Once you start the journey, you will see the signs!
When I first had the idea to write regular blogs that I call “Seeds” I was completely on fire: what a wonderful opportunity to share my reflections on leadership and organisational life based on my experience as a leader and system-psychodynamic coach, chip in helpful frameworks, inspirations from the art-world, poems, and maybe even invite friends from my diverse network to share their inspirations.
But whenever I wanted to sit down to write my mind went blank. Finally, I gave myself a break. After all, who wants to sit down and write during beautiful summertime, when you can go out to meet friends, hike, swim, forage mushrooms, count butterflies and plant smiles wherever you go?
Today is a cold and rainy day. The end of the year is approaching fast, and I really want to go live with my Business-Website ……including the “Seeds” I had decided to plant.
Follow the emotion
How do I start? How would I work with a client who has this problem? “Follow the emotion” is good advice I take from Catherine Sandler in her book “Executive Coaching – A psychodynamic Approach”.
Looking behind the floodgate of my empty page I notice I feel overwhelmed, fearful and ashamed.
I just have too many ideas, and they are like a ball of wool. When I pull on one thread, many other threads follow, and I can’t find the beginning. And then I look at all the wonderful articles and blogs and podcasts about leadership that are out there, and I think, there is really no need for myself to add to this. People may not find this interesting, they might even think I am stupid. And after all, why on earth should I take on the work to write something when AI can do it so much faster and maybe even better? To make it worse I really feel ashamed and vulnerable to expose my thinking on social media – once I have pressed the button there is no way to make it undone….
As a coach I would first ask myself to acknowledge my emotions – after all they are important data and should not be brushed away.
Push fear out of the driver’s seat
As Elisabeth Gilbert says in her book “Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear” in creative work fear is always there, the trick is to not invite it to be on the driver’s seat: “You’re allowed to have a seat, and you’re allowed to have a voice, but you are not allowed to have a vote.”
Then I would ask myself to disentangle the ball of wool step by step. Sit down and start writing – start the journey with the first step.
Like the recent hike I did on the so-called bear trail in lower Austria. It has a clear beginning and is marked only in one direction. Once we started on the path it was easy to find the signs.
Finally, I remind myself of an article by Jeff Gothelf in the Harvard Business Review (August 18, 2020): “There is one story that has not been told yet: – yours” and I follow Viktor Frankl’s advice that I will show you all what a terribly boring, stupid blog I can write.
Thanks for following me on this journey!
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