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I’ve always found it interesting how no matter how fiercely you want to be successful, your brain will always come up with resistance.
You start a new hobby because you enjoy the activity. You distance yourself from everything that doesn’t matter and you focus on expressing yourself through this newfound interest. As time progresses you naturally look for greater challenges to test your skills and get feedback on how you compare to yourself, and eventually other people. But somewhere along the way you inevitably hit your breaking point.
This breaking point seems to unlock every insecurity you have. It hits you in all the wrong places. What was once something you did for the experience and to develop yourself, is now something you fear and avoid routinely.
What Happened Here?
The first and most obvious thing that happened is that you stopped doing it for yourself. You thought, “I don’t feel like it.” You stopped focusing on the process, and as you improved yourself you became increasingly self-conscious and judgemental. The judgement became too much to bear. So you gave up. You stopped because your art, your expression, your work was no longer giving you that shiny piece of validation – the validation that comes from being excited with little to no effort. You are no longer being intrinsically motivated to get better, and therefore you lose that motivation to stay focused on the journey you started. The judgement you pass onto yourself is too much to take credit for and your bad material becomes too heavy to carry. Why carry all this judgement when you can simply give up?
Brian Crosby is a comedy writer who has worked for big name TV shows like This Hour Has 22 Minutes, and The Royal Canadian Air Farce. I recently stumbled upon his TED talk that addresses this very problem of not persevering through your bad ideas.
Watch the video below, and I highly recommend thinking about how this applies to your life. Share it with me in the comment section below. I’d love to continue the conversation.
This quote caught my attention:
Getting to the point where you make an impact is a consequence of your process. It is a consequence of making a slew of bad ideas until you get to a good one. – Brian Cosby
Now here is my proposal to you: commit to your hobby, your passion, your work and get past the self-judgement of bad ideas. Let go of all of the doubts you have of yourself and understand that you have everything you need to be successful at whatever you want – you are just going to have to get through the bad ideas first.
It took Brian ten years to realize this. Older generations have wisdom to pass down that every person that’s ever wanted to do something constructive with his or her life can benefit from.
Stop passing negative judgement on yourself and start working on some bad ideas. What do you think?
Yo Mikey,
Interesting post man. I recently have started to believe the only way I can truly focus on growth is to get out of my own way. What I mean by this is that I have to make the growth not just about me. It has to be about helping others. When I focus on myself the ego takes over and I limit myself.
But when I step outside of myself and focus on helping others I am able to just give. It is kind of interesting because the less I think about myself and the more I focus on giving to others the more of true self is revealed to the world. Good stuff man :).
Hey Izzy,
Thanks for commenting. I definitely think it’s a good approach. I’ve seen massive growth in my own life by serving others. One shift that is also important to make at some point is to start taking the same approach to yourself. Give to yourself, but in the same way you give to others – without expectation and just to make yourself feel great!
Definitely something I’ve been doing lately that’s been helping a lot.
Hey Mikey,
Thanks for posting this. These are one of my problems i seem to have and trying to overcome. Next time we get together i like to talk about getting over the self-judement and negitive thoughts.
@Izzy: Very awesome that you worded it as “get out of my own way.” I find that all personal growth comes from just getting out of your own way. Yesterday Cam, Kevin, and I were at the pool. A series of events went down and I ended up doing a backflip off the 10m platform. Let me tell you I was scared as shit however, I could sum up all of my mental preparation as “getting out of my own way.” I let myself succeed. I think this applies just as strongly to a “giving” mentality. Great feedback 😉
@Cam: Your a boss.
@Steve-O: I got your back my friend! Failing forward is no easy manner 🙂 I think that one of my own issues has been letting go of self-judgement. This is most evident with my approach to meeting women. Though I have made significant headway, I still work on this mentality day in, day out. Looking forward to our next conversation.