The self-help space has grown to be a crowded, vague, and ubiquitous one.
The best entrepreneurs wake up at 5 am. Night owls are more productive. A glass of wine a day promotes brain health. Give up drinking for your clearest mindset.
We can find advice affirming anything we hope to hear. But, there’s no mystery in what’s driving this demand forward. Our current culture has an immense desire to cure our stresses with quick fixes and learned life-styles - and let me tell you, there are too many to go around. Probably because our anxieties, too, are endless.
As someone who fell into the bucket of ‘self-help’ gurus thanks to the overnight and lasting success of her memoir ‘Eat, Pray, Love,’ Liz Gilbert views this realm to be restrictive and overwhelming. At this year’s Inbound Conference, she took center stage, diving into the critical importance of being relaxed, yet focused, in a culture that is fixated on overachievement and external validation.
In her early twenties, she moved to New York City. What else would an aspiring writer do? Down the street, she found a woman who embodied everything she wanted to be. But time and work – and okay, boyfriends and partying restricted her from achieving her deepest goal. This neighbor was a true artist, a woman who exuded the dream she had for herself - a life fueled by the freedom of creating. This neighbor was everything we relish and romanticize in artistry.
We all have that person in our lives; the one we wish to be but resent ourselves for falling short of. And yet, this shouldn’t be the case. We all have that person inside of us – it’s about how willing you are to dedicate your efforts to break them out. Yep, it’s true. Liz said that you must honestly answer one question to set yourself free. This very question was posed to her by her muse and it proceeded to shift the course of her entire life. That question was this:
What are you willing to give up in order to have the life you keep pretending you want?
Pretending. Pretending. Pretending. We spend our time doing the things we feel are easy and fun. And envy the people reaping the results of their hard work and dedication. So, if you’re one of the many people who find yourself claiming you want one thing, but behaving in a manner that directly defies those desires – then it’s time you look in the mirror and ask ourselves (again for the people in back) - what are you willing to give up in order to have the life you keep pretending you want?
If the answer is nothing, it’s probably time to readjust your envies and expectations.
Back to that fateful day in New York City. Liz continued to spout off excuses for her lack of writing. Her idol cut her off. “I believe that you’re busy,” she said (roughly in a gloriously Liz Gilbert storytelling technique.) “But focusing on building the world you want to create isn’t just about saying no to the things you don’t want to do,” she continued. “It’s about learning to start saying no to the things you DO want to do.”
This won’t be an easy feat. You will begin to lose people when you start saying no. But the ones who stay? Those people are your tribe. Those are the ones who support you and you don’t need bunches of those; you just need a select few.
It’s scary to step forth into an endeavor you care about. Want to know why? Because the moment you start trying is the moment you can fail. People often protect their pride by refusing to put themselves out there in the first place, continuing to wear their masks, lusting over the lives of those brave enough to take theirs off. For those willing to take the leap, prepare to break out the person you wish to be from the darkness, and allow the light to shine-free.
Thank you, Liz, for fiercely diving into your fears and trudging into the dark tunnel to show there’s a way through. Want to stop being afraid and fall into your creativity? Read Gilbert’s book ‘Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear.’
Yep, that was a self-help book plug following a self-help rant.