Being Scared: It’s a Good Thing

I have to confess, I’ve never been really into Halloween, although I do like the idea of putting on a persona and a costume and playing a role, which, when you think about it, is something most of us do nearly every day without even realizing it. Perhaps without as much makeup but we do a lot to get through the day and get stuff done.

That’s why I thought Halloween, a day of big scary things, would be as good a day as any to talk again about the big scary thing called resistance. I’ve riffed on resistance before. I read about it, I write about it and I live with it every day (having “three stars” on almost every Angry Birds level is my personal monument to resistance).

The by-product of resistance in my life

To recap, resistance is that insidious thing that keeps us from doing what we really want to do in life. Resistance is what we feel when our hearts say yes, but our practical minds say no. When we are feeling negative about something, anxious or depressed, it usually resistance in full action. Resistance is experienced in a million ways: writer’s block, procrastination, jitters. All that stuff rolled in to one annoying package.

Resistance is so powerful and prevalent that so much has been written on it. Steven Pressfield is the most prolific author on resistance, I think. Other great books that address resistance in creating: Twyla Tharp in The Creative Habit, Jonathan Fields Uncertainty, Julia Cameron’s Artist Way series (any of her books) and Seth Godin’s Linchpin.

Knowing the great content that already exists, I choose to focus on how resistance appears in our mental state. It is very easy to overlook how resistance fuels our moods and colors our feelings.

It’s easy to say “I feel bored, restless, anxious, edgy, depressed, sad, tired” and not know where those feelings are coming from. Our consumer culture encourages us to just take a pill or buy something to make the bad feelings go away. We also tend to label these kinds of unpleasant feelings as the root cause of problems instead of being underlying symptoms.

As I’ve pointed out before, to great debate, I do not think depression is a disease that just happens without cause or reason, it’s a symptom that something is wrong with the way your are living. As we know, it’s not always easy to identify or admit that something is wrong or not fitting. Denial is a powerful defense mechanism, because it keeps us from admitting to things that scare us.

Resistance that it’s fueled by fear. Our “lizard brain” has the singular goal of keeping us safe from danger, so it interprets any kind of change as potential danger. So, stepping out and doing new (scary) things can feel very daunting. Fear not, it’s just your brain overreacting. The long term pain of staying small and not challenging yourself is so much greater that short-term fearful feelings, in the long run.

Resistance is also somehow directly proportional to the size of the challenge you are taking on. The bigger the deal it is, the more scared/anxious/nervous you are likely going to feel about doing it. So what happens when you do this big thing? You’ll feel scared/anxious and nervous and afterward, you’re most probably going to feel a surge of awesome, the “I can’t believe I just did that” feeling. Think of riding a roller coaster. If you’re anything like me, you are clenching on for dear life as it climbs, but when the ride is over, you find yourself laughing and saying, “that was so much fun, let’s do it again!”

If that’s how you feel when you do the big scary thing, what does it feel like when you chicken out and avoid doing the big scary thing? Well, it can take longer for the feeling of resistance to manifest when you are in avoidance mode, it’s a slower build-up, making it harder to spot. Feeling bored, feeling full of angst, or feeling guilty about things are but a few signs that you are dealing with full-on resistance.

When you don’t tend to those feelings by taking some action, these feelings don’t retreat, they just get bigger. Then you’ll find yourself “coping” aka doing all kinds of counter-productive things to stay sane. These counter-productive activities include: drinking too much, over eating/shopping/gambling/etc, creating drama in your relationships, making yourself sick, excessive procrastinating. These are signs you are trying to manage the intense feelings that resistance is giving you.

Author Julia Cameron gives the best piece of advice to writers. She says, “keep the drama on the page”, meaning if you are creating problems in your life and relationships that’s a clear sign you need to be writing. Even if you are not a writer, they are good words to live by and apply to your “thing” because as we know the ripple effect of creating drama distracts us further and further from pursuing goals and dreams that matter.

Aside from denial and feeling like crap, how else does resistance show up? Rationalization is a big flag of resistance. Rationalization is a defense mechanism where we use logic and “facts” to justify why we are taking or not taking a particular course of action, and rationalizations tend to almost always be nothing but pure bullshit. Have you ever said to yourself “I can eat this cheeseburger, because I went for a run today” (that’s rationalization and trust me, there’s more calories in that burger than you expended running, even though no one wants to believe that–denial). In less glamorous terms, this is also known as “excuse making,” so yeah, it’s something all of us do. Denial and rationalization go hand in hand. Think of the reasons why you have told yourself you cannot do THE THING you need to do and there’s your resistance.

If resistance is this big and badass, can it be conquered? Absolutely. It’s one of those things, kind of like eating, that has to be done on a daily basis, it cannot be conquered for once and for all. Think about it, you can’t eat once to hold you over for the rest of your life. But, the bottom line is, when you get used to combatting something on a daily basis, you get better at beating it.

The authors I mentioned earlier all have great tips in their writing on how to combat resistance in all of it’s forms: procrastination, excuse-making, anxiety, guilt. The thread that underlies all of this advice is that of INFRASTRUCTURE, which happens to be one of my favorite words.

By infrastructure, I mean, habits, rituals, ways of thinking and being that support your endeavors. Twyla Tharp says, “in order to be creative, you have to prepare to be creative”. In order to get past resistance, we have to let go of the mythical belief that things can only happen when we get inspired. No, you have to create structure to make the work happen. If we only worked out when we “felt like it” not many workouts would get done.

Infrastructure will vary for everyone. But first and foremost it involves knowing that you will never be 100 percent “ready.” The stars won’t ever align, you won’t ever been completely healed of all past hurts. You just have to start somewhere and do something. That’s the basis of your infrastructure. How you structure your rituals and habits is a matter of figuring out specifically what works for you, knowing that simply showing up is more than half the battle is key.

So think about something in your life that you know in your bones you know you want to do. That could be creating something, changing something, traveling somewhere, starting or ending a relationship, job, hobby, skill, business anything, the choices are endless. How do you feel when you think about doing this, what I call the “BIG SCARY THING”? You probably feel excited, pumped up, joyous when you simply think about it. But what do you feel when you start to take a small (or big) action to actually do the thing (like pick up the phone, open a blank document, fill out an application, for example)? Feel scared, nervous, jittery? That’s your resistance, and it is not a sign you should NOT do the big scary thing. Quite the contrary. When you feel this, you now know what you MUST DO.

It’s okay to be scared to death, in fact it’s preferable. BOO!

Happy Halloween!

Jackie Dotson is the founder of Jackie Dotson, LCