How to Get What You Want
When life often takes you by surprise
We’re often told things like:
visualize what you want, so you can achieve it!
know what you want and you will attract it!
be open to receiving what you want, and it will come!
. . . And I’m not here to bash any of those things. I think there’s value in visualization, in knowing yourself, and in allowing good things to happen (rather than letting fear rule the roost). I am, quite honestly, all about that manifestation and self-actualization.
However.
While the Universe and I may be good old friends, I struggle when it comes to anything involving other people. There’s a reason I am a writer first and foremost, rather than a speaker or networker or salesperson. (I think many authors may relate!)
So, if we boil it down into to two more lists—
I do want things that involve other people. Things like:
community and friendship
book purchases and reviews
blog readers, so I feel a little less odd ;)
And yet, for as much as I can identify those things (and how to increase my chances of getting them), I still run into internal blocks, for example:
people are scary (what if they hate me and I am rejected?)
people are different (will they even want to hear what I have to say?)
people are confusing (I’ve commented and emailed and shared their posts; are we friends yet?)
Perhaps you can see the problem? ;)
In case you’d rather read it in story form, here’s an example. My wonderful, incredibly patient fiancé spent much of his evening yesterday listening to me talk complain about a writing group I recently joined. “They’re really cool people and I like their projects,” I told him (at length), “but we’re at different places in the writing journey. They’re going at a different pace than I am. So I’m never sure what of my own work to bring them, exactly. And while I like sharing my perspective with them, I get the feeling they’re a little off-put by my genre sometimes, or maybe they’re not sure what to say about a question I bring them, or they feel like they don’t know enough about my world to help me brainstorm . . .”
etc etc etc
Eventually, said delightful fiancé ascertained that I was done and ventured his own opinion. “Why did you join this group in the first place?”
“Because I wanted to be more involved in the community and make friends,” I said promptly.
“Okay,” says he, “and is there another group you could join of writers that are more like you?”
I hemmed and hawed about how theoretically, one could find such a group, but the practicality of aligning schedules/locations/genres/longevity/blood type/communication style/favorite hot beverage made things a little difficult.
“Beloved author,” he said finally (but not really, and he will be disgruntled at me for attributing something so mushy to him, haha!), “you need to stop apologizing for what you want.”
Cue the revelation!
Perhaps, while you were reading the story above, you caught on to something—something that I hadn’t realized myself until I began writing the story down. All the worries I was expressing to my fiancé were, essentially, about other people. Concerns like “they might not like my genre” or “they might not know what to tell me” are essentially saying,
I am inconveniencing them by offering up my work.
And let’s face it, a worry like that is only two steps up the ladder from they will probably, or even probably should, just reject me.
There’s another thing, too: though I knew precisely how to answer “what do you want from this”—friendship—and how to get what I wanted—by putting myself out there—my complaints tell a different story. My initial complaints have to do with not getting the kind of feedback I had hoped for, not with not being friends.
I think it’s perfectly fine to want more than one thing from a given situation, but the key (as we were reminded at the beginning) is being aware of your own hopes. From that point of awareness, you can decide if all your wants in this case are reasonable, or if one would best be prioritized over the other.
We’ll call that lesson number one! :)
For lesson number two, let’s go back to that idea of inconveniencing and rejecting and apologizing again. Because my fiancé was right (and trust me, he’s on enough committees and in enough civic groups that he ought to know!). By approaching the writing group with the underlying assumption that I am an inconvenience—closely allied to the people are scary bullet point above, mind you—I am apologizing for my presence before I even ask for anything. Most of the time, I barely make it to the asking for something part. I’m too wrapped up in the worry.
As should be clear from the example above, I am very much in the thick of this apologetic habit. To be transparent, I had hoped that by writing this blog post, I would come to a pithy conclusion that would help solve my problems before I go meet with this group. ;)
Maybe one more list will help . . .
I recognize what I want
I recognize that my internal fears are blocking me in a very specific, habitual way
So the obvious next step is to overcome the fear, right?
Far more easily said than done. I doubt this is a one-and-done, put-it-on-the-list-and-check-it-off sort of thing.
But if we go back one more time and look at what I’ve written, another concrete detail does show up. When I come from a place of fear, I am prioritizing others’ feelings and wants, not my own.
Oh boy . . . I’m going to say that one again.
When I am coming from a place of fear, it means I am focusing on others. In order to focus on what I want, I have to prioritize myself.
Aha. It now seems to me that the answer is, as is so often the case, to relax into self-love and let the fears fall away.
It’s amazing how often it surprises me that love is the answer after all!