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Do You Have The Courage To Be You? At thirty-four, Dan was a latecomer to success. Corporate downsizing had forced him out of two jobs in three years. He was wondering how he was going to finance another round of job hunting when the phone rang. "Can you come over? Now?" His neighbor sounded frantic. Her home computer screen had gone black in the middle of a spreadsheet and the hard disk was making an ominous whirring sound. She would give Dan anything if he'd come and raise this file from the dead. That's when the idea struck him. That evening, he designed an ad. Doctor PC (alias Dan) would offer a series of home computer lessons at a reasonable rate. Clients would be eligible for twenty-four hour emergency assistance. Maybe it was the photo in the ad: a man with a crazed look in his eyes, waving his fist at a computer. Dan was besieged by calls requesting the information packet he'd promised. But when Dan sat down to write his brochure, he found it impossible to convey his ideas into a two-page leaflet. He was unable in fact, to set down a single sentence that sounded good. He tortured himself for weeks. He couldn't focus. In the end, he couldn't even look at his computer. The brochure was never written. In therapy, Dan came face to face with a nagging, unconfronted truth: something inside of him did not want to have a successful business. The question was, Why? None of us choose to deliberately sabotage ourselves, but the sad reality is, very often we find ourselves like Dan: all show and no go. "Why am I so lazy?" we lament, or "Why can't I follow through on anything?" Laziness is almost never the issue. Often it's feelings of unworthiness. Dan was driven by fears that he had failed in life and always would. What he had found was a way to use the brochure as a way to further wound himself with failure just as he was experiencing some success. Simply finding someone else to write it for him never even occurred to him. There are other people who start out so beautifully, their results are so terrific, that they lose their nerve in a fit of, "I'll never be able to keep this up." One woman wrote a poem that was extraordinary. When it came time to seek a publisher, she had a sudden impulse to quickly rip it up and forget about it. The problem? She'd almost driven herself crazy getting every word exactly right. Because she knew no other way to work than to be hopelessly perfectionistic, all being a successful poet meant to her was going through a wrenching process every time she put a pen to paper. Many of us would love to have that woman's problem. We've got the talent; we just can't get started. Sara, a twenty-seven year old account executive with one of Chicago's top public relations firms, often came up with imaginative ideas for public relations campaigns at night, just as she was trying to fall sleep. When it was time to write them down in a proposal, she'd be beside herself. "All of the sudden, the ideas just seemed, well, stupid." In truth, they were highly innovative and exactly why her company hired her. According to psychologists, a lot of these mental blocks may have to do with an ongoing, internal conflict between a true self--who we really are inside-- and a false self, a persona we create to protect ourselves. When people like Sara begin to pursue their goals, the necessity of asserting themselves, or putting their deepest desires into action fills them with a sense of panic. Sara's true self was creative, spontaneous, ambitious. But Sara's father had different terms for these traits: "Stop living in a dream world! Why don't you think before you act? Don't be so greedy." Her self-expression became unconsciously tied to a feeling of being abandoned. To avoid the fear and the depression that would result if our real selves emerged, many of us create a false self which restructures life and makes it "safe." The unconscious thought is: "I'll give up being what would truly make me happy in exchange for never feeling the pain of abandonment." No wonder we can end up at the top of our careers, wondering, "Is this all there is?" and not feeling the slightest bit successful. If you've felt the wind go out of your sails right when you're closest to your desires, you're not alone. Keep the following suggestions in mind. 1. Creative discipline comes from pleasure. It's not a matter of throwing yourself against a wall repeatedly, as if the pain will suddenly motivate you. The most successful people are able to work hard at their goals because they love what they're doing, not because they're so good at holding the whip over their heads. Are you ready to move forward? If not, why not? When you find that your body doesn't want to cooperate with what your mind demands, sit down and compassionately ask yourself what the trouble is. Is there meaning for you in what you're attempting to do? Or are you dancing to someone else's expectations? 2. You have an important voice. You have something to say in the world that matters. When your work, your relationships, and your actions are an expression of that voice, you will feel and be successful. If you can't move towards a goal, perhaps you're trying to climb a ladder that's against the wrong wall. Perhaps you need a deeper connection with yourself, or someone to help you clarify your desires. 3. You don't need to do it alone. Reaching out, delegating, synergizing --all of these tactics can help unblock a block. If this kind of support isn't available in your family or on the job, you can get it from support groups or group therapy. 4. Perfectionism, self-criticism, procrastination are patterns thousands of people have, and today there are well-researched solutions that work to overcome them. Why hold onto a personality style with so many costs? Isn't it time to find out what you can do about them?
(C) 2007 Mitch Meyerson |
