We have these days, weeks or even months where we lack mental clarity. Itâs like thereâs just nothing there; thereâs no insight, no learning, no intuition, no ability, no passion, itâs just⊠nothing. Iâve found that when I get like this, freewriting helps me to find that clarity again, just writing whatever is on my mind at the moment. Freewriting can be a great tool to find the mental clarity that youâre looking for.
Freewriting is essentially just writing stream of consciousness â writing whatever crosses your mind; writing whatever is there at the front of your mind. When Iâm lacking mental clarity, or when I feel empty, thatâs typically when I start freewriting, When you start freewriting, youâll find that your mindâs not empty. In fact, you may find exactly the opposite. Youâll usually find that there is something there, you just havenât expressed it in a way that allows you to move past it. Sometimes it might be a thought or an idea that you havenât been able to process because you havenât identified it well enough. Sometimes itâs a recurring theme, something that youâre tired of having to process. You may ignore it, or are so frustrated by it, that you put it aside. Freewriting allows you to stumble across these things as you attempt to empty whatâs at the front of your mind.
Sometimes Iâve found itâs almost like a filter that needs to be cleaned out from time to time. When I freewrite, I clear that filter. Thoughts that are waiting further back in my mind get an opportunity to make their way to the front, and eventually out as statements, work, ideas, and plans. The filter gets clogged with things that I tend to be able to release by writing stream of consciousness.
It doesnât always, or even usually, work first time. It typically takes a sustained amount of effort over time. There are days that honestly feel empty, but you still write whatever is there. It may be the word âbananaâ over and over, it may be lyrics, an idea, or a memory. Just keep writing to get at whatâs actually there.
Sometimes itâs just a matter of clearing the clutter at the front of your mind. Sometimes itâs about finding whatâs actually there that needs to be addressed. Whatever the case, freewriting often brings that clarity that you may be searching for.
This past year has taught me many things. I think one of the reasons itâs taught me is because it has been so rough, so Iâve learned several big lessons through experience. One of them has been to understand whatâs important and whatâs urgent, and how and when to focus on each. Dwight D. Eisenhower said, âI have two kinds of problems: the urgent and the important. The urgent are not important, and the important are never urgent.â
Urgent problems are usually tied to somebody elseâs goals. We tend to focus on them more because they have more immediate consequences, so they also demand immediate attention. Things that come up at work that require my immediate attention come to mind. Urgent things usually require meetings and involve multiple people, especially since the goals belong to somebody else.
Important problems belong to us. The consequences may not be immediate, though they may be more impactful than consequences attached to urgent problems. Important problems are tied to our own goals and outcomes.
By thinking of problems in this way, itâs easy to design a simple matrix that visualizes the relationship between the two.
The top right of the matrix is both urgent and important, the bottom right is important but not urgent, the top left is urgent but not important, and the bottom left is neither urgent or important. According to Eisenhower, items that are both urgent and important are highest priority. Items that are important but not urgent are next, followed by not important but urgent, and finally not important and not urgent.
This is a great way to organize and prioritize. If this past year has taught me anything, itâs that not everything is as urgent as we maybe were treating them. This helped me to see through to things that are actually important. Iâve struggled a lot over this past year. Honestly, Iâve found value in being able to complete other peopleâs priorities. Iâm good at doing things for other people, but not so much for myself. Itâs easier for many of us to focus on other peopleâs priorities, and not our own. Hereâs another way to visualize the same information within the context of priority.
Thinking in terms of priority, you can see that things that we make our own priority should be considered first. If our priority lines up with somebody elseâs priority, then we should put those things first.
I think this is so important because how we spend our time ultimately affects which outcomes we achieve. This isnât to say that we should avoid service, this isnât the case at all. We should definitely set aside time to help others with their needs. We still have to consider our practices and our outcomes. If anything, it only highlights that we should be designing our lives in a way that allows us to do both.
Take inventory of whatâs important to you. What are your own goals? What outcomes do you want to see? What can you do to achieve those outcomes? Do you need to reprioritize based on urgency and importance? Itâs an important consideration.
The other afternoon, my talented wife decided to make our middle child a cardigan. She literally made it in one afternoon! She wanted to publish a blog post on the cardigan by the end of the evening. With just a few moments of daylight left, we ran out into the front yard and did a quick unplanned photo session.
The sky had a pretty color to it in the east â opposite of the sunset, so we took photos in both directions. The light was pretty low, so I had to slow down the shutter speed and bump the ISO to get what I was after, but I think it worked out well enough. These quick, unplanned sessions are a great challenge. Half of being a photographer is getting or making opportunities to take photos, so when the opportunity comes up, I jump at it.
