Small steps
Every now and then, I have an idea that’s too perfect not to do, even if I don’t feel ready for it.
So. Just over a week ago, at the end of January, I watched a livestream by my friend Mark Steadman.
He has a new project and podcast, called Morning Creative, and he stated that he was dedicating each morning, 9am till 1pm, working on it.
And I realised something.
Like many people (and people-pleasers in particular), I struggle to work on my own stuff.
My to-do list is full of things I have promised to do for other people.
Now, this isn’t an unusual thing or a bad thing. I’m an interdependent entity who is held within a network of interwoven threads, life is about relationships, etc etc.
And, most of the time, these tasks are a sign that I’m working on something bigger than myself - that I’m a part of a team that makes a bigger difference than I could noodling away on my own.
And yet, some resentment can creep in if it feels like every work task I do is for other people.
(I’m often a reluctant Obliger, if you’re familiar with Gretchen Rubin’s Four Tendencies.)
After seeing Mark’s video, I wondered to myself, “What would happen if I set aside 30 minutes a day to work on my own stuff?”
Then I realised that February was around the corner, considered doing 29 minutes for 29 days (as it’s a leap year) towards a “big leap” (yeah, I don’t know what that constitutes either), and joked with Mark that there was “a LinkedIn Challenge in there.”
To which he replied, “There f*cking is y’know.”
So, yeah. For the last 8 days, I’ve been doing this:
What have I discovered so far? Firstly, being visible on LinkedIn isn’t as horrible as I’d feared.
(I mean, I’m not THAT visible. But I tend to avoid posting anything on Social Media, if I can help it.)
Having a general theme or purpose for posting daily is also really helpful. I’m taking this as an experiment and “thinking out loud” rather than trying to be a thought leader.
It’s also not as difficult as I thought it would be. I’ve set up a basic template on Canva, picked a palette of colours on Coolors, and am treating it like daily micro-blogging (so far; I might try scheduling some stuff for the weekend).
But mostly, it’s helping me think about my own work and connect some dots.
For example, I feel like people-pleasing might be the connecting thread between a number of my interests - self-compassion and using ourselves to create a positive impact, for example.
Coming up with further resources and offerings to help address understand and address it might be useful.
Or give an easy “way in” for people to understand the work I do.
And heck, if nothing else, this experiment might help me overcome my aversion to posting on LinkedIn.
Which probably isn’t such a bad thing in and of itself if I hope to make a positive difference in the world.
