I’m staring at a blank screen wondering what I should write for this very blog entry. I’m not sure what to write. It needs to be something good. You guys are important and I want to write my best for you. I’m experiencing a bit of writer’s block.
Then it occurs to me that what I am experiencing – trying to write good content is very similar to what people often experience in trying to live a calling and design their life. Let’s look at the parallels.
Writer’s Block
Writer’s block often happens because the writer is a bit of a perfectionist. That first sentence has to suck the reader in. We consider, “The sky radiated a pale blue that day.” No, that won’t do. And so the page remains blank.
Maybe our creative juices just aren’t flowing. Sentence after sentence just feels bland and uninspired. So we delete all the attempts and once again stare at that blank screen.
Or maybe we just don’t know what we want to write about. Should we write a brooding mystery, a romance, a crafty short story, or an auto-biography? We haven’t figured it out yet. So we sit staring at that text-less screen not sure what to put down.
Non-Writer’s Block
The same processes can haunt the person trying to live a legacy. I call this non-writer’s block. We can sit frozen from perfectionism. We can’t pick just anything for our calling It’s got to be perfect. And so our calling remains unlived.
Or we feel uninspired. We get started in our attempt to change our part of the world, but it really doesn’t crank our “on button.” We start pursuing our calling with a “do I have to?” attitude. The activity sucks the energy out of us. and we conveniently forget to schedule the next step.
Possibly we would like to live a more significant and impactful life but we are pretty unclear how that should look. We don’t have a guiding direction, so we stay put – living in a holding pattern.
Solutions
The same things that can keep a writer stuck staring a blank screen can keep a person from experiencing their passionate, authentic life full of significance. Here are two ways to get moving with either kind of block (writer’s or non-writer’s). Note that they aren’t mutually exclusive – you can do both at the same time:
1. Iteration
Iteration is where you try something, evaluate, and then make adjustments. Repeat this as many times as necessary. The key here is to just get started. It’s not going to be right, but you need to go through the steps to discover what needs to be discovered.
It’s easier to change an existing thing than it is to start a new thing. So just start with the easiest crappy thing you can think of, and then start changing it and improving it through iteration.
There is no magic bullet out there. There’s no magic 5 step process to instant success. What worked for someone else may not work for you. The steps don’t work, you do. This is why you need to iterate.
2. Support
With support, you will still iterate a lot. There’s no avoiding that. But the support person will help you bypass a lot of the iterative steps speeding up your process by 2, 3 or even 10 times.
Support can be in the form of a “running buddy” – someone who is going through a similar process as you. It can also be in the form of mentors and coaches.
A great mentor or coach will not tell you what to do. Rather this person will help you discover what works uniquely for you. A great mentor or coach will ask the right questions and uncover the deeper truths you need to understand about you and your own uniqueness. You’re not meant to just copy someone else’s template. Instead you’re meant to get in touch with your authentic self and your values, and express that in the world.
At Simply Great Lives, we believe in coaching. We pay for our own coaches. We’ve learned that the do-it-yourself plan is the long path and ultimately more costly.
If you are experiencing non-writers block in your life, if you’re wanting to live a legacy and outlive your life, but you’re blocked, I recommend you find support and start iterating. This is urgent because if you don’t have a purpose for your life, someone else will.
