I have had this Clarity Gem from Clarity on Fire saved to write about for such a long time and I haven’t created it. It’s talking about taking what you don’t want and transitioning it to what you do want.
Go listen to it. It’ll only take 8 minutes.
Good? Okay. I was initially going to follow up Why Getting Fired Was Good For Me, but now it has more meaning in a different form. Things come back when we most need them.
Like I wrote last week, I’m a little stuck in planning and not focused enough on doing without 
making sure everything is perfect first. Along with that, I’m not sure where I want to go with SynEr and my career and freelance and such.
As Rachel and Kristen say, when we get stuck in the suckitude of what we don’t like, that’s all we can think about sometimes. We know really quickly what we don’t want and what we don’t like, but it’s harder to come up with what we do enjoy.
“I would do what I loved if I knew what I wanted to do, but all I know is what sucks.”
Makes perfect sense to me. It’s hard to turn around and say to myself, “Here’s what I’m so excited about.” Probably just like it’s easier to forget the good and focus on the bad.
When that happens, they recommend to take a second and think about the bad. What don’t you want? Then turn it on its head and figure out what the opposite is. The example Rachel gave is feeling pressure. The opposite of that for her is ease, relief, simplicity. Kristen felt stifled, like she was suffocating. The opposite for her was feeling spacious, like she had room to be creative and wouldn’t have to hide who she is.
This actually came up for me before I listened to the clarity gem all the way through. I was having a discussion with Marissa and the same feeling came up for her, too.
My advice? Figure out what you don’t like first.
Then I was trying to figure out what I want to write about for PCBN because Jason, bless his heart, was like, “Write about anything!” In a total nonsensical paradox, it seems limiting to figure out what to write since there are so many options.
The easiest way for me to narrow it down was to write down what I don’t want to do and what angle I don’t want to take. It really helped to put it into perspective and figure out, Okay, this isn’t what will work, so I can cross those off the list.
I’m also going through the Holiday Council with Stratejoy, and creating my plan for next year. I settled on my “word” a while ago, but I want it to have a little more oomph. “Focus” is a nice word, but it seems more like a command than a directive. With this method, I know what I don’t like about it, and instead can find a word that has a little more power.
I’m really quite enjoying this opposite thing. It’s perfect timing with New Year’s; we’re all trying to figure out our grandiose new direction for 2015. I’m totally employing it to help unstick whatever’s stuck with me writing-wise.
What do you do when you need to figure out the answer to a big “something”?
