I am creative. I am creative, but not in a crafty let-me-art-all-over-the-place sort of way. I am “the ideas are a dime a dozen” sort of gal. I cannot paint. I do not bake OR cook (apparently those are NOT synonymous with each other). I love banners and beautiful digital displays, but I cannot just whip things up with multiple fonts and colors. I have no eye for what goes together. I do, however, love photography. I can capture those beautiful things. I can see an empty room or building and create 10-15 ways the space could be used. The businesses that could be run inside, and I can see the design style that should fill the space, but I am not the one to do it. I am an ideas person. I am your not so average thinker who cannot get the ideas out fast enough before they are fleeting. My iPhone is filled with “notes to self”. I have been collecting these digital scraps of nothing since 2015 when I first thought I might write a book. But, I am not a writer either. I could, however, offer you a million ideas of things that you could write about. Sigh.
So here it is, a list of lies we tell ourselves on why we can’t do or start the idea or thing that sits obsessively in our head.
I don’t have the Time - There isn’t enough time in the day. The time for like anything let alone our idea. We are all so busy doing this and that. I am a wife, a mama of two in different sports with practices that leave me feeling more like a taxi driver with really crappy tippers. I have a full-time job as a principal in a virtual school. On the side, I have a photography hobby that is turning into more than I ever thought it would. I am also a volunteer/work at my church as the director of the media team. Time to write a book or even a blog post could easily be laughable when explaining to my friends why I don’t have time to write. Even you are probably thinking, “right!?!?!, Can she really squeeze anything else in?” The answer...we have heard it everywhere since the beginning of time. We have time for the things we make time for. I also find time to watch an episode of Downton Abbey or two. (I know right? Yes, this is a late 2019 post, yes I am just now jumping on board the watch train.) I also find time to watch an episode of Monk with my youngest. I can easily get rid of Downton, but Monk is a quality time thing and I wouldn’t give it up for anything. Jo falls asleep holding my hand every night while watching it. So do I have time? Yes. I can give up some of the time I am wasting. Hard question for you...what time are you wasting? Could you be doing your thing in place of that time-waster?
There are a million others better or farther along than me - This is so true. I listen to a ton of podcasts and read a load of blog posts of people way better than me. So why should I do it? Do I even have anything to new to say? Of course, someone has thought this before and done that before. Why do I need to come along and do it or say it again? This is a lie I tell myself regularly. I don’t need to do this because it’s been done. However, one of my superpowers is seeing positivity in things and thinking outside of the box. I didn’t always think this was a superpower...and if I am being honest, I still don’t think they will write a movie about the positive overthinking woman or out of the box woman any time soon, but if I do think differently then maybe my take of all the things would be helpful. It’s like in the movie The Truman Show when Truman Burbank said that he wanted to be an explorer like the great Magellan. His teacher, in trying to keep the experiment going told him it was too late, that we have already explored everything. Well, that may be true, but you haven’t seen it through my eyes with my perspective. So I will write.
I’m not organized - This is no lie. I am not organized. I have thoughts written on scraps of paper, semi-categorized throughout my phone and in journals...so many journals. I am not organized. I suppose, however, that the lie that holds me back is that I cannot get organized. I am starting small. I have a newly created Google folder labeled with “just write”. That’s where this post resides. I also have folders that I have created that are3 titled with the chapters of the book I’ve been writing in my head. The plan over the next year is to write daily. Even if I don’t have anything to say, I have pinned many writing ideas, so when I have nothing to say, I will reach out to those. I will commit to merging my digital and analog worlds. Maybe I scan content in and publish the first half and half book. See that idea came from nowhere as I am writing. I suppose we will all stay tuned to see it that comes to fruition. I will commit to tagging and labeling my ideas and I will use my time to write about them.
Is it even practical? - No. I think we have already pulled the rug out from under the rest of the ideas, so this one will be debunked as well. Writing a book means more time, no original thoughts being written down for literally millions of people NOT to read. I will have to learn to become organized, so it’s not practical at all. So why do it? I have ideas. They have to go somewhere. Maybe if nothing else, I write them and someone brainstorms an idea themselves and puts something together that IS an original thought. See, that is the positive overthinking I mentioned before. I am also the queen of getting bored with a thing or distracted by another. I have 30 tabs open on my computer most days because the I find it easier to work of a project for an hour or so and then diversify my efforts. For this reason, I have three working writing books/projects as well as the “just write” folder. I love education and thinking of new innovations for student learning. I adore working with the media at church, but I’m a new guy to the whole thing so learning on the job is something I could write about. Photography is a passion project, so writing about the process and the places it takes me sounds fun. I have so many things to say about marriage and ways to make it feel effortless. I cannot be tied to a single project so I will write about them all.
We all have lies or half-truths we tell ourselves and these become our obstacles to the other things. In this day and age, we can learn anything. I have used Youtube to learn how to administer stitches so that I didn’t have to take my dog to the vet for a third time for wounds he ripped open...yada yada yada. The short story is we can really do most things we dream up in our heads. I may always need my husband to open my Gatorade bottle, but I can do this thing.
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