~ In Defense of Effortfulness~
Yesterday I was listening to a free call Danielle LaPorte did on money.
As usual, Danielle was wise, witty, warm, real. I adore her.
But I didn’t feel inspired. I felt like shit.
Danielle was talking about the new way she creates things. She doesn’t keep a to-do list any more. She doesn’t crank toward her goals, she focuses on her desired feelings. She does what she wants when she feels like it…and she is making more money than ever.
Lovely! Beautiful! Evolved!
Just one tiny problem.
When I only do what I want when I feel like it, studies show that I will watch Downton Abbey for six years in a row. I will never make my daughter do her homework or file my taxes. And I will never sit down and finish my book.
Without lists and timelines and clear priorities, I sometimes forget where I put my teeth!
And my teeth are still in my head.
Without a conscious decision to make choices that don’t always feel good in the moment, I could easily waft my way onto the wrong side of the IRS and parenting services.
Listening to Danielle, my mind went to a bad neighborhood, all graffiti and busted-out doors.
~ Obviously, you suck.
~ If it isn’t easy, you’re doing the wrong thing.
~ You’re not inherently a good mother, you just act like one.
~ You’ll never play at her level.
Luckily, because I have had inordinate amounts of coaching and therapy, I noticed that I was walking through the mental equivalent of a meth lab.
I realized what I was doing– I was comparing Danielle’s expert, honed practice to my baby one.
For one thing, even though I really do want to write, only part of me wants it. Another part of me would rather dig a sewer than go through the exquisite discomfort of facing the blank page.
Not all of me is on board with this writing thing. So I require extraordinary lengths– a coach, treats, public declarations, and accountability–to keep my butt in the chair.
And when it comes to parenting, I absolutely adore my daughter. But I really dislike 97% of the chores associated with keeping her clean, safe, and happy.
So I make somewhat painful choices. I cook broccoli even though it would be easier to give her ice cream. I make her go to bed even though she acts like I’m a fascist. I make these choices freely, even gladly, but they are rarely what I really feel like doing in that moment.
The story I tell about these truths will determine my trajectory. I can beat myself up because parenting and writing don’t come easily, or I can cheer myself on for doing something challenging. The latter story feels infinitely better, AND gets me where I want to go.
But there’s another piece. Danielle didn’t talk about the kind of effortlessness that comes from years of deep practice. Even in my own life, not everything requires the kind of all-hands-on-deck-oh-god-this-is-hard effort that writing and parenting do.
Just this morning, in fact, I came home from walking my daughter to school. It appeared that several dinosaurs had had a frat party. Total disaster zone.
I did exactly what I do every single morning: I put on my morning Up playlist, made the beds, washed the dishes in the sink, and picked up every bit of clutter until my space was transformed back into my lovely, serene, beautiful office.
This took me– yes, I counted– exactly four songs, or 14.5 minutes.
So I can say breezily, “I don’t really clean now– I just do a bit here and there, when I feel like it.”
Which is true.
Because I feel like it every single day at 8:10am.
And because my cleaner comes every other week.
The habits of keeping my space lovely are effortless now, because I have been doing them so long and because all of me is on board. But they weren’t effortless at all when I first began doing them.
Several years in, I know so deep in my bones that I need beauty and order to function that I don’t have to convince myself or remind myself to do my morning sweep; it’s second nature. And there are a whole host of support systems that I created, one by one, that support me.
Like having a cleaner, for example. And an assistant. And having a flourishing bouquet of lists, systems, reminders, tricks, and habits to help me stay organized and on top of things. (These systems rocked my world so much that I turned them into a coaching program called The Queen Sweep. You can go get a free taste of it here.) The systems and habits I’ve honed over time are what give me the freedom to keep my world beautiful with so little effort.
But other parts of my world still require elbow grease–a lot of it.
My hunch is that Danielle has been writing and creating for so many years now that it has a certain effortless quality to it. I am honestly happy for her, and I adore what she creates. I love her books, I read her blog, and her piece on Tonglen meditation quite literally changed my life.
But if I try to follow her advice about how to create, I will despair. And I won’t create what I want to.
A golf master can say that when she steps up to tee off, she just empties her mind and lets her body take over. And a concert violinist might declare that she just picks up her violin and plays what is in her heart.
I am sure that this is literally true for them.
But if you don’t know that they spent thousands and thousands of hours practicing before they got to that point, you are missing an important piece of information.
If you’ve never held a gold club or a violin before, and you try to simply play what is in your heart, it will, I can almost guarantee, sound like shit.
I am all for doing things with ease and joy and beauty. I urge my clients to keep their goals and to-dos as simple and focused and luscious as they can. But I also think it’s okay to admit that when you’re just starting out with something, it’s not going to feel effortless.
Sometimes it’s going to feel like shit.
And that’s not only okay, it’s how you get to effortless. I’ll see you there– one baby step, treat, system, and choice at a time.
