I am trying to write a brilliant post.
It is not happening.
I want to write a brilliant post about declaring what is enough.
About learning how to declare what will satisfy you.
I want to write a brilliant post about this enoughness satisfaction thing because there is so much hurt happening because we don’t know how to be satisfied. It’s a soul-crushing business-flattening epidemic.
I see so many clients and friends who aren’t enjoying their lives or having the success they want because they don’t have way to measure their progress.
Clients who are so incredibly talented it boggles my heart. But because they are so damn smart, and interested in so many damn things, they judge themselves too harshly for not accomplishing more faster, and then give up before they have a taste of confidence sustaining success.
Women at my retreats who have these amazing lives, filled with family and love and good work and creativity, but they are too often chewing away at what they haven’t done, looking at what isn’t satisfied.
And then there are the clients who keep thinking they need just one more wafer thin raining… Or that their website needs just one more wafer thin tweak before they go live.
I can’t forget all the talented writers I get to work with. The books and blogs that are abandoned for what of knowing what enough writing is for today.
Plus the scores and scores of us who think that trying harder is the key to success. (It’s not.)
What breaks my heart the most is that life is spilling away while we look elsewhere.
As I write this, I know why I can’t write a brilliant post.
Because one of my biggest personal struggles is to learn to be satisfied.
When I don’t use COE’s (conditions of enoughness) to declare what will satisfy me, my strength of curiosity and love of learning slides into restless grasping impatience.
Which can truly poison my love, my work, my creative fire, and leave me dull and flat and bored.
This is not a brilliant post. I feel awkward and stunted talking about this. But I declare myself satisfied because I said I would write one post about COE’s before 4 pm. And so even though I don’t feel satisfied, I’ll take a moment to find the body and breath of someone who is and call it good.
P.S.
And if you think being satisfied is akin to rolling over and giving up or never playing a bigger game, you have confused complacency with satisfaction. That’s easy to do. It’s the culture norm. Satisfaction has a very bad rap in the West. That needs to change. I have something I think will help. Stay tuned.
Related posts:
10 responses so far ↓
1 Andrew Lightheart May 11, 2010
Wow. This is totally what I’m working on at the moment.
Being gentle with myself. Somehow having goals that can be actually achieved by a human being…
And yes, I have confused complacency with satisfaction.
Ow. Eep. Yay.
This post was certainly enough for me.
So, thanks.
2 living savvy May 11, 2010
This is the central belief to living savvy – first you take the time to celebrate what you have & then acknowledge what is important to you, which is a great fit with your COE (conditions of enoughness). Life looks brighter when you start from this place instead of focusing on the gaps and what is missing.
3 Willie Hewes May 11, 2010
Brilliant enough for me. I think my failure to recognise enoughness is at the root of many of my current frustrations.
*So tuned it almost hurts.*
4 Spike May 11, 2010
“I can’t forget all the talented writers I get to work with. The books and blogs that are abandoned for what of knowing what enough writing is for today.”
Oh, boy, does this ever strike a chord.
I wanted so hard to be a writer–I started and abandoned two novels in high school, lost two more in a computer crash four-five years ago. Writing was easy–all I had to do was stare at the blank screen until beads of blood sprang up on my forehead.
I didn’t have “conditions of enoughness.” I didn’t have a doable chunk. (I also had the whack-assed idea that you had to write the book in order but self-imposed hurdles go somewhere else.)
Then I started playing with 55 word stories. One a day for eighteen months.
Then I decided to try re-reading Beaty’s “No Plot–No Problem” and after I finished weeping under the coffee table in a fetal position, I gave it a whack. 1,632 words per day was a do-able target. Hmmm . . . CONDITIONS OF ENOUGHNESS, anyone?
So the trilogy is proceeding apace . . . and now Jen has gently pointed out a term to help remember that what I need isn’t inspiration, or a bigger goal. What I need is to know when I’m done, so I can put it down and do the next thing.
Thanks!
5 Michelle May 11, 2010
Oh my goodness, have I ever been dealing with this in regards to my fiction writing. I give myself so many conditions, like I’ll devote more time to it when X and I’ll start sharing it with people when Y…while all the while, life is slipping away. Thanks for the reminder.
6 Lynne Tolk May 11, 2010
Thanks, Jennifer, this is really what I’m looking at right now! I find I have boxed myself into either “trying” to write (never works very well!) or running from it and not writing at all.
I’m now engaged in baby steps at relearning how to just play – and let that be enough for the time being.
(And I think your post is more than just “good” – it’s certainly just what I needed!)
Lynne
7 Liz May 11, 2010
I hate to say it, but I live in this place of not-enough-ness… I’ve never done enough, it’s never good enough, I don’t know enough, etc. etc.
The funny thing is that it’s so obvious to me when I see other people living in this pattern that it’s absurd. They’re just fine the way they are, but me? I’m still a recovering perfectionist.
8 Carol May 11, 2010
It sure was satisfying to read your post! That “enough-ness” sometimes feels like the slightly cross-eyed, unfocused look my cat gets while staring into space.
Ahhhhhh…
9 If only this were my real life — A Peaceful Resolution May 13, 2010
[...] I read Jen Louden’s post about trying to be brilliant. It was the PS about confusing satisfaction with complacency that blew my mind (and made me [...]
10 Lea Howell May 13, 2010
Sometimes all we need is to “find the body and breath of someone who is (satisfied)”…….to be okay.
THAT my dear Jennifer, is brilliance!
Never more will I feel defeated in this way,for ever more will I borrow that brilliance……… and smile satisfyingly, as I say goodnight to the day, and looking forward to beginning that journey again tomorrow!