Lately, I have been really frustrated by something. In my work, it’s something I do quite a bit of and sometimes it is really hard.
Writing!
You’ve heard versions of this angst from nearly everyone who has to write anything for any reason. You’ve definitely heard it from bloggers, coaches, or students who have a thesis that is due.
It sounds something like one of these statements:
“I want to write, but I am afraid I won’t know what to communicate.”
“I have been able to write in the past, but now nothing is coming to me.”
“Writing is a passion for me but I just don’t have the time right now.”
“Who, me? Write? What would I say? Who would read it?”
As you read over this list of reasons for not writing, does anything jump out at you as your own?
I have a suggestion for you to consider anytime you are working on solving a problem and trying to figure out why you are frustrated.
In each of the examples above, there is either explicit or implied emotion attached to the “writer’s block.”
Feelings such as fear, anxiety, or frustration creep in and are communicating something to us. These emotions often accompany any problem we are trying to solve or any goal we are trying to achieve. In fact, these emotions are what make us human. Every thought we have, everything we experience, comes with a feeling.
For example, as I write this post on a beautiful morning, I have a cup of hot coffee sitting next to me. The sun is just coming up over the horizon with a hazy yellow intensity that somehow fades into the color blue as the light from the sun becomes more invisible to my eye. As I experience this, I have an overwhelming feeling of gratitude. I am experiencing the sunrise and I feel grateful. The experience comes with an emotion.
You should try this simple exercise some time. See if you can become aware of the emotion you are feeling at any given moment. Maybe at your kids’ sporting activity this weekend, you become grateful that they can run and play. Perhaps you are attending a small gathering of close friends for the first time in a long time and you are feeling joy just being with people you love. Maybe you are doing some deep house cleaning, and you feel proud of yourself and the progress you are making.
Paying attention to our emotions can be really valuable for us. Not only when things seem good, like watching a beautiful sunrise, but also when they are not so good, such as when we have writer’s block and don’t know what to write about.
Emotions and PROBLEM-SOLVING
Your emotions are always communicating something to you. They are trying to tell you something about what you are currently experiencing or thinking.
What I have found is that when I am frustrated with writing, I am often not working on the right problem. The problem is not in my writing.
I wonder if you have ever experienced something similar? You might have a problem you are trying to resolve that is really frustrating, but then you realize that you are not trying to solve the right problem.
When I get writer's block, for example, the problem is rarely that I truly cannot write. The problem is that I have not been reading enough! For me, to be able to read means doing research, studying, and paying attention to what is going on around me. It is amazing to me that when I get the feeling that I cannot write, or that I am stuck, when I reframe the problem, the answer becomes more clear to me.
The problem is not that I cannot write. The problem is that I am so busy that I have not been reading or observing what is going on around me.
When I cannot write, I need to sit down and read. When I pay attention to what my emotions are telling me, I can see my world differently, and often with more beauty and grace.
How about you? Has something been frustrating you lately? Have you been working on something and not getting the results you had hoped for? Why not step back for a moment and consider if you are really solving the right problem, to begin with?