We donât always control the outcomes of our choices and actions, though our actions and choices certainly influence our outcomes. When we set out to do something, we usually do it within the context of a goal of some sort. There are a few problems though with how we set our goals, and then how we set out to achieve them.
We have different goals. We may want to lose weight, we may want to make more money, we way want to be happier, or we may want to have better relationships. We probably want any number of these, and more. We may even want all of these things at once, I know I do! Iâd love to lose weight, continue to be a better photographer, be happier, have more money, strengthen my relationships, and be a better writer. These are all worthy pursuits â that is they are all quite broad and generally describe the areas that Iâd like to find success in.
Within those pursuits, we have outcomes or specific goals â things that weâd like to see happen. Weâd like to lose a certain number of pounds, or weigh in at a particular weight. Weâd like to make a certain amount of money. Weâd like to go to bed without worrying about our relationships; whatever those things are. So when we break down those general areas of pursuits into particular outcomes, we start to understand those intended outcomes. We may even now attach a timeframe to these goals (using the SMART goal framework) â so now we want to weigh a particular weight by a particular date, make a certain amount of money by a particular date, etc. So weâve added the aspect of time to our outcomes now to give us a sense of urgency, so that weâll take action on them.
Hereâs where things can go sideways for some people, I know this is where it can go sideways for me. We work and work on our goal, then that timeframe gets nearer and nearer, and we start to see that itâs becoming less and less likely that weâre going to achieve that outcome by our intended date to achieve our goal. So, we start to fall shorter and shorter. We start to slow down and lose momentum. Before we know it, another year has come and gone, and itâs December, and weâre making New Years Resolutions again.
Weâre too focused on outcomes, and not focused enough on our daily choices and actions â our practices.
Our choices and actions, our practices, ALWAYS lead to an outcome, whatever that outcome may be. Thereâs always an outcome. When we focus on the outcome, we lose sight of our practices. We get excited about the possibility of a particular outcome, and we even feel dedicated to it. We even start doing things to reach that outcome. But then ârealityâ sets in. We have slip-ups, we have challenges and distractions, and before we know it, we start thinking âWell, it was a neat idea, but not nearly practical enough.â It becomes an obscured conception â something that was a good idea, but not practical to pursue and hard to see clearly now. So, we go back to ârealityâ.
When this happens, what weâve done is lost track of the practices that are needed to achieve that outcome. When we focus on the outcome, we lose sight of the daily practices needed to achieve it. We have to focus on our daily practices that are in alignment with our intended outcome. We typically donât get to control the exact outcome, but we can control how we commit to the practices that are in alignment with that outcome.
Letâs look at a practical example. Maybe you wanted to lose 30 pounds in 6 months. You set out on day one, and have your systems in place. You know you need to lose 5 pounds a month for 6 months to lose 30 pounds. You start out, and things are going well. You lose 7 pounds in the first month. Great! You give yourself permission to eat a little extra pizza and take it easy on the workouts, so you gain a few pounds. You realize what youâve done, and start working hard again, but your body doesnât respond the same way it did the first time. Now youâre two months in, and youâve lost 7 pounds. You feel discouraged. You know that you need to keep going, but you just donât feel as excited as you did before. Youâre 3 months in now, and lost 10 pounds. Thatâs good, but you think you should have been at 15 lbs instead. You put on a few pounds, take off a few pounds. Now youâre 4 months in, and youâre at 12 pounds down. Still good, but you realize that you may not hit that goal, so you start to tell yourself that it probably wasnât practical anyways. Once you hit 6 months, youâre 5 pounds lighter than you were, and chalk it up as a win because at least youâre lighter than you were, but you donât feel good about it because you fell so short of your goal.
Sound familiar? It does to me.
Now, this isnât to say that those 5 pounds werenât hard fought, or that it wasnât difficult to lose them, or that it wasnât important and positive. The focus on the entire time was on the outcome though. Now imagine the same scenario, with a different focus.
You still have the same outcome â you want to lose 30 pounds in 6 months. Itâs a worthy and attainable goal. You put together your system â diet and exercise. 1700 calories a day, 5 days a week of 45-minute workouts. This time, weâre going to focus on our practices, rather than our outcomes. Week one, you write down your goals â 1700 calories/day and 5 days of workouts this week. Monday â you get it in. Tuesday, you get it in. Wednesday, you end up with an emergency meeting in the morning, skip breakfast, and now itâs lunch and youâre starving and havenât worked out. By focusing on your practices, youâd make the choice to do the best you can that day. Maybe you end up only being able to fit in 30 minutes of a workout in the evening, and still eat 1700 calories. Great. Itâs Thursday, and youâre back at it. Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Life is practical, and you make your practices part of your daily routine the best you can. You continue to focus on aligning your practices with your intended outcome. A few months in you realize that you could include getting to bed a little earlier, so you add that to your practices.
