I made a big decision this week.
I’m so proud of myself for making this decision because I made it for me, and that wasn’t an easy thing to do. Partly because it took some time to figure out what “for me” actually meant.
This decision has major cost, time, and life trajectory implications. The type I don’t typically take lightly. So I dealt with it as I have every other major life decision. With a pattern of intense thinking followed by letting go, followed by intense thinking, followed by letting go (you get it)… Until I converged on a solution that all parts of me feel good about. I got there yesterday with this one.
This back-and-forth process can be exhausting (especially for my saint of a husband) but it’s totally worth it. Because in the end, it sits right with my soul. And that is something I can always stand by.
If something feels right, I do it. If it feels wrong, I don’t. It’s really very, very simple, but you’ve got to be willing to take your chances doing stuff that may look crazy to other people – or not doing something that looks right to others but just feels wrong to you.
Oprah Winfrey
So what was the big decision?
I have a dream to one day sustain myself through my creative work. I love my job and am so grateful for the opportunities it opens up that would otherwise not be available to me; but to be my own boss someday would be the ultimate freedom.
This blog is all part of my evolving plan. My plan to figure out what it is that I really want to do, to refine in my mind what my unique talents are, to grow my confidence in what I have to offer. This is the journey we are on together.
Naturally, I’ve been researching what’s out there. I’ve come across some amazing blogs – Sam Laura Brown, The Blissful Mind – brave, inspired people contributing in their unique capacities. I started Brooke Castillo’s Self Coaching Scholars program. I got ideas, gained insights. A common thread among these women is that they are all coaches.
I got to thinking… maybe I want to be a life coach.
This idea feels good because it’s tangible. I can wrap my mind around it. I can see a clear path, with a clear result. At the end, I would have a certification to point back to, something that would make me credible in the world and qualified to espouse my thoughts and share my life lessons.
I’ve always done it this way. How comfortable.
So I put myself on the waiting list for the next life coach training. The email came out early this week. Training starts in March. Oh boy. Things just got real.
Focus – Relax – Repeat
The first round of intense focus began.
I watched all the videos on what to expect and why to take life coach training. I deeply considered what it would mean to be a life coach. I researched other coaching certifications. Everything seemed all so exciting; but something still didn’t feel right.
I let it go for a hot minute.
I let my mind relax. I let myself feel into everything that was coming up.
It took me a morning meditation and a silent, absent-minded drive into work to realize that the hesitation came from the thought that life coach training is a prescribed track. I didn’t decide to start this blog so that someone could tell me how to be me. I started this blog to figure that out for myself.
A prescribed track is not what I’m looking for. On the flip side, what if I’m just looking at it the wrong way? I considered other perspectives.
There’s an art and a science to everything.
Life coach training could provide an excellent foundation to build upon. I could learn about all the great tools that others have spent lifetimes perfecting. I could then build upon these tools, create my own, and chart my own course from there.
Great idea.
You got it, refocus time.
I ran the numbers, I did the math. I mapped it out on my white board. I made sure the timing aligned with our other goals. Everything checked. Training was a feasible option.
I sat down with my husband to talk it out. Relationships is a topic for a later time, but for now I’ll just say that my husband is a partner in every sense of the word. He’s supportive and intuitive, but isn’t afraid to tell me that I’ve really lost it this time. He keeps me on my own track when I see a shiny detour or try to do too much.
I wasn’t surprised when he told me that he would support me, whatever I chose, and then offered some insights.
One thing that stuck with me was the first thing he said —
You don’t need any of this to do what you really want.
After over an hour of intense thought, I needed a walk.
Round two of letting it go.
In Bruce Daisley’s book, The Joy of Work, he talks about how walking boosts creative thinking. In a 2014 study by two Stanford psychologists, Marily Oppezzo and Daniel Schwarts show that for two study groups, 81% of those who took a walk were found to produce more creative answers than their non-walking counterparts.
“Nothing like a nighttime stroll to give you ideas.”
J.K. Rowling
I set off on my own evening walk. The sun was setting. I was easily distracted by the clouds and the colors and the light breeze. Just breathing in and out was cleansing.
A thought popped into my brain. I instantly realized that I was harboring the thought that life coach training was my only track to sustainable work and that if I didn’t do it, I was delaying my creative work.
Mind. Blown.
As soon as I realized that tricky little bugger had been lodged in my subconscious, influencing my decisions without my even knowing it, I realized how ridiculous it sounded. There are thousands of other ways to go about my creative work. What if by doing the training, I was investing my time in ways that would otherwise be spent generating new ideas and producing the results I’m after?
I had my decision.
I am going to invest my time and mind power into this blog and the creative track I’m currently on. Someday down the road, it may make perfect sense to get trained as a life coach – but that time is not now. And that’s okay. Not doing it will not limit me. As my husband said, I don’t need any of this to do what it is that I want to do.
I said “yes” to myself by saying “no” to what I thought I should do. I said yes to me.
Some Science Behind the Focus-Relax-Repeat Approach
At this point you may be thinking, great, that’s how you make decisions… so what?
I can’t get through writing an article without throwing some studies or statistics at you. What I found is that research supports this focus-relax-repeat mindset.
Daydreaming Breeds Creativity
Michael C. Corballis, psychologist and professor at the Department of Psychology at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, discusses the benefits of relaxing your mind in his book, The Wandering Mind.
Corballis shares that when the mind wanders, it’s actually using about the same amount of energy as a focused mind. It’s just spread out over more regions of the brain – to include those that aren’t used during intense focus. Neurologist Marcus Raichle called this the default-mode network.
Cool, right. This guy’s giving me permission to daydream. And not just permission, it’s good for us!
The wandering mind gives us access to all levels of our memory – our basic skills, our vast bank of knowledge, and what’s called our episodic memory (I had to look this one up – essentially our collection of personal memories).
No wonder taking a trip into daydream land is so much fun! We’ve got lots of stuff up there.
Corballis offers that the mind seems programmed to alternate between episodes of mind-wandering and focus. Each serves a purpose.
Focus – In Moderation – is Good, Too
Michael Hyatt, author of Free to Focus, talks about how our modern concept of productivity is flawed. Jack Nevison, founder of New Lead Project Management collected the results of several major workplace productivity studies. The results didn’t surprise me, but I was happy to see someone put them down in scientific fashion.
Go figure, Nevison’s results showed that employees who worked more than 55 hours per week (i.e. lots of intense focus) were less productive than their fewer-than-50-hours counterparts.
That’s because our minds aren’t conditioned to work this way. We need breaks, time to let our minds relax… then they’re much better equipped to get back at a focus-intensive task. Stress and mental fatigue take their toll.
Give Your Mind Permission to Relax
If you take nothing else from this story, I hope it serves as a reminder that some of our very best insights come when we let it all go.
Despite society’s urgings, intense focus all the time is not a good thing.
It’s ok to take a break, take a stroll, and let your thoughts go. Give your mind access to that vast knowledge bank that is your brain. Who knows what solutions you’ll find up there!