DISCERNMENT QUESTIONS What gets my attention? Do I understand the need or problem? Do I understand the potential solution? Do I understand how to apply that strategy? What questions do I have for the experts? What might be the answers? Who needs to hear this? What do I do next?
SOURCES – Footnotes: [1]
RESOURCES
This is an anchor post; its purpose is to begin a conversation. Please review the page How and Why We Use Quotes. Key: Blogging 201 Last Revision: 07/20/2021.
DISCERNMENT QUESTIONS What gets my attention? Do I understand the need or problem? Do I understand the potential solution? Do I understand how to apply that strategy? What questions do I have for the experts? What might be the answers? Who needs to hear this? What do I do next?
SOURCES – Footnotes: [1]
RESOURCES
This is an anchor post; its purpose is to begin a conversation. Please review the page How and Why We Use Quotes. Key: Blogging 201 Last Revision: 07/20/2021.
Mo, me, too. I appreciate how you describe the avoidance as I do very similar things, all the time. Your sharing helps me see myself more clearly. Thanks!
QUOTE [1]
NOTE
MY STRATEGY: (Application)
DISCERNMENT QUESTIONS What gets my attention? Do I understand the need or problem? Do I understand the potential solution? Do I understand how to apply that strategy? What questions do I have for the experts? What might be the answers? Who needs to hear this? What do I do next?
SOURCES – Footnotes: [1]
RESOURCES
This is an anchor post; its purpose is to begin a conversation. Please review the page How and Why We Use Quotes. Key: Blogging 201 Last Revision: 07/20/2021.
DISCERNMENT QUESTIONS What gets my attention? Do I understand the need or problem? Do I understand the potential solution? Do I understand how to apply that strategy? What questions do I have for the experts? What might be the answers? Who needs to hear this? What do I do next?
SOURCES – Footnotes: [1]
RESOURCES
This is an anchor post; its purpose is to begin a conversation. Please review the page How and Why We Use Quotes. Key: Blogging 201 Last Revision: 07/20/2021.
DISCERNMENT QUESTIONS What gets my attention? Do I understand the need or problem? Do I understand the potential solution? Do I understand how to apply that strategy? What questions do I have for the experts? What might be the answers? Who needs to hear this? What do I do next?
SOURCES – Footnotes: [1]
RESOURCES
This is an anchor post; its purpose is to begin a conversation. Please review the page How and Why We Use Quotes. Key: Blogging 201 Last Revision: 07/20/2021.
DISCERNMENT QUESTIONS What gets my attention? Do I understand the need or problem? Do I understand the potential solution? Do I understand how to apply that strategy? What questions do I have for the experts? What might be the answers? Who needs to hear this? What do I do next?
SOURCES – Footnotes: [1]
RESOURCES
This is an anchor post; its purpose is to begin a conversation. Please review the page How and Why We Use Quotes. Key: Blogging 201 Last Revision: 07/20/2021.
DISCERNMENT QUESTIONS What gets my attention? Do I understand the need or problem? Do I understand the potential solution? Do I understand how to apply that strategy? What questions do I have for the experts? What might be the answers? Who needs to hear this? What do I do next?
SOURCES – Footnotes: [1]
RESOURCES
This is an anchor post; its purpose is to begin a conversation. Please review the page How and Why We Use Quotes. Key: Blogging 201 Last Revision: 07/20/2021.
DISCERNMENT QUESTIONS What gets my attention? Do I understand the need or problem? Do I understand the potential solution? Do I understand how to apply that strategy? What questions do I have for the experts? What might be the answers? Who needs to hear this? What do I do next?
SOURCES – Footnotes: [1]
RESOURCES
This is an anchor post; its purpose is to begin a conversation. Please review the page How and Why We Use Quotes. Key: Blogging 201 Last Revision: 07/20/2021.
“(4) The easiest way not to feel the essential pain is to distract your brain. Check Facebook, check email, go back to a different idea that hasn’t caused you pain yet, start researching some inane detail, watch cat videos on YouTube on repeat. Or just walk away.”
I’ve been in this mode much of my life. While there are times when I become seriously focused until I get closure, in between I’m always wanting to learn something new and looking for something that is interesting. My work also offers me a lot of flexibility with my schedule and lots of time to be a learner. (#1). I’m very familiar with denial and avoidance, and way too comfortable with both.
“Part of the importance of recognizing essential pain is to make that priority decision about which pain you’d rather feel. Either … turn it in, or …never finishing the book. Because it will never feel finished, and that is painful.”
This is why I’m here. I want to develop some concrete plans for closure. Or as I call it, retirement. Primarily because I’ve generally lost interest in obsessively circling the same timesuck. It’s neither fun or interesting anymore, and no one is listening.
