

Bedroom Rituals Learned On Retreat

The courtyard at Santa Sabina Center, the setting for the Friends of Calligraphy retreat

On Sunday I got back from a five-day retreat hosted by my beloved calligraphy guild, the Friends of Calligraphy. I’d been counting the days to the retreat for months.

The first time I went on this retreat was in 2002, and since then I’ve only missed one FOC retreat in twelve years. In the words of one of my fellow retreat regulars (though to be fair, with only one out of the 32 of us a newbie, the retreat has a way of making everyone who attends a regular):

“The retreat is non-negotiable.” [Read more…]

February 25, 2013

Creative Commitments, Vacations, and Compassionate Hands (Plus a Snowman for Good Measure)

Last week I was up to my ankles in fluffy snow, in Big Sky, Montana, an hour’s drive outside of Yellowstone National Park.

It was an amazing week: cross-country skiing almost every day (that hill in the pic above? I climbed up it on my skis, then skied down the other side), a memorable tour into snow-covered Yellowstone in a snowcoach, great food, and most wonderful of all, the rare treat of having my whole family together!

Montana Snowman — Here’s a snowman Bro and Mr. Goo made the day I left for home.

My brother’s lived on the opposite coast for decades, but now that he has a kid — my almost-3 1/2-year-old nephew (who has my hair!) — I feel the miles more than ever. Getting a week with Mr. Goo (as my brother sometimes calls him) was so precious to me (and yes, also sometimes exhausting — couldn’t someone please figure out how to bottle that energy and give me some?)

Keeping Creative Commitments on Vacation

I confess I didn’t do as good a job of unplugging as I would have liked. There was wifi all over the ranch where we were staying, and that, combined with my iPhone and some wildly entertaining conversations in the clubhouse made for an irresistible combination…

On the other hand, I did manage to do at least a little writing on my book every day I was gone. It wasn’t always easy to fit it in, but I’d made a commitment to write every day, and I stuck with it.

One thing that helped was keeping my goal really attainable.

I wanted to put in at least an hour every day. I knew that would be hard to make happen, though, and I also knew I’d feel vastly more successful if I had a 100% chance of actually succeeding.

So I scaled back my goal.

Instead of an hour of writing, I made my target just fifteen minutes or 500 words. I still wanted an hour, but I allowed myself to feel successful with just fifteen minutes.

This is the same technique that helped me create over 150 finished artworks in 2011.

(Yes, I feel pretty happy about that fact — as happy as I look in the pic above.)

There’s nothing magic about the number fifteen — I’ve used the technique with ten minutes, five minutes, three minutes, and in one case I got some great results with a hugely resistant client by assigning one minute a day.

The key is to make the goal ridiculously achievable — impossible not to achieve. All it has to do, really, is get you started.

Starting is always the hardest part, so if you can make the hurdle to starting as low as possible, you’re a lot less likely to trip over it. (And once you start, you may find yourself happily logging more time than your tiny goal!)

While I was in Montana, fifteen minutes of writing was all I got on some days. Other days it was a lot more. The important thing is that every single day — even the day we left at 7:00am for the snowcoach tour into Yellowstone and didn’t get back until dinner — I kept my commitment and had the satisfaction of checking off the “Daily Writing Commitment” checkbox in my goal-tracking app.

The Disruption of Travel

Funnily enough, my record has not been so good since coming home. Usually travel disrupts my schedule while I’m away from home, but sometimes the disruption is worse during the transition back to “normal life.”

Sigh…

A 24-hour migraine put the kibosh on my plans for Saturday and Sunday, and I lost most of yesterday in a spasm of tech mania OCD (trying to create post-by-email functionality for the clubhouse, and comparison shopping to settle on the best way to create a landing page and site for Your Big, Bold, Creative Life — the book and book tour [yes! a book tour!], and the course — an updated and renamed version of my Time to Glow program — which I’m revving up to start in April.)

So yeah, I fell short of my (admittedly rather big) goals for getting lots of writing done this weekend. But I’ve learned that beating myself up is never the right solution. Instead, I love myself up, remind myself I’m only human, and reboot (hat tip to Jeannie in the clubhouse for that awesome word!).

As I like to say, the most important practice you can engage in is the practice of getting back on the wagon. (Click to tweet this!)

That, and self-awareness + self-compassion = the key to everything good. (Click to tweet this!)

So no self-flagellation here, just an acknowledgment that to stumble is human. Plus a whole lotta self-compassion.

Think about it. It’s remarkable how much easier it is to climb back on that wagon when instead of a fist punching you about the face and neck, you find a compassionate hand reaching out to pull you back up.

May your wagon always be short, and the hand pulling you up always be compassionate when you stumble.

PS — Pssst! Know someone who might benefit from seeing this today? Pass it on!

February 21, 2013

There Is No Silver Bullet (But There Are Some Golden Tools)

I’m in Montana as you read this, unplugged from the Interwebs, playing in the snow with my not-quite-3 1/2-year-old nephew, Spencer (who has my hair!), and when I get back, I’m headed off to my annual spring retreat with my calligraphy guild. It seemed a perfect time to pull this article out of the archives.

So, for your enjoyment, I present to you an article first published on Feburary 26, 2012. -xom

Here’s the sad truth: there is no silver bullet.

I would love to tell you that if you follow my instructions, figure out your motivators, etc. etc. you’ll be blessed with unobstructed creative abundance for the rest of your days.

I’d love to tell you this, and I could, of course.

