Okay, so maybe you didn’t bring your best game today. Instead of beating yourself up over your vaguely bad feelings, write them down.
Ouch.
You remember Fight Club — that movie where an unnamed narrator keeps beating himself up. Except you don’t realize it until it’s almost too late. He actually thinks he’s fighting others, when really he’s just fighting himself, in the persona of Tyler Durden.
Who are you? So first of all, notice that in the movie Fight Club, we never actually hear the real name of the narrator. He is nameless. So let’s get this straight: you’ve got some work to do — to figure yourself out and own up to who you really are.
When you’re off your game, get a name.
Next…
Be specific.
If you’re going to feel better any time soon, it’s time to get out of this vague feeling of shame or incompetence or whatever it is that has you pinned down. No more namelessness — for you, or for what you’re not facing.
As long as you keep it vague, you won’t be able to get out of your loathing loop. What is a loathing loop? You know very well what it is: it’s that undercurrent of bad feeling about something that didn’t go as well as you wanted to, that you keep stewing over.
Just say it. Whatever it is, say it. But you can’t quite say it, can you? It’s like something unreachable, stuck behind a door to which you can’t find the key: that dull ache that’s keeping you down.
So you what can you do?
Write it down.
Writing makes it solid.
Draft and edit. Just pull out a wafer-thin slice of tree and start writing. It doesn’t matter where you begin. It’s all going to end up at the same place anyway. But you have to start.
Write, write, write. When you put pen or pencil to paper, something magical happens. Your thoughts become solid. You can see them and work with them.
The takeaway:
Stop beating yourself up. Write it down. See what comes across the page. Get real, and address the specific problem.
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More like this?
I can help you see what’s really going on, and do something about it.
Get focused and Get moving.