QUOTES “If you are digging a hole in the wrong place, trying harder only gets you a deeper hole … in the wrong place.”
“One of the hardest decisions you will make in life is whether to walk away or try harder.”
Matthew 10: 12 As you enter the house, salute it. 13 And if the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it; but if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you. 14 And if any one will not receive you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house or town.
You’ve mentioned losing interest in the current work a number of times. We live in a society that praises completion, but I challenge that empty completion simply to check the box is not something to strive for. If you’ve moved on emotionally and energetically and your interest is pulling you to a different project, then perhaps it’s time to consider walking away from the painful project and starting something that brings you joy.
I’m here for that challenge, and the evaluation that comes with it. It’s also not the project itself, it’s the consistent lack of affirmation from the marketplace.
It’s also not a matter of completion. “empty completion simply to check the box.” The dissertation was completed, submitted for the degree. It was put online at disciplewalk.com for free download. Supplementary materials were added.
The material was repackaged as a church “lay servant” course which was taught once. With the hope of approval, national publication and distribution by the denomination providing these courses. http://disciplewalk.com/DM101_Home_Page.html
In the wings … planned out but knowing I don’t have the energy to do them … repackage the material again, as a blog, constructed as a fictional consultant working with 4 small churches in danger of closing. https://4corneredroom.com/
Revisit the dissertation in a blog, updating it paragraph by paragraph as “12 years later” and reflect on the changes since it was published, tell stories and memoirs of living with this material for so long. https://amateurdisciples.com/
The ideas are good. Fascinating. The problem likely lies in a failure of marketing or platform. Sometimes a wonderful idea just fails to thrive.
I don’t believe that I have the energy or the ability to repackage this material – so much an essential part of my life’s work – again, in a new way, after all these attempts, that will finally cause this material to succeed, go viral and be widely adopted by churches in my denomination and change the world. Other people might be able to do this, but not me. I have lost faith and hope in my ability to this.
So, it’s not losing interest … it’s more like driving your best friend to hospice. Or your child to prison.
But walking away is on the level of a job change, if not a divorce. It never is trivial … but it’s not trivial. Murder your darlings is a writing cliche … but sometimes it does feel like murder.
Overnight Insight: my problems with this aren’t writing problems as much as they are publisher problems. Not content creation, but content dissemination problems.
Letting an author go, choosing for a line of books to go out of print, admitting failure to grow a market (lost hopes and dreams), closing down a line or a business, are big drama situations.
And indie being what it is, being a publisher, providing a platform and connecting with readers, is often what we find ourselves doing.
The question is not whether to retire, but what remains. As a business closes or after a person dies, a lot of work remains to tidy things up. Identifying what that involves and defining those tasks is now what I need to do. It is possible to simply abandon those responsibilities, but it’s better to take care of them. Closure.
And, as far as humbling myself goes, 1/3 of the dissertation material is on creating a viral innovation movement through systems of institutional and cultural transformation (5th Discipline by Peter Senge + [the Diffusion of Innovations by Everett Rogers + Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey Moore], with a dash of Goldratt’s Theory of Constraints, sociologist Rodney Stark and Bowen Family Systems), so inherent in my failure is the failure to properly implement my own research. (Or to QTP, which is that the research even works.)
And so the brain ponders … what did I miss? Where did I miss the opportunity? How did I ignore the very research I attempted to practice? (And this used to lead to a new way to repackage the same material. Classic sunk cost bias/fallacy. I still have curiosity pennies (“Why?”) but no energy pennies for this.)
It’s also possible that my situation is a William Glasser “true conflict” or true dilemma, where patiently waiting for the immobilizing balance to change is the wise choice – to press <pause> until a solution is possible.
The sign of a true conflict is an explosion of energy trying all possible options to solve a problem that can’t be solved; rather than avoidance, there is obsession and an abundance of frantic energy. I’ve certainly experienced the obsession.
Dave, I love that you’re putting so much thought into all of this. I suspect a lot of the frustration and pain is something you’re going to need to bring to your coaching call. Let’s see what pops as we get into the meat of the class. 🙂
I’m verbalizing many of the thoughts I’ve struggled with for about a decade. A long time coming, and I’m hoping our time here will help bring things into focus.
QUOTE [1]
NOTE
MY STRATEGY: (Application)
DISCERNMENT QUESTIONS What gets my attention? Do I understand the need or problem? Do I understand the potential solution? Do I understand how to apply that strategy? What questions do I have for the experts? What might be the answers? Who needs to hear this? What do I do next?
SOURCES – Footnotes: [1]
RESOURCES
This is an anchor post; its purpose is to begin a conversation. Please review the page How and Why We Use Quotes. Key: Blogging 201 Last Revision: 07/20/2021.
