I’ve been sitting on this draft for a while, fueled by one thought “I should send out a newsletter”. The should being the only motivation that’s got me opening Substack and clicking on the “create new article” button.
But the empty page and the pressure of should just got me feeling… stuck.
Aaah the word stuck. If I had a € for every time somebody told me that they’re feeling stuck, or for every time I thought I was stuck — I could probably buy myself a villa and call myself a contessa.
Alas!
At this point, I’m freestyling. Just letting myself type until I figure out what I want to say. Hoping that the words will finally match an idea, as they usually do when I start this process.
But from this paragraph onwards, I’m exploring my writing from a different thought. “What do I get to share with the world today?”
I once read a book by Michael Neill whose main premise is that if you want to change your life, start by changing your thoughts. There are a lot of ideas to unpack there, like the concept of consciousness and all that, but whenever I’m feeling bogged down by “what now?”, I go back to the simpler idea: change my thoughts, change my life.
So in the span of the last few paragraphs, I changed my thoughts from: I should write a newsletter today → I get to share ideas that could help people today.
And in the moment I decided to change my thoughts, I literally felt my shoulders loosen up.
And now I can write.
Before sitting down to attempt to write, I was scrolling LinkedIn, and in under 5 minutes I was bombarded by people telling me:
The many ways I was doing my life and my career wrong. That I should be focusing on x, y, and z if I want to even see a semblance of success or even happiness.
A certain way of doing things, a role, or even an industry is dead in one scroll. And just 2 scrolls and a post later, somebody is saying the exact opposite and why a certain way of doing things, a role, or the same industry is going to thrive.
To take back my energy and agency. But also, here are the millions of reasons why it’s not you; it’s them. But it's also you. So… yes!
Enough to make me rethink whether or not writing anything here will make a difference, or am I just adding to the noise and confusion?
And the biggest fear of them all:
What if I’m sharing the most unhelpful thing in the world that just creates more chaos in people’s minds and hearts so much so that it eventually brings in the apocalypse?!
And that’s how I found myself staring at a blank page, thinking that I should write, but I didn’t want to write something that could potentially end the world.
On the other hand, I love that even in the midst of this crisis, I still thought the world revolved around me. And for somebody who grew up believing that I wasn’t that important, I do appreciate this change in my self-esteem. Lol.
And then a flash in my mind, and I’m remembering Michael Neill’s book.
Suffice to say I didn’t start changing my thoughts immediately. I wanted to clearly “see or hear” what thoughts were going on in my head first. Because what was I thinking in the first place? Would I be really changing them or just piling on new thoughts to the already overflowing stack?
My therapist once +1d this book by telling me (and I’m sure you’ve been told this before), our thoughts are never truly real unless we make them real. As in, if we let them dictate how we will move for the rest of the day and overall, for the rest of our lives.
And if our thoughts aren’t real, we can also simply just stop thinking them.
Easier said than done. Because seriously, tell me to stop thinking something and I’ll probably just shift my thoughts to “am I not thinking about this enough yet?” Lol which is still thinking about it in a way.
My yoga teacher taught me to observe my thoughts. To just see them passing by in my mind and let them run their course without the analysis and arguments for whether or not this thought has any right to be in my mind. Just let them come in and let them come out and take a pass on the internal drama.
And watch how the space in between thoughts becomes bigger and bigger. A clean slate. Fertile soil to plant new seeds in.
The observation of my thoughts surrounding this newsletter was a season’s worth of existential crisis in under 10 minutes:
If I don’t write my newsletter, I’d be jeopardizing my visibility as a coach.
But if I don’t write something worth reading, or worse, create chaos in this world, I’d be jeopardizing my reputation as a coach. AND end the world.
And if my coach status was jeopardized one way or another + coupled with being the reason for the end of the world, I’d be failing at life, which is all I seem to be good at these days.
Whew! The whole drama that unfolded in my mind was both hilarious and sad at the same time. Hilarious because wow, sending out my newsletter made me question my entire ability to lead a good life. Sad because wow, sending out my newsletter made me question my entire ability to lead a good life.
