You Need to Stop Saying This to Yourself, if you Want to Succeed |Free Printable | Kris With a K | Writing Coach
I know that I am usually the first to tell women to speak up.
In fact, it’s my great big reason for being in this business…but today I have to tell you to shut up.
I want you to stop telling yourself that you aren’t a “doer”, as if it’s some kind of magical ability some people are born with, leaving the rest of us to a life sentence of unfinished projects, post-it-note piles of somedays, overwhelmed ulcer-tummies and major, major follow-through-guilt.
It’s not true, and it’s messing with your brilliant plans.
There are no magical doers out there who just pop out of bed with the ability and motivation to conquer each tedious task on their To-Do list. Nobody has an inner magic wand that smooths out all of the rough spots in a project or a crystal ball to foresee all possible set-backs they may meet along the way.
Each of us struggle with reaching our goals.
We all have a zillion ideas rolling around in our heads. We all have moments when we just know that our major insight about a new product or creative venture could lead to the next best thing since glitter pens, but if you are a creative person you’re going to make a mess…and that’s perfect for growing those wicked ideas, but it makes follow-through really difficult.
So we sit in our glitter-y, washi-taped studios (or at our laptops and notebooks), and we blame our incompletes on some lacking in ourselves – some missing piece of genetic material that could help us bring our idea-babies into the world.
We feel increasingly bogged-down by the potential of our plans: the perfection of the ideal. Then, we start thinking about how we might do it and start scribbling down even more ideas in our notebooks. It all gets unwieldy and overwhelming, and we start to even wonder about whether or not it would even work out anyway.
DANGER!
This is the beginning of the end. Nothing works when it’s not done. The only way to get that idea ready to work out…is to give it a chance.
Click to Tweet: Don’t judge your project when it’s still just a baby, or it will never get the chance to grow up.
Then we look at those other people out there who are finishing things and making cool stuff happen, and we imagine that they must have that missing ingredient. We feel alone and they seem to be surrounded by a golden nimbus of “CAPABLE”.
They are magical “Doers” who always succeed…not like the rest of us.
I tell myself that lie ALL THE TIME! I used to say, “There are just some people who are doers, and I’m not a doer; I come up with ideas, but I can’t finish them” all the time. In fact, I came really close to grabbing that old hat and tossing it back on again last month.
I’ll talk about it more in the next few weeks, but I hit all of the roadblocks last month. After spending all of December planning out a shiny new year, my whole family took turns getting sick and then we were snowed in and sick again (and snowed in 3 more times…and then sick again); projects got tricky and took more time and energy than I planned for, and I let a bunch of my ideas and plans for the month slide into the pile of somedays.
I started to tell myself that it was because I’m not a doer and it’s all my fault…
Hi My name is Kris, and I was full of crap. I was wrong, and you are too.
I sent out the friend-bat-signal, and went to my very best friend’s house for coffee. I told her about my disappointments and frustrations and vented. She gave me coffee and cookies, and her adorable little son played play-doh with me until I felt like a good person again.
And I remembered this:
Click to Tweet:There are no natural doers; there are only those who have done the work.
…and they probably needed to have a play-doh play-date to get there too.
There are people who have pushed themselves; there are people who have reached out and asked someone they trust to push them too, and there are people who have set their jaw in a resolute line and straight-up bulldozed through their own self-limiting thoughts.
Those are the people you use against yourself.
I’m serious. This is the worst part…because you know it’s not real, but you do it anyway.
You look at them and see only their results, and you use those results as proof that you aren’t good enough. You choose to ignore the glint of exhaustion in their eye, or the memory of their recent Haigen-Daz-hibernation posts on Facebook, and you grasp on to that finished project as the defining difference between them and you.
I promise you that if you ask any of the people you see creating – actively starting and finishing creative stuff – how their process went, from start to finish? They will tell you about their pre-play-doh moments, and you will bond over how hard it is to just get over the “but not me” crap we all do to ourselves and succeed in bringing your ideas to life.
They are no more doers than you are. They just did it – and you will too.
SO! I’m going to put my eyebrow down now, and give you a little something to print out and look at when you need a little play-doh.
…it’s not play-doh…
BUT! It’s a cute printable, and it could help you bust out of an I-will-never-follow-through slump.
Click on the image below and print the cuteness.
Then get back to work!
Because you are a doer too, Kitten.
I’m going to get back to work now too. I know I promised you more info about my VIP days, so check it out here. It’s kind of an awesome thing, if I do say so myself.
Sign up for Tuesday Tips in your inbox to hear more about things around here FIRST and receive freebies like this one – as soon as I make them.
I will see you here next week again, for more Tuesday Tips to help you raise your Voice! In the meantime, you can hang up a little cute motivation and start thinking about what you really want to achieve this year.
xo
You mad? Excited? Have a perspective to share? Please do!
