You don't have to have an impact
Yesterday I ran around London, podcasts queued up. I examined my values with Brené Brown along the Lee Valley river; considered my life purpose with Liz Gilbert through Victoria Park; and got a top up on how to gather well with Priya Parker and Katherine May along the Regent’s Canal.
Of all those conversations, one idea really stood out.
(I have this thing where if I’m listening to a podcast for the 2nd time I am taken back to the exact spot where I heard those words the first time. So right now I’m running through some trees towards the Pavillion Cafe in Vicky Park).
Liz said: ‘I see the angst in so many people - and it makes me wanna cry. They won’t make a thing because they’re convinced that it won’t make an impact. And so they stop before they begin: because they’re like ‘well this already exists’, ‘somebody already did this’, ‘nobody wants this’ and it’s like who gives a sh*t! Like who literally cares what the impact is? You will be a different person at the end of this creative process than you were at the beginning of it. Why is that not enough? Why does it then have to land on anyone?’
The reason this landed so hard is because in that moment I was running; training for this half marathon. And for me training for this race has not been about ‘having an impact’ on anyone else. Or winning. Or even winning against myself. It’s purely about showing up for myself and working on a challenge. Getting fitter. Who I am becoming during the process.
I am becoming someone who shows up for myself.
I’m becoming Committed. Patient. Ambitious. Self-compassionate. Resilient. A runner!
It hadn’t even crossed my mind that anyone would need to be impacted by me going for a run! It is completely irrelevant.
And yet with creative projects, there is a different filter.
I notice the things I feel I should make, in order to have an impact.
I notice the things I don’t want to make, because it would ‘only be worthwhile’ if it had an impact.*
I notice the things I make regardless because it brings me joy and that is enough (and then later feel my heart sink when someone asks how I am going to monetise them…)
In a world of achievement and external validation it is a total liberation to be doing something just for the process.
I wonder what it would be like if everything we took part in, everything we made, was judged on who we were becoming rather than whether it was well received? I think that would be a much more enjoyable world. Much more free. Commercially, of course, we want things to do well, but when that is the only reason we make something, or the sole judgement of its validity, that puts so much pressure on it that it squashes its spark somehow (as our own spark is often squashed as we question our validity if we are not commercially viable).
My questions to you…
What are you currently doing or making where there is pressure on it having an impact? And how is that affecting how you approach it?
What do you want to do anyway, regardless of any impact?
What would you still make even if no-one ever saw it/read it/experienced it? What is JUST FOR YOU?
Sending you love this Monday,
Sarah x
🎙 My latest podcast episode is very close to my heart. I met a girl a few months ago who wasn’t sure whether to leave teaching, so I offered her a coaching session and we recorded it for the podcast. I think it’s really interesting to listen to someone navigating a decision, and I hope to have more of this style of episode as the podcast continues. Have a listen here.
*My quitting book is something I’ve been sitting with for a while. I’ve written 20,000 words on and off over the past 4 years and right now I’m not feeling like I want to do anything with it. I’ve had people tell me I should write it. ‘Just do it’. But it feels heavy. I notice that it’s not coming from a place of joy and inspiration; it’s coming from a desire to have a book out in the world about quitting. To be a go-to thought-leader. To prove myself as significant. Dammit to ‘have an impact’! And that doesn’t feel like the right reason. I want to write a book that I want to write. A book that I can’t help writing. I’m wondering if this book has kind of moved on from me. There’s a grief in that. ‘The idea that got away.’ It feels like I’m pulling it back around the Carousel to sit with me, but when I let go it keeps moving away along the conveyer belt.
Other people have written about quitting now.
I’ve kind of missed my moment.
But if this was really a topic I loved I’d write it anyway, wouldn’t I? Maybe I should write a book about quitting the quitting book. META AF. Who knows. Sharing the realness and the aliveness of projects not feeling alive.