So much pressure to just write a newsletter. Yikes!
Having observed what was truly going on in my head, I could change the direction where it was headed.
On a good day, I can easily shift my thoughts to me thinking about how I’m such an amazing human being with brilliant ideas and that my newsletter is the universe’s gift to humankind. You’re welcome, world!
But today in particular, I couldn’t bring myself to think that the sun shines out of my ass. But I could still think in a different direction.
I love to write, and not writing will make me sadder than the world ending. Lol.
The world might end because of what I write, OOOOOOR there’s at least one person who gets something valuable out of what I wrote and changes the world because of it. I could worry or spend the same amount of energy on the opposite expectation.
I have so many things I want to share that have helped so many people already: my friends, my clients, myself… HEEEEEYYY!
And while I didn’t manage to switch my perspective to how I am the next Brianna Wiest (or the first Kax Uson), I did manage to switch my perspective to what a joy and a privilege it is to get to write something that may help at least one person in the world.
So now here we are… I’m writing about thinking about writing. And how there were 2 directions my thoughts could go.
Direction 1: The doom and gloom. A direction of thoughts I am quite good at following (and I would suspect a lot of you reading this are too).
Thoughts about the present as not being good enough because what if I’m spewing something that people think is bullshit.
Thoughts about the past and future and the people who unsubscribe every time I send my newsletter out (because I equate that to people thinking I’m spewing bullshit).
The many ways I’m not doing things correctly and why I should just make a permanent home of my rock bottom.
Direction 2: The bright and shiny. It may exist in a spectrum. But still a direction of thoughts that is not as automatic as the previous one. Mostly, in my case, because this direction puts me in a position to embrace the uncertainty WHILE thinking the best of myself and the potentially good possibilities that are on the other side of it.
A little scary because what if it sucks just like Direction 1 predicted? But still…
Thoughts about what if this could be fun and I end up liking it?
Thoughts about what if this turns out amazing? Because I’m amazing! And therefore I deserve amazing!
Thoughts about what an awesome thing it is that I get to do <this>.
Thoughts may not be real, but the impact they can have once we engage with them and believe them to be true IS.
Direction 1 keeps us stuck. Direction 2 keeps us curious and moving.
The cool thing is that we can always choose which direction we want to take our mind to.
Just like I did. And that’s why you’re reading this right now.
Moral of the story
If you’re feeling stuck on something or something feels hard, take a step back and observe your thoughts.
What are you predicting?
What are you saying about yourself? About others?
Which direction are you being asked to go towards? Forward? Or stay put?
Do you like these thoughts? Do they make you feel good about yourself and what’s possible for you? Whatever the answer is, you can always make a choice. To keep going in one direction or pick another.
Thoughts are not always a representation of what’s real, but we CAN make them real when we engage with them, repeat them over and over, and use them to propel ourselves somewhere.
Besides, we spend the majority of our days in our minds and having conversations with ourselves (seriously, observe this and you’ll see what I’m talking about)… wouldn’t we want the space/place we’re spending the most time in to be pleasant? We don’t feel good when we’re having conversations with other people that bring us down, so why would we have those conversations with ourselves all the time?
The cool thing is that the more you repeat thoughts that are favourable to you, you also start shifting your beliefs. It’s a mental gym. Repetition builds muscle.
Change your thoughts. Change your circumstance.
As for me? Sending out this newsletter that started out feeling like a nuclear trigger now feels like “oooh, what does this button do?”
Some people might like it, some might not. Others might not even read it.
But daaaaammmmmn does it feel good to write. And that’s all that matters to me right now.
Try it and see what happens.
Love lots,
Kax
I’m continuing with single coaching sessions for the month of September.
If you’re facing challenges with your role, your career direction, or even your business, book a coaching session with me and let’s spend 60 minutes troubleshooting your circumstances and figure out what the best next steps are that you can carry out to move you forward.
Instead of talking about how coaching with me works, we can actually get on straight to the coaching :)
p.s.
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