Will you hit that goal? Itâs difficult to tell, but your practices are certainly in line with your outcomes, and youâre committed to your system. You may overshoot your goal, you may undershoot your goal, we canât control how our body loses weight; but read back over those two scenarios. Committing to practices, regardless of how each day turns out, will take you closer to your intended outcome than focusing on your outcome. When you focus on your practices, you let go of the attachment to the outcome. You know your daily choices and actions, your practices, are in alignment with your intended outcome, and you can focus on those. When those become the focus, the outcome is still in the picture, but not our focus. Weâll get there, because our practices take us closer to our intended outcomes and our goals. One of those scenarios leaves us with a lack of self confidence for not hitting our goal, while the other leaves us with a sense of self confidence, feeling good for committing to and keeping to our practices.
Focus on your practices â your daily choices and actions. That will take you closer to your goal than focusing on your outcomes.
As part of getting my new website up and running, Iâve been migrating old blog posts from a previous website to this one. Some of these blog posts are 5-6 years old. I donât necessarily agree with that version of me on things. I also donât like the way that version of me wrote some things, and Iâve had to decide what to do with these posts.
As Iâve been putting this new website together, the schema for different content types has changed from my last website to this website. This means that blog posts now have different requirements than they did in my last blog in order to publish correctly. Itâs not a big deal, I just have to make a few changes here and there and move on.
Iâve taken the opportunity though to go back through and read a lot of my old posts since Iâve needed to update media. After reading many of them, I have a strong desire to go back in and edit a lot of these old posts. I donât like the way that I worded certain things, I even disagree with some of my previous thoughts. Itâs been difficult to decide what to do with some of these old blog posts.
Ultimately, Iâve decided to leave them as is. My mind is drawn to Seth Godinâs Blog. He has been consistently blogging since January of 2002. Thatâs 19 years of blogging. I canât imagine that after nearly 2 decades he still absolutely agrees with many of the things heâs written for the past 19 years. I also canât imagine he goes back and reads and edits those posts to be sure that they do align with his current thinking.
I think having these old blog posts is evidence of evolution â evolution in thinking, writing, and approach. While Iâd love to cultivate a well-written and edited collection of thoughts on particular subjects, for me having a blog means publishing thoughts in a journal format that I feel comfortable with in the moment. I get them out, and then move on.
I know that when I look back on old posts that I may cringe a little, and that Iâll find thoughts and ideas that I write today that I may not agree with in the future. Iâm glad Iâve recognized an evolution, and I hope that when I do look back on old posts in the future, that Iâll recognize both an evolution and a thread of an idea that helps me to recognize my own self. Itâll be evidence that Iâm changing, hopefully for the better.
In meditation last year the idea of the blue sky occurred to me. It came up multiple times, so I stayed with it. As I meditated and journaled on this experience, the metaphor of the blue sky found new meaning. It has fundamentally changed the way that I approach life.
If asked what color the sky is, most people will typically answer âblue.â We know the sky as being blue. If itâs cloudy or smoky outside (as has often been the case in the past year), when asked what color the sky is right now, people will typically answer âgreyâ or âbrown.â While when looking up in this situation, the sky does appear grey or brown, itâs only those colors because thatâs the color of the clouds or the smoke. The sky actually remains blue! The sky (during the day of course) remains blue, and itâs what comes between the sky and us that change our perception of it.
The clouds and smoke will pass, as they do, and the sky will once again appear blue. This is because the skyâs natural color (during the day) is blue. It doesnât change, whatâs in the sky changes our perception of it, but once those things pass, our perception of the sky goes back to blue. What can we learn from this?
We can be as the blue sky. We can have an identity that doesnât have to shift with the passing clouds and smoke that will almost certainly afflict us. When we over-identify with the things that are going on around us, we take those problems, challenges, distractions, and obligations and begin to identify ourselves by those things rather than an identity that we want or hope to have ourselves.
Having a journaling habit, I began to write my âBlue Skyâ in my journal each morning â reminding myself of my identity every morning. I realized that I had been well on my way to identifying with the problems of the day, and the problems of the world. I realized that when I truly wanted to explore my identity, my âBlue Skyâ, that I wasnât sure exactly who I was without my response to the problems around me. I kept writing my âBlue Skyâ every morning, first thing in the morning, to remind myself first thing who I am.
