I stalled on my Ancestral Wisdom series.
and I think I just quit social media.
Photo by visuals on Unsplash
Vastness, Imposter Syndrome, and Distractions. These are my obstacles.
Ryan Holiday paraphrased Marcus Aurelius by saying, “The Obstacle is the Way”, which seems like great Ancestral Wisdom (AW from here on out). So I must go head-first into my obstacles.
Here’s how (with a few bonus lessons)…
Vastness. I don’t know how surprising it is to you, but there is enough AW to write about in-depth for a lifetime. Scholars form tenured careers around a single culture’s AW and here I am, a college dropout with ADHD and Dysgraphia attempting to collect and make sense of all of them.
The reality is that I won’t be able to sort through every teeny detail with a fine-tooth comb. My goal is to observe the common principles that we share as the melting pot of humanity. I know a thing or two ‘bout goalsetting, so I know that the first step in an “A to Z” goal is A. I’ll start there.
When I feel challenged I will return to my Why.
I am doing this for those whose souls are untethered without a religious belief to guide them.
I am doing this in response to the Replication Crisis in Psychological Science. If they can’t provide reliable answers on how to be well, let’s go further back.
I am doing this because there is no them, only us. Take a look around. Everyone around you is a 70th cousin or closer… let’s act like it!
Meta lesson: when something feels too big to complete, start with the first step. When you feel discouraged, go back to your WHY.
Imposter Syndrome. I grew up feeling like the most gifted and least intelligent member of my family.
My father’s wit and depth were unfathomable. He was a high school dropout who aced his college admins in the upper percentage of all who took them. My mother is a worldly and intentionally educated woman. The music and pop culture categories are my only saving grace when we watch Jeopardy together. I don’t believe that comparison is useful in this situation, but man is it persistent.
I also had deeply held self-limiting beliefs that I was bad at writing for as long as I can remember. I challenged this belief when I asked my smart buddy Justin about grammar rules on the drive to see NIN/Soundgarden/Dillinger Escape Plan. This led to grammar flash cards being made which then gave me the courage to start writing.
I am still poor at grammar, but I have Grammarly (free writing tool) to help me. Just admitting that I was embarrassed about my inability to remember all the rules was enough to get the ball rolling. Since 2019 Grammarly has analyzed 2,049,990 words that I’ve written.
I’ve decided to put on my white belt (mentality) and move forward with a project that I’ll become more qualified to create as I start creating it.
Meta lesson: Never let who you are stop you from becoming who you want to be. Closely examine your beliefs to weed out the welf-limiting ones that are no longer true.
Distractions.
I think I just quit social media.
I have been plagued by distraction for most of my life, with pockets of absolute clarity when I’ve fallen in love with a process. Learning the bass, being in a band, and being a coach were the most notable times when my focus couldn’t be shaken.
My distraction reached its fever pitch somewhere in 2020. I think we all needed a distraction from reality, right? Mine just kept going.
Facebook. Youtube. Amazon. Instagram. Safari. Email. Messenger. Repeat x infinity.
I swore that I’d get control of it, but it had control over me. I have a past with addiction and I know what works for me to break it.
Abstinence or environmental design.
You can’t make bad decisions when there aren’t bad decisions to be made. You don’t need to rely on limited willpower when you’ve got a hard rule that something is not allowed.
Am I quitting for good, or just long enough to get a hold of my attention? I dunno.
I just know that I have found myself unimpressed with the promise of social media for staying “connected” and advancing my business. I’ve seen others do quite well in business online, but I wonder how fulfilled they are if that’s their full-time gig. Maybe they have a great in-person support system I don’t know.
I’m not blaming the tools, I’m just saying after years of striving, thousands of dollars of coaching, and thousands of hours of distraction, it’s not working for me.
I do know that my previous strategy of being so good they can’t ignore you has worked since the beginning of time, so I’m going back to it.
Meta lesson: Know your tools, know yourself. Find the strategy that works for you and abandon tools that get in the way of your goals. Don’t believe that something is for you just because everyone else is doing it.
If you want to stay up to date with me and my thoughts, then this is the place to do it. The Ancestral Wisdom series will be ongoing with other articles about Movement & Mindset peppered in.
As always, thank you.