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Yay, Kris! I love it! I also think to myself, “EVEN IF, “doing” comes more naturally to someone else, SO WHAT!” Comparing myself to them does zero good and it is so none of my business how other people do things. I am doing the Best I Can and I am getting messy and conquering the world my own way. If it takes Kris an hour to write a great post and it takes me two, does that mean I should stop writing? Nope, it means that I need to set aside 2 hours to get my work done and then go about my merry own biz doing it. Yes, we are all doers, and what that looks like is different for all of us, but in the end, we all produce amazing awesomeness in this beautifull, crazy life! xoxo, Jen
YES! That’s a great added bit of sage advice, Jen. We are all totally on our own road, doing what we do in different ways. What comes easy to one might be a struggle for others, but there is always a balance!
LOVE IT! Thanks Jenn <3
xo
K
[…] you complete a difficult task – the kind that lead to giving yourself a lecture or two (see last week’s post about self-lecturing…ahem…pep-talking) – it is believed to actually change the way your […]
Right on K-Dub!
I was totally approaching a wall about the last week of January. I realized I had many balls in the air and I was starting to doubt my ability to keep them all from just dropping to the ground and bouncing away. But I knew I had to keep my eye on the prize.
It wasn’t pretty, and it sure wasn’t perfect, in fact I had a pretty squirrely week this past week, but I got a lot done. And I avoided hitting that wall.
Thank goodness I have a magnificent support group. Every time I needed a little boost, I got one. And now I have a cute little reminder to put on my wall. Also, play-doh works wonders 😉
xo,
rs
Aww Red! I’m glad you didn’t hit the wall, girl. Your support has pulled a whole lotta supers from the ledge before (I know this first hand). You are THE MAN, Red! Don’t give up.
xo
K
[…] Some people (mostly women, sadly) don’t think of themselves as a do-er. Guess what? You are! […]
YAY! You nailed it, Kris. Thanks for sharing this important reminder. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some DOING to do. 🙂
Thanks, Sage!
You are all over the DOING! I’m always excited to see what doings you’ve done lately. So get to it! 🙂
xo
K
You had me at play-doh! I love, love, love your way of telling-as-it-is without sounding confrontational.
Thanks, Carla!
Play-doh is the universal de-stresser, I think. It will soften any blow – even a lecture complete with a feisty eyebrow 😉
I think I’ll get some tubs of it to play with at my desk when I get overwhelmed.
xo
K
Preach it! Thank you so much for sharing this issue – I often think I’m the only one struggling with an overflowing WIP bin and a pile of unfinished to-do lists, but luckily now I have a printable to help me fight that feeling!
You got it, Jenny!
Get doing 😉
xo
K
i so needed to hear this. I’ve had a brilliant business idea bubbling in my mind for three months now but keep telling myself I’m not qualified to do it, basically because I’m not old enough. I’m really plenty old enough and have lots of relevant experience, I just need to make myself do it!
Aw! I’m glad I could help kick your butt into doing it 🙂 AND I’m excited to see how it turns out!
xo
K
Well, isn’t that the truth! We continually see other peoples work online and think we are not keeping up, not focusing, not completing the tasks in our pretty new planners and white boards! In truth we are learning every day and moving forward, even if it is ever so slowly! Thanks for the talk!
You are so right, Sue! We see the finished product out there, and forget about their process and their planners…Now where did I put my pretty planner?
xo
K
Ah! This is so me…I tell myself all of these silly things. Thanks so much for calling me on this! <3
Stop it, Amanda!!!
It’s time for you to start a list of things you have accomplished…just because! And refer to that list whenever you start to tell yourself this lie. I know you’ve done a lot of great stuff, and I think you do too 🙂
xo
K
I was soooo envisioning that Super Hero Doer jumping outta bed with their shiny pink Doer cape on! Lol
But seriously, yep, been there & don’t want the t-shirt! Play doh days are cool OR pull out a coloring book to chase that negative Nellie away!
You’re right, Trish! Creative things can shake the nasties away, for sure.
I’ll be going now and finding some finger-paints 🙂
xo
K
And snowed in again…and again…. (um, where is all this snow going to go?) and, really, sick again??! …. I feel like we are singing the same tune. 🙂 In the midst of all that it is nice to have that reminder that we can (and will!) move through the hard work between amazing idea and finished product and see our ideas “all grown up.” Thanks for the inspiration at the end of (another) snow day!
Haha! Oh Andrea, we *will* survive this winter…though we’ve already broken snowfall records, so I’m ready for Spring to show up.
I hope you get lots from start to finish before the big thaw gets us all manic and distracted 🙂
xo
K
We should all keep a tub of modeling clay in the closet for moments like these. It’s just good for the soul, isn’t it?
It so is, Sarah!
The cute little toddler saying, “Cut it?!” over and over was a real cherry on top too 🙂
xo
K
Oh, Kris! You’re so bad-ass! I love your writing style and that you can kick me in the butt all the way from Canada. It’s like you’re reading my mind! Thanks for sharing this!
Hahaha! I’m a pacifist, so I would never actually kick your butt Renay, but I will stare a girl down with a major cranky-eyebrow if she talks smack about herself 😉
xo
K