Work with what’s working

I’ve been trying to focus on moving things forward where the energy is flowing well, rather than trying push forward things with more barriers. The analogy being that its easier to push a rock downhill than uphill.

In week 10 of the pandemic, I found that I was unexpectedly coming unstuck on a few manuscripts that I’d been slowly chipping away at for awhile (in one case for years). For context, this was a time when I was working less than half time while Theo was out of daycare for a few months age age 3.5.

I described this to a friend as a “passive thinking” success, where the back of my brain is working at a problem when I’m hanging out with Theo (the much-vaunted time-away from the screen as being conducive to creativity).

In contrast, “active thinking” - particularly generative thinking, like trying to develop/refine/apply codes to my qualitative data - felt elusive amid pandemic parenting, and I made the least progress on this aspect of my work during this period of life. Interestingly, active thinking/editing in support of other people’s projects, especially mentees, was much easier than trying to generate my own work. As a result, I invested a lot more time and effort into mentee work in 2020-2021, which I really enjoyed and was productive.

For context, that qualitative coding work on my own projects that I was attempting in early 2020 finally made progress in late 2020 once I had childcare again, and really made progress when I hired help in early 2021, and got written up into a paper in late 2021, and eventually published in late 2022.

This quote has been resonating with me: “Shifting expectations to meet the moment instead of expecting yourself to be able to show up at the same level 100% of the time is an act of self-compassion” @listaolivertherapy.

In week 55, I mused on the flip side of this: have a low tolerance for things that don’t work: I tend to be stubborn, and so persist through circumstances that, in retrospect, were just ridiculous to have pushed through. My brother was sharing that he’s finding his artwork frustrating right now (probably in part because he is usually quite good at but hasn’t had time to practice much recently because he’s been focused on his science). We brainstormed alternate ideas (especially ones that provide fewer choices but still some benefits like looking decent at the end), like paint by numbers or adult coloring books. Being quick to see frustration or procrastination as a sign of a problem and taking time to brainstorm why it’s not working vs. the desired goal, might help get unstuck. Or not brainstorm (because that takes mental effort): pivot to something different – perhaps a small fractional goal towards something you’re working towards.

These days, I think of it as prioritizing the easier yet generative collaborative relationships. Or choosing the opportunities that are a better fit for the small-child phase of parenting.