I’m frustrated with myself. I know what I want and I am pretty sure I have the skills I need. What I lack is the trust in myself to try to do what I want to be doing. Maybe I just need something or someone else to tell me I can do all these things. Which is silly and backwards. If I know I can why can’t I just believe I can, why do I need an outside source to tell me what I already know before I can believe it?
I know some part of the whole thing in my head are from my past. Even though my Dad has been dead several years his words won’t leave my head and their impression is still as fresh and strong as ever. My family treat me like I’m not capable of anything and expect me to screw up, make bad decisions. That is frustrating too. It makes it easy to give up on myself for one thing. No one really expects much from me so I don’t have to try really hard to meet their standards.
Accomplishing the things you really want takes courage. You need to risk at least a few things, like rejection, failure, imperfection. I wonder if I could find the courage at all, even without my past and lack of support from my family. Maybe none of that stuff even matters because I wouldn’t have the courage to really try anyway.
But, I do keep trying, in little ways. It’s like it can’t die but it can’t flower fully either. Not quite in limbo. Staying almost in place, making a little progress and then fading back into my shell would be not so bad if I had unlimited time. I could go along on cruise control with little highs along the way to keep me going, but each day passes and becomes a week, a month and then another year. When do I shake off my past and my fears and grab the brass ring?
Word Grrls is my mad science experiment, my adventures with fame and world domination (politely). This is where I inspire people to create: invent mutations, cause change, bring colour into your world. Web writer since 1998. Find me on StumbleUpon , and Tumblr.
{ 3 comments }
You need a new family. I think you’ll find that people you meet in person and online think the world of you and that impression is far more valid than family trying to keep you down.
.-= Emm´s last blog ..Book review: Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro =-.
I believe I can empathize with your frustration. I suffer from similar lack of confidence, lack of initiative.
The only thing for it is to keep trying and to keep moving forward. It isn’t easy. I now have the time I should need, but … well, first I discovered that we accumulate a lot of crud over the years and eliminating that is a huge hurdle. I am sort of on my way. I was in many ways much more at peace when all my stuff was in boxes, but … the wife hates the boxes and makes me unpack. Each box I unpack clutters my life: too many things to do at once, more things than I could ever hope to do in several life times. Each box contains one or more dreams and ambitions. I have started getting rid of stuff (on top of all the stuff I got rid of in Montreal). It is a slow process.
Uncertainly in ones self is a horrible thing. Not feeling ready, but wanting the opportunity is awful. The only advice I have is to go forward.
The other problem is that it is not as simple as simply getting “the thing”. It has to be a daily renewal. A constant reaffirmation and moving forward. I can’t just set up a website – I need to keep populating it. I can’t just write one book – I have to keep writing.
Julia Cameron put it best in her book The Artist’s Way: “I do not need to be rich, but I do need to be richly supported.”
It is a good book and I would recommend you read it (if you haven’t already). Even if you don’t do the exercises, it still probes deeply inside of you – something other self-help / affirmation / follow your dream books don’t.
I think that is what we lack – that sense of support. Who wants to risk falling if there is no one to support you? Certainly not me.
You might also like this quote from Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking by by David Bayles and Ted Orland (another pretty good book):
“… most artists don’t daydream about making great art – they daydream about having made great art. What artist has not experienced the feverish euphoria of composing the perfect thumbnail sketch, first draft, negative, or melody – only to run headlong into a stone wall trying to convert that tantalizing hint into the finished mural, novel, photograph, sonata. The artist’s life is frustrating not because the passage is slow, but because he imagines it to be fast.“
.-= richard´s last blog ..I hate that first post following a long absence =-.
I hear you. My dad is still alive but he thought that writing or art was a fools dream. In fact ever since I broke it to him that I didn’t want to be a doctor, I have found I can never make him proud.
And my mother is the same, she has five kids and all four are better than me no matter what I do.
So I’ve made my own family with my spouse and my dog, and my big sister. These are the people who support and love me, and these are the people who always have kind words when I do find rejection or am down.
So cheer up, and remember that you’re a great person and do what you love.
.-= Tracey´s last blog ..Writer Interviews =-.
Comments on this entry are closed.