Box of Crayons Blog

“An inventor fails 999 times,
and if he succeeds once, he’s in.
He treats his failures simply as practice shots.”
~ Charles F.Kettering

Don’t make a big thing of it

So you’ve committed to do something bold, something that takes you out to the edge of yourself. Fantastic. And suddenly it’s so easy to put pressure on yourself.

It needs to be right, it needs to be perfect. I need to do it well, I need to do it flawlessly.
People will be looking.

Learn from magicians

Part of the skill of being a magician is mastering the redirect. That’s when they get you to look at one thing, while they make “the magic” happen somewhere else.

So try out some magical redirect. Do this new piece of Great Work on the sly. Don’t draw attention to it, but keep it to yourself. That opens up permission to be less than perfect, to stumble along a bit as you sort things out.

Think of what you’re doing now as practice, a dress rehearsal. You don’t actually have to get it right. It doesn’t have to be perfect. It is just your first (or second, or third, or tenth) go at it, and you’re still figuring it out. It’s a way of taking away the pressure of the public performance, one of the things that can sap our courage.

Test it out: Go under the radar

Decide what you want to do
Tell one and only one trusted friend.
Don’t tell anyone else.
Keep it quiet.

Set the standard as:
The best I can strive for right now, knowing it won’t be ideal.
Practice it and see what happens.
Give yourself time to debrief.

• What happened?
• What went well?
• What would I want to do again?
• What would I not want to do again?
• What have I learned?

And practice it again, this time with modifications.

“Worry is as useless as
a handle on a snowball.”
~ Mitzi Chandler

Sometimes our imagination does us no service at all, and a perfect example of this is what’s known as ‘catastrophization.’ It’s our ability in a nanosecond to project disaster from any situation.

Imagine my boss has made a mistake, and I want to point it out. Here’s my catastrophic thinking on what would happen if I did:

I  could  never  challenge  my  boss  …
because she might get angry with me …
and then she’d put me on nothing but bad projects …
and then I’d fail at those projects …
and then I’d lose my job …
and then I wouldn’t be able to find another job ..
and then my wife would leave me …
and then I’d have to sell the house …
and then I’d start drinking…
and then I’d end up on the streets, homeless …
and then I’d be dead before I’m 45…
and no one will even notice.

No wonder I’ve lost my nerve.

Put it to the test: Embrace catastrophe

Pick a situation you’re facing now, one which requires courage and where you can feel anxiety lapping around your feet, cold and wet.

Now, and in a deliberate way, catastrophize.

And have some fun with this. What’s the bad thing that could happen? And what would that lead to? And then what? And what happens after that? Keeping going until you’re done. ( Just so you know, the ending is that you’re alone, destitute … and quite likely dead.)

Now review your catastrophic list. Go through each of the steps and ask yourself these questions:

1. “Would that really happen?
2. “How likely is that really?”
3. “Is that true?”

The problem is not that we catastrophize. That’s just human.

The problem is that it happens in such a way that it sounds like it’s the truth, and we don’t stop long enough to check out whether that’s true or not.

Be mindful of how you catastrophize – notice what’s going on.

And  from that place, be mindful about what’s likely and what’s less likely to happen.