Oh my God, We're (I'm) Back Again
Oh my God, We're (I'm) Back Again
Who doesn't love a BSB song reference?
Guys.
I’m still here!! 🙋♀️ I apologize for my month-long disappearance from the newsletter. It’s been a very busy time at my actual job, a large project has kicked off, and we’re barreling into year-end at warp speed. Have you felt this way too? As we’ve come out of the pandemic this year, it feels like the passage of time has accelerated insanely.
Fun fact, ‘warp speed’ is a sci-fi reference to the speed of a propulsion system (warp drive) that enables you to travel through space faster than lightspeed… aka, v. fast. As I typed out ‘warp speed’, I was curious as to the origin of that phrase, so I googled it so you don’t have to. THAT is the quality programming you subscribe to this newsletter for, I assume.
So yes, it’s been very busy, and I feel like I’ve completely fallen off the weekly newsletter horse or whatever the figure of speech is. But I’ll confess, the main reason I haven’t written has little to do with the literal number of hours I’ve spent working. My biggest hurdle has been psychological.
As you may know, and as you may also be, I’m a reformed Type-A lady, and recovering perfectionist. I do not mean that in the twee, “What’s your greatest weakness?” “Teehee, I’m too perfect” interview response kind of way. I mean that in the detrimental, self-sabotaging kind of way:
I missed one week of writing the newsletter, and a spiral of negative self-talk erupted:
“I literally just told people in a goal setting post (link) that I was recommitting to writing weekly.. I’m publicly failing!!”
“I can’t possibly balance being busy at work and side projects, when one gets busy, I totally let the other one go”
Then I missed another week, and the perfectionist (or “all or nothing”) mindset kicked in:
“I missed 2 weeks. I’ve never missed 2 weeks. I’m not very good at this.”
“This was supposed to be a weekly newsletter, and now it’s a monthly? A quarterly? AN ANNUAL REPORT?”
“OK, just write something and share it. But I haven’t shared something in so long, people will expect something great/excellent.. that sounds daunting.”
“Should you even bother? Would readers actually care if you didn’t write again? Should you take this as a sign that this just isn’t your jam?”
Can you relate? The ALL or NOTHING thinking - I either write something consistently every week (ALL), or I should throw in the towel (NOTHING). I am either crushing it (ALL), or a lazy, failing blob (NOTHING).
How often does this happen with you and your broader goals? Fitness, for example: You eat “perfectly” (no carbs, no alcohol, working out multiple times a week), and a single “slip-up” (a single beer) causes you to go down a rabbit hole of abandon - if it’s not perfect, why bother.
Black and white thinking . There is no happy medium, only either 1) perfectly checking things off the do-list, or 2) eternal damnation.
Eek.
It turns out, black and white thinking is actually a cognitive distortion, which is defined in psychology as “habitual ways of thinking that are often inaccurate and negatively biased.”
Bad news: Black and white thinking is actually one of many cognitive distortions (I include a link to a list of them at the end of the newsletter)
Great news: Cognitive distortions are not based on facts or reality!
It’s human nature to fall into these thinking patterns from time to time. Thought patterns help us make sense of the world, help us make decisions and in some ways keep us safe. If we spend too much time stuck in these distortions and accepting them as fact, however, our mental health takes a huge hit.
In this case - my black and white thinking (also known as “All-or-nothing thinking” or “Polarized” thinking) is a distortion that leads to extremely unrealistic standards for myself, and others. Research shows that it can negative impact relationships and motivation, and empirically, I can tell you the more I worried about missing a week or two of writing, the less I wanted to start again. It’s a bit of a complete mindf*ck for me, because I thought that my strict self-talk would promote productivity, but black and white thinking actually sets you up for failure. Not to mention, it makes limits the ability to navigate complexity and nuance (which… the world certainly needs more of.)
So how do we fix these distortions?
A big (important!) first step is to just identify them. ✔ Done. Publicly.
The second is to try different assumptions on for size, and relax the use of concepts like ‘always’ and ‘never’.. and explore the connotations you hold around those concepts.
So instead of “I always write a newsletter on Wednesdays of every week and have never missed a week even when busy with other things.”… “I try to write a newsletter with some frequency.. life gets in the way sometimes!”
Another step is to examine the evidence. I stopped writing for a few weeks. Is my life over? Have I fallen into financial ruin? Has everyone unsubscribed? Will anyone even open the next one?
(Answers: no. no. no. we shall see)
So yes. I am here. I am alive. I am not destitute. And here is a short, imperfect return to the newsletter this week. HI! I’m still here, still interested in exploring productivity, career, motivation and mindset with you! Let’s do this together.
In addition to the mindset work and exploring cognitive distortions, a few small tactics also helped shake me out of that “perfection paralysis” feeling:
Remember your “why”
Um this is a HOBBY, that first and foremost is meant to be amusing and enjoyable to write. Nowhere in my ‘why’ is there a prescribed cadence, format or expectation. This has also been fun for me up til now, and it will be fun again going forward, missing a few weeks isn’t a steady decline into losing interest in this little outlet for me!
Friendly remember that “no one cares”
People think about you way less than you think they do. I’m sure a good chunk of people that read this haven’t even noticed the absence of the newsletter. Even if they have, I’m pretty sure no one has aggressively judged me for not writing it (and certainly no one on earth is capable of aggressively judging me as harshly as well, me!)
Let go of rules/structure
You’ll note this first newsletter back is short, a complete ramble, and only tangentially relates it to career/work. It doesn’t draw from any external conversations. There are no sections. I didn’t post a series of things on Instagram first. Removing all the ‘shoulds’ in my mind definitely made writing less daunting.
Take small jumpstarting actions… that you actually enjoy doing (this is the critical part).
You know when you’ve fallen off the workout bandwagon, and it seems like a herculean effort to restart, and the advice out there is like, “Take a baby step to get started… just go for a quick run!”
“just” go for a run. whut. While that might be a jumpstarting action, a lot of people hate running, and it’s a big-ass shock to the system to just force yourself outdoors and start bounce-plodding along. Choose something you actually like.
In my case, actually writing a full newsletter is daunting.. but drafting cheesy subject lines? LOVE IT. So I took the tiny step of just riffing on a bunch of topics and subject lines, to see what resonated with me and what would jumped out at me as inspiring topics to write on.
In the fitness analogy, my small enjoyable jumpstarting action is sometimes buying workout clothes online. Does it burn calories? No. Is it fun and does it help make my mindset around working out a bit more positive? Heck yes.
Get inspired by getting off my phone
This one seems a bit obvious- we know endless scrolling and binge-watching anything is bad for productivity. More importantly though, it’s bad for creativity.
It was hard to get back on track writing this newsletter because I was lacking inspiration. I first blamed being busy at work, but as I put off week after week of writing and started getting anxious, I also did a bit of a time audit. Yes, I was busy at work, but I wasn’t working literally every single minute of the day. I didn’t have a ton of dedicated time to write, true, but certainly I had 15 minute blocks to open Substack and just jot a few things down (by the way, that’s how I tend to write, random spurts of thoughts throughout the week).
The problem was, in the moments I wasn’t working, I was consuming content (no regrets, Squid Game you were great, and I have done the bulk of Monday-Wednesday NYT Crosswords going back to like, 2017). Days were filled with producing (churning out work), and then consuming, and I gave myself no quiet time.
I went on a handful of thirty minute walks during the week with no headphones and found it so helpful. I wasn’t necessarily struck down by inspiration like a lightning bolt, but it helped me process my thoughts, reflect on things, connect the dots from conversations I’ve had, and think of random funny (well, funny to me) ridiculous things to intersperse into the newsletter.
I leave you with a few links to information on cognitive distortions, and how they get in our way… and also with this topical throwback Backstreet’s Back reference that explains this week’s subject line.
They don’t make music videos like this anymore. (Have I ever sounded more elder millennial?)
Resources/Links:
Cognitive Distortions (there are many, not just all-or-nothing thinking) (Healthline)
Perhaps more importantly, How to Stop Cognitive Distortions (Psych Central)
Cool Ladies doing Cool Things: (for consistency’s sake, am including one this week!) Maya Rupert is a political strategist, writer, and advocate and the campaign manager for Julian Castro. She writes in Teen Vogue (love that they are promoting this kind of content), about having more women of color involved in campaigns, in visionary/strategic roles, not merely administrative. (She has a great story about instinctively taking notes for the group at a meeting, and being told to put the sharpie down because she should be sharing her thoughts, not transcribing everyone else’s) (Teen Vogue)