On being a beginner, Part 2 of 2 (Or: why being a beginner sucks + what I do about it)
Last week, I wrote about being a beginner. I made — in my opinion — a pretty compelling argument: if you’d like more vibrancy + sparkle in your life, being a beginner can help.
But there’s one more thing I want to say about this it’s-fabulous-to-be-a-beginner thing:
It can really suck to be a beginner.
I mean, sometimes it’s totally lovely + charming to be a beginner. I’m dancing the samba and I’m bad and I don’t care! But at other times, a beginner can bring up thoughts like:
I don’t know what I’m doing.
I’m terrible at this.
Everyone will *see* me being terrible at this. And judge me. And that judgement will cause something bad to happen.
These thoughts can be so scary that they stop us entirely from doing the thing that we want to do.
So today, I wanted to write to you the astonishingly effective tool I use to deal with painful thoughts like this. (And all kinds of other painful thoughts, actually).
The tool that I use is called Thought Work.*
I want to explain to you how it works, and then I’ll share a personal example of how I use it.
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How it works:
There are two parts to Thought Work: (1) doing a thought download, and (2) analyzing your thoughts.
(1) Doing a Thought Download
Set a timer for 5 minutes, and write down every thought you have about a topic. (e.g., every thought you have about your attempts to learn French, or your new job). Thoughts can be judgements, fears, desires — anything. Just write down one per line on your paper, so it’s really easy to see each separate one.
(2) Analyze your thoughts.
Once you have all of your thoughts in a list, just take them one by one, and analyze them. You might ask yourself questions like:
In what ways is this thought true? In what ways is it not true?
Is there a thought that you think could be more true?
Could another thought be more useful to believe?
The point of this is to systematically examine your thinking. We often believe our thoughts as if we were reporting scientifically verifiable facts — when in reality, our thoughts are just beliefs. And someone else could just as easily… believe something completely different.
This practice may sound obvious. It may sound like something you already do, informally, in your head, or when you’re talking to your best friend.
But do not misunderstand me: doing it on paper, on a regular basis, is a radically different game.
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An example of how I use Thought Work
In my free time, I’m writing a romance novel. I love relationships in general and romance novels, specifically — it’s something I’ve wanted (and tried, on and off) to do for years.
And yet, I’m a beginner at writing romance novels. The reason I’ve been “working” on a romance novel for so long — but not had a regular writing practice, till recently — is that my mind was full of fearful thinking on the topic.
I had thoughts like:
You’re too tired to write today. Everything you write will be terrible.
You’re not inspired. Don’t bother today.
You shouldn’t write at all. You’re a terrible writer of fiction.
Fine, you can write it. But you can’t show it to anyone or advertise it publicly to people who know you. Everyone would judge you for writing a romance novel. Also for how bad this novel is going to be.
So, of course, I didn’t write regularly!
It was only when I started doing Thought Work, each time before I sat down to write, that I was able to clearly see + dismantle each of these Garbage Thoughts. (I call thoughts “Garbage” when they are not true + harmful to me).
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Here is, for example, my Thought Work From yesterday (I won’t show you the separate Thought Download; here is my analysis of each thought):
I’m too tired to write.
It literally doesn’t matter what you write, so it doesn’t matter if you’re tired. Just write absolute GARBAGE. That’s 100% FINE.
My writing will be bad.
To be honest, you are a terrible judge of writing. Your writing is pretty solid B- level, which is actually pretty awesome, considering what a beginner you are. You always complain that it’s bad, but it’s not true. So you have two options:
1. You can STOP complaining that it’s bad. Because it’s wrong. It’s just a dumb tape in your head. It’s actually pretty decent and will probably entertain at least one person. And once you’ve written a few novels, it’ll probably entertain a lot of people, because you’ll be an even better writer.
2. You can keep thinking you’re terrible, if you like it or find it motivating or something?
(No, actually I hate thinking this. It is painful and it’s discouraging and makes me never want to write again.)
But I can’t write TODAY.
Why not? Like, literally why not? You can write garbage. But it won’t be garbage; it never is. You CAN write something. Also — the goal of writing is to get to know your characters. So GET TO KNOW THEM!!
I need to change pants first.
No, you don’t.
Fine, whatever — do it. Change pants. Then set a timer and WRITE.
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Having done this daily, it feels much easier to dismantle these thoughts. They go down easily, with less of a fight.
But I cannot overestimate how impactful this has been for me. Once I dismantle my thoughts, on paper, I feel so much freer to write.
And, of course, when we see someone else's thoughts it’s easy to see how ridiculous they are. You might be thinking to yourself: Well, of course, those are Garbage Thoughts, Katie! You definitely shouldn’t believe them. Just embrace being a beginner.
And yet, is there something you’ve been wanting to be a beginner in, but haven’t actually done yet?
I would bet you have your own Garbage Thinking on the topic.
Will you do a Thought Download and see?
(And to truly experience the life-changing effects of thought work, I recommend doing it daily for two weeks. When you systematically take apart your Garbage Thinking for fourteen consecutive days, you actually do — for real — start to believe different things.)
* Thought work, at its core, is simply the process of seeing and questioning one’s thoughts; we could trace it to established traditions from Buddhism to Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). The form I particularly love was developed by Brooke Castillo’s work at the Life Coach school, and I learned about it through one of my coaches, the wonderful Dielle Charon.
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As always, you’ve got this.
Katie