I learned from my friend Chris Orwig that who we are is infinitely more important than what we do. I guess I just hadnât internalized it this way before. Now I had found a framework for putting âwho I amâ into practice, each and every day by journaling my âBlue Sky.â
I started to disassociate myself from my challenges. I began to see how I was identifying with thought distortions and distractions. As I journaled, my Blue Sky began to expand as well. It started with a statement of âI am healthy.â Even if I donât feel it or feel like I look it, I started to tell myself âI am healthyâ every day. At first, thatâs all it was. Then that identity began to creep into my everyday thoughts, all day long. I found myself making healthier choices throughout the day, almost every day. All the effort and time spent on trying to âbecomeâ healthy was a never-ending battle, because âhealthyâ was always something I wasnât, and getting there was âdifficult.â
Once I identified as being healthy, I realized that âbecause Iâm healthy, I make healthy choices and do healthy things.â It was really that âsimpleâ so to speak. I now had âbeing healthyâ as part of my identity because I chose it â it was part of my personal âBlue Sky.â When I realized that I get to choose my identity, and that Iâm not a victim of what happens around me, that was a powerful moment. My Blue Sky expanded. I continued to write my expanded Blue Sky Statement every morning in my journal.
I believe we all have our own Blue Sky. Itâs our identity, itâs who we choose to be regardless of the clouds and smoke that will eventually pass. Just as the sky is blue, we have a nature that is far greater than the challenges, distractions, and obligations that are sure to come and go themselves.
As a side note, the journal and planner that I use is something I designed specifically for myself. As Iâve used it and others have seen it and used it for themselves, theyâve found value in using it as well. You can find it at makeroomplanner.com.
Itâs been hard to get things done today. Really hard. Iâve had so many interruptions, mostly small, some larger. It seems like every time I sit down to start working, thereâs something else that needs to be done. Not to mention the news of the past 24 hours, and COVID-19 happening all around (and to many of) us, the news about whatâs happening in and to the United States is proving to be a near-constant distraction as well.
It occurs to me, as Iâm working at my desk right now, that there is a never-ending flow of interruption and distraction. Even if Iâd make the argument that being informed during this time of the United Statesâ history could be considered less of a distraction and more an act of staying informed, the constant checking of updates does prove to be a distraction. The odd day without interruption and distraction isnât the norm, even if whatâs we long for as we strive to remain productive. We must find a way to remain committed to making choices that are in alignment with our goals and desired outcomes, especially when itâs difficult to do so.
So here I am, trying to refocus myself, reminding myself that not just despite interruption and distraction, but very much because of them, I have to remain focused on and committed to my practices, having confidence in myself that Iâll know when I should deviate and take care of other commitments, and when I should remain focused. When we remain focused on our choices that are in alignment with our desired outcomes, we can be like the blue sky â blue even when clouds or smoke may make it appear grey. Our practices can ground us, helping us remain focused on whatâs truly important.
Well, I figured it was about time to put a new website up. Something that is representative of where I am now â the work Iâm doing and the things that I value. Iâve spent a lot of time trying to organize how I should best represent myself, and this website is the result of that time and effort.
With the new website comes a renewed commitment to âThe Practice.â The consistent practice of creating, learning, and sharing. This includes writing, taking more photos, and making progress on various projects. In a recent episode of the Chase Jarvis Live Show, Chase interviewed Seth Godin about his new book âThe Practice: Shipping Creative Work.â The interview is a shot of inspiration, and in it, Seth and Chase discuss the importance of having a practice, or practices. Things you do every day, regardless of the immediate outcome. You can listen to the podcast episode hereâŠ
Committing to the practices that are in the service of the outcomes we hope for, even if we canât control them (we most often donât control the outcomes, only the choices we make) is a noble effort that has itâs own rewards. With the new website, Iâm committing to those practices â both the ones that I know about now, and new ones that may surface in service of desired outcomes.
Hereâs to a new year, and hope for a better one as we all strive to commit to our practices.
Over three years. Three years since Iâve written here. Three years since Iâve tried to figure out how I want to do things. Three years of changing, writing in journals, and getting seemingly nowhere.
In addition to photography, I also currently lead the multimedia design team at Webster University (among other things). Iâve been thinking about the word âinnovationâ, and how education stands in great need of it. The question that Iâve been trying to answer recently is, âHow do you create innovation?â Even if you can create it, you still have to budget for it. Iâve been giving the subject of budgeting for innovation some thought lately.
Blog
