3 Ways to Address Uncertainty
Working at your craft can bring up intense stress and uncertainty.
In The Power of Now, Eckhart Tolle talks about 3 ways to address situations that you don’t like. Here they are applied to your most creative work:
Remove yourself
Also known as quitting - sometimes we just need to quit a project and not the entire practice entirely. Don’t dismiss leaving or quitting things that aren’t working as a valid strategy as it will free you up for things that will work better.
Change the situation
A bit better, make a conscious effort to modify or improve the circumstances that you are working under. One way I like to think of this option is to turn my work into a game or a challenge that has to be completed.
Accept the situation completely
This is the most powerful of the three. The most intense growth is found when we can arrive at the point where we accept that the work is difficult. People might not be receptive. Inspiration comes and goes with no logic or formula.
While I’m a sucker for personal development, sometimes the best medicine we can take is the knowledge and power that hard things are hard.
Yet when we surrender to what is, those challenges can break down and become effortless.
This is a lifelong practice to return to time and time again.
Surrender, when I can manage it, usually works best for me, and I try to go Pomodoro and keep my fingers moving until the time is up. And I have often had to stop myself from procrastiplanning around "productivity."