Lessons in getting out of your own way 💌

Notes on asking for help.

I created a Substack account in March 2023, nearly 20 years after I started getting paid to write online. But it took me the guts of another year to finally hit publish on my first Substack article, two weeks ago. 

So why the hold up, hun?

It’s a question I’ve asked myself more than once, which on the surface is nonsensical because in general, in life, I’m very good at Just Saying Yes.

Fancy jumping out of a plane tomorrow? Sign me up. Want to try this new place tonight where the vermut recipe has been passed down for four generations? Say less. I’m a little *too* good at it in some respects, but happily I’ve learnt to embrace not only my limitations, but my boundaries, too. 

This particular hesitation however, is more specific. It appears around the creative projects and ideas that are my own, outside of the sYsTeM, which as a creative freelancer happens to make up a substantial part of my existence. And therein lies the inner wrangling.

And the question often appears when I’ve finally just BLOODY STARTED, aka it doesn’t have to even be finished, much less with any sniff of perfection, before I understand the thing to be as fulfilling as I had originally suspected when I dreamt it up in the first place, quite possibly after a glass of the aforementioned vermut. Generally, the mountain I perceived I would have to climb is more of a steady incline of curiosity and discovery, which happens to be exactly the kind of adventure that I live for.

Are you nodding as you read about these self-perceived mountains? The peaks that hold you back from these things that you really do want to do, these ideas that you have that are yours, for you - ones that you know in your gut are GOOD ideas, but ones that you perpetually put off in favour of meeting everyone else’s needs? Ones that you tell yourself you’ll do *soon* but somehow the days turn into weeks and then months as life just… gets in the way?

Except it doesn’t. It’s me, getting in my own way again and again, simply because there’s not another person, institution or societal structure declaring that it’s of value.

And with love… it’s you, getting in your own way too.

Because those 30 minutes that you spend scrolling Instagram every morning are the exact 30 minutes you need to go for a walk in the outside air to feel good. They’re the extra 30 minutes you could just leave the inbox or the laundry pile alone, and login to that online course you truly care about instead. They’re almost definitely 29 minutes more than you need to say hello to the parent at the gate - the one that you suspect you’d have a LOT in common with, if only you would dare to suggest a coffee or [GASP] a glass of wine. 

Is it a British thing, this potential sense of cringe, this feeling that it’s indulgent to do something *just* for you? Is it a female thing? Is it a nurture thing? Is it a societal conditioning thing? Is fear of failure? Fear of success?! Is it a chronic illness sometimes undermining your confidence in decision making thing?

Is it all of the above, because it’s in fact a me thing?

Yeah, that. 

But if like me you have been prone to getting caught in a dissonance between blazing a trail and laying down for a nap on someone else’s trail, this is a reminder that it’s important to ignore the ‘but I simply couldn’t possibly’, ‘it won’t be good enough’, ‘it’s indulgent’ nonsense talk that can take up space in your head and paralyse you into a comfortable inertia.