I want to register my pain today. There are actually three. As a pastor, there’s a lot of contemplation on what we call “the calling.” In 1973, I decided that this related to the parable of the talents – Matthew 25. I decided that my calling was to be responsible for the good investment of all that I received … my talents … and absolutely not to bury it in the ground, unused, wasted. My talents, of course, include writing.
#3. My third pain is from dealing with a lifetime of recovery from codependency and rescuing people – in fact, I turned “pro” by becoming a pastor. There are other realities that complicate my life. As a Learner/Strategic Strengths person, I wonder if my original draw to writing is intertwined with my emotional health challenges. Perhaps writing is my attempt to resolve my own problems … and now being happily married, perhaps I have different problems.
The simplest “ladder” is about determining what I like and enjoy, and do more of that. Knowing what is fun and happy making can lead me out of this hole to do writing that I will find rewarding. But … I haven’t a clue to what is fun, or what I enjoy.
I’m going to pull one of these quotes: “Perhaps writing is my attempt to resolve my own problems … and now being happily married, perhaps I have different problems.”
I do think this is very true. I’m going to make a note for your one-on-one to discuss this, and also, I want you to think about a couple of things as you move through class.
1) Sometimes the purpose of Input/Learner is just to gather. (Ideas, information, etc.) Sometimes, what we’re doing with that gathering is actually fulfilling the purpose of the gathering itself, which is to build that Learner/Input capacity. Speaking as a fellow Connectedness… when the correct idea presents itself, you will not struggle to write it. (More on this in the coaching call, but for now, let me just say:) Sometimes the purpose of the gathering is literally to gather. To prepare for the future. And this is the truth of Input/Learner. Sometimes the purpose of the gathering is to make energy pennies to get us through whatever we need to get through.
2) Start making some notes for your one-on-one about “resolve my own problems.” Think granularly. If all the previous ideating about writing was to solve problems you don’t have anymore, then what are the problems you have now? And how might writing solve those?
Also, do you happen to have your Full34? If you do, please send those to Annette. If not, no worries. Just checking!
“I seem to move into avoidance when every blessed possible task seems equally pressing.” Me, too. Oh, yes.
If only the world would end if I didn’t buckle down to do the work on a specific task … so that this crisis would motivate me. But as the world won’t end, I find it so easy to drift, procrastinate and avoid. Oh, wow, has the NCIS marathon started yet?
The other form this takes with me is to polish a task for a few minutes, then move to another, and then another, such that I’ve been writing for hours … but nothing got finished.
I really appreciate how you explained your need for structure and your desire to experience a system that runs smoothly … on cruise control … with a template … a workbook handed to you to run your life on.
I’ve yearned for the same my whole life.
Jim Collins called this the Flywheel in the book, Good to Great, and I’ve adopted that name for my yearning.
Hi David, Oh my God. I missed that in my reading of Good to Great. That is exactly the state I am aspiring to. Thank you for sharing and giving me a concrete conceptual framework.
I just had an epiphany. What I am essentially desiring is a life operating system and my mission is to essentially install it into my life – which August Bradley already actually covers in his Life Operating System course called Pillars, Pipelines and Vaults.
@David, I am re-listening to August Bradley and his Emergence principle is very similar the flywheel concept.
I am very interested in exactly the same thing … but have never heard of August Bradley, or his Life Operating System course called Pillars, Pipelines and Vaults … thanks for the connection!
There are days when I work very similarly to how you do here. I hate those days but I keep telling myself that those little sprints are better than nothing I don’t always believe me.
Chelsea (and others), if you are dominant in Green (Strategic Thinking) Strengths (Context, Input, Ideation, Intellection, Learner, Futuristic, Analytical, etc.), then it’s common that the first 1k will be “pump-priming.” So let’s make a note to make sure we talk about this in your coaching call.
Yes, me, too! “There is always another new and shiny thing that I want to focus my time and energy on (thanks a lot Activator, lol), and suddenly I’m rethinking my whole strategy for the 100th time …” I do this a lot.
“New and shiny syndrome is a familiar siren call. 😉 “
This so very true for me, but backwards. I have a great fear and anxiety about boredom, as if yielding to it will lead to sliding into depression and then drop into the pit of what Becca describes as burnout. Skipping the slide, just dropping right in.
It’s like a fix … relief … but also like medicine. I need me some shiny. To survive.
QUOTE [1]
NOTE
MY STRATEGY: (Application)
DISCERNMENT QUESTIONS What gets my attention? Do I understand the need or problem? Do I understand the potential solution? Do I understand how to apply that strategy? What questions do I have for the experts? What might be the answers? Who needs to hear this? What do I do next?
SOURCES – Footnotes: [1]
RESOURCES
This is an anchor post; its purpose is to begin a conversation. Please review the page How and Why We Use Quotes. Key: Blogging 201 Last Revision: 07/20/2021.
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