Psychotherapist and Career and Personal Strategist in LA

Talk does not cook rice-
            Chinese proverb

 This proverb was a gift to me from an amazing woman, Chef  Extraordinaire and entrepreneur, Amy Glin. As soon as I heard. I loved it. It is a part of the personal script of things I tell myself and others- all the time.

We all have that friend. The one sitting on the couch, holding a beer bottle slurring his BIG plan for the future into the night. I never wanted to be that guy. In fact, I so do not want to be that guy that I only attempted to do the things I knew I could do. I mean, I didn’t play it completely safe, but I have had enough privilege in my life that I have never had to really push myself to set a goal that was a huge risk for me to take.

I was afraid. Afraid my dreams were to big. Afraid I would fail. I was afraid of my lack of resources. Afraid of doing it by myself.  And I am still afraid. Fear was my co-pilot, And in many respects it still continues to be.

Fear is the thing that keeps me from doing. It keeps me mired in self doubt. Keeps me stuck, spinning. It is the brain chatter that clouds my vision. Fear kept me safe. Kept me from failing. However it is like a faucet. If you twist off the doing, because of fear, you also twist off the being. You can’t shut down half the flow of water. You just crank in down until is it isn’t all coming out. And this left me feeling unfulfilled and increasingly dissatisfied with my life. I wanted those highs. I wanted to receive the full weight of possibility...not turn away from it.

As I write this I find myself feeling anxious to move on, to get through this part and talk about the joy of doing. The excitement of getting things done.  In our group we do 2 and 5 days goals. When I check in around the table and another is managing my list, while I  talk about my work, I find a true sense of accountability to myself that before I had only dreamed of. I am still scared. Sometimes it brings me to my knees (literally).

But now I have a place to talk about and work along side the fear. I don’t know if it will ever go away and I am not sure I even want it to. Through this group, I have learned that fear is a sign that I am doing something that has true meaning for myself. It is the signal of potential and opportunity. This is why the group is so important. It helps me keep perspective on my fear. And my fear is the thing that usually stops me from action, from doing, from cooking my rice.

When I began this post, I thought I was going to write on the deep satisfaction I get from working down my to do list: every check-mark a banner announcing my progress. And in many respects it is. When I continue to work down my lists, even though I am afraid while doing it that I can’t do it, It makes the personal sense of satisfaction I experience even that much more intense.

Sometimes when I am running 3 steps behind myself, I forget that I am in balance. Between my children, community and Work, I often lose sight of myself in the flurry. I am exhausted and cranky and the chatter in my head is deafening. It is usually about this time that someone close to me (or for that matter the checker at the local Ralphs) says, “ Man Dena, You need to get some balance.”


My life, and my experience with it, is a perfect reflection of my choices and circumstances. My actions are weighted against my experience.


So then the questions becomes one of harm reduction. What can I do to shift my balance and change my experience to one where I am not some fanatical work zombie feverishly trying to catch the tip end of the tail of my to do list?

Ok, drama aside, and in all seriousness, this is a central and key way that the Work101 groups have helped me to learn how to shift my balance. The collaboration of the group has created a unique space. It allows me a laboratory of sorts, to experiment, to try different things, until I can find the approach that gets me the effect I desire.

When I began my work with the group I quickly realized that I needed to know what I was working towards. What was my vision? So I sat down to figure it out. What came form this exercise was a picture of me...in balance. physical health and financial independence: family, community and self; feeling thinking and being: I want my sense of satisfaction to balance my sense of desire. I want to be able to appreciate the things in my life. I want to feel that I can stop and smell my roses.

Looking back at that picture I can now see that it is a reflection of my doing, my work for myself. For me an important piece of this whole balance issue has been to constantly remind myself that I am not defined by my work, it is an aspect of who I am. But when I forget this piece, I begin to work for the work, instead of working for my vision of myself.




shoot.

It was my task to come up with the quote this week and I kept coming back to this one. I think this idiom represents one of the biggest challenges of self employment and, probably not coincidentally, one of the greatest assets of participating in a collaborative Workgroup.


It is a common, but deadly trap...those pesky details that cloud our vision. And when you add the tasks of just living and taking care of our families to the tasks of being self employed, it is easy for our larger vision to go missing. It’s out there binging on junk-food, not exercising, getting fat and lazy and we are busy- doing all the work... and we can’t remember why.

We get so busy taking care of all that business, that we do not even have the energy to put into keeping track of our purpose or reason for the busy in the first place. It can be a slippery slope and I believe is one of the main reasons why sometimes being self employed becomes a real drag.

It’s no fun when you don’t remember the larger reason why you have to make those calls. These are the days when being self employed can feel like a job... and let’s face it; People who are entrepreneurs and self employed do not generally like jobs.

And this is exactly why the Workgroup has become such a valuable resource in my life. These groups are perfect for busy people who have a big vision because they hold your vision for you. The group becomes like a park or camp for visions, it is here where they are allowed to eat well, they are visited often, taken out and exercised. They grow, they get strong and they become realized.

When I show up to group, distracted, overwhelmed and resenting all those trees around me, the group  reminds me that those trees are there because I am actually in a forest.

“Work for yourself, not by yourself” -Blankspaces.

The concept and practice of collaborative work has played a central rol in my life. So when Sheila brought this quote to my attention, I immediately got excited.

I was taught that work was something you did to get ahead in life. Work to do your chores so that you can have a nice house. Work at school to get a better job. Work at your work so you can make money. It was a job and a job was work. It wasn’t until my work outgrew my job that I began to actively engage the idea of being self-employed.

The schedule, the freedom, the satisfaction, the endless opportunity are just a few reasons why I love working for myself. However, it also presents a hundred different challenges too. I had tons of vision, but struggled with my focus, When I had my focus, I struggled with organization. And this is where my work met the collaborative process: in this frustrating, cluttered workspace that was my head at the time.

Sharing a workspace, and eventually our work, with each other, seemed the natural process for all of us. However, very quickly we realized the space we had created was a powerful one.

If I have learned nothing else in life, I have come to understand that whatever energy I put into a task reflects almost exactly what I get back.  If I had any doubt of this before I quit my last job, my experience with self employment has wiped it away. (I know why I didn’t get the clients - I did not make the calls.)

The primary focus of the group has always been our work and although we all do very different things, we had our Work and the intense desire to succeed in common. The group became a magnifying glass, my energy plus... plus Sheila, plus Kaye, plus Elizabeth. And I began to get that energy back.

Our group has become an invaluable resource and a transforming experience. Through our common commitment to being self employed, we have been able to reach our individual goals and complete tasks that seemed insurmountable in the past.

Work for yourself, not by yourself. Tap into a community of like-minded individuals and in the process receive better definition, focus and balance for yourself.