But it would be a big, fat lie.

That truth is, living a creative life — the creative life of your wildest dreams — requires ongoing effort. Resistance is the sneakiest adversary you will ever encounter, and fighting it off requires constant vigilance.

I’m sorry, my dear creative soul, to be the bearer of bad news, but there it is.

Here’s the good news:

Thankfully, we have lots of tools in our toolbox, lots of weapons in our arsenal (if you like militaristic metaphors, which I really don’t, but then, sometimes they’re useful).

One of the most powerful tools ever is the Retreat.

Ahhh, the Retreat! A bubble of creative space and time, where you’re beholden to nobody but yourself.

And that’s exactly where I’m going on Tuesday night, after my Creative Ignition Circle call — to my annual Spring Retreat (never mind that it’s not actually Spring yet..) with the Friends of Calligraphy.

It’s heavenly.

For years it was the only place, the only island of time in my year, where I actually created to feed my soul.

Hard to believe, but true. And as a result, this retreat holds a very precious place in my heart. People have been going to the Friends of Calligraphy Spring Retreat for 30 years. This will be my tenth Retreat in eleven years. (Yes, I missed one — huge mistake, which I’m not anxious to repeat.)

Being at the Retreat affects your thinking. Everything feels possible. Dreams feel achievable.

The joy of unimpeded creating led me, every year at the Retreat, to create outrageous goals for myself (which never felt very outrageous at the time) for after I got home. Goals like “I will create a weekend staycation retreat for myself once a quarter!” and “I will create a full afternoon retreat for myself to play in the Creative Sandbox once a week!” They seemed so reasonable!

Yeah, right. Never happened.

Eventually (as in last year), I figured out that smaller, more bite-sized — hell, teeny tiny — goals were a lot more effective. As in 15 minutes a day. And now I live a more creative life than I ever imagined possible, filled with more creative doings than I ever imagined possible.

Yet I still make the time (and spend the money) to go to the FOC Retreat.

Why?

Why, if I’m creating on my own, in my own home, in my own studio, do I still spend the money (~~$538~~ $548 this year) and take the time to go to the FOC Retreat?

Because it’s magical.

Because something truly special happens when you allow yourself to get away and focus, uninterrupted, on your creative desires.

Because the bubble of the retreat requires other creators, each of us working on our own creative thing, in order to stay afloat and keep all of us aloft.

Things happen at the Retreat that do not happen elsewhere

Two years ago the FOC Retreat was where I created my very first artwork in my Irresistible Woman line. (In fact, that was the only visual art I made that week. The rest of the Retreat I wrote like a woman possessed. I think that may have been where this very blog was conceived, as a matter of fact!)

The year before that I made an entire alphabet of illuminated letters, including the “S” just below right (for Spencer, of course!)

One year, after not making a new ketubah for three years, I made four new ketubah designs in the 4 1/2 days of the Retreat. Considering that my “fastest” ketubah design up until that point was about 20 hours, this was nothing short of miraculous.

That was the year I dropped out of the Retreat at the last minute, because money was so tight. My friend Jen called me up and told me “Honey, don’t worry about the money — it’s taken care of. You have to be there.” She and her father and two other dear Retreatants chipped in to pay for my stay. One of them even anonymously gave me a gift certificate for a massage from the masseuse who always sets up a table in a room upstairs for us. I’m getting teary just thinking about it. The fact that my presence wa

s so important to them — friends whom I only ever see at the Retreat — still chokes me up.

That was also the year I realized that, although I thought I couldn’t afford to go to the Retreat, in truth I can’t afford not to go to the Retreat.

Here’s the thing: yes, I live a more fully creative life now than I ever imagined I could. But it’s still a continual uphill battle to make sure my creative Bliss(es) get the attention they need. I fall off the wagon over and over and over again, and have to keep practicing at getting back on it.

There is no silver bullet.

But there are Golden Tools

Like the Retreat. And workshops. And creative communities that keep you focused on what’s important and validate that you keep doing it.

Which is, of course, precisely why these are the things — retreats, workshops, creative community — I’ve been working so hard to build. (All part of my plan for World Domination, of course. ;))

Then there are books, and blogs, and conferences, and pen pals, and creative challenges, and videos and podcasts…

If your creative spirit is important to you (and if you’re on this blog, the odds are pretty good that it is), you must — must — take advantage of every single tool you can get your hot little hands on to help you keep your toe in the Creative Stream and your mind and body in the Creative Sandbox as much as you possibly can.

Do you know of anyone who said on their death bed “I regret following my Bliss”?

Ha. It’s the NOT following, the NOT doing that leads to regret.

Arm yourself, dear creative. Your health and happiness depend on it.

If you’re looking for some golden tools for yourself, join me at one of the retreats and workshops I have coming up — Canada and California in May, Istanbul and the Turquoise Coast along the Mediterranean in September/October. Get the full skinny here.

Have you ever been on a retreat that filled your creative well? What other favorite “golden tools” have you used for pushing past Resistance and getting to your creative thing?

PS — Pssst! Know someone who might benefit from seeing this today? Pass it on!

Bite the Bullet photo by Richard Elzey at Flickr

The Golden Formula to the Rescue!

1) Notice the feelings.

2) Respond with self-compassion.

Keeping Creative Commitments on Vacation

The Disruption of Travel

Here’s the good news:

Things happen at the Retreat that do not happen elsewhere

But there are Golden Tools

Would You Like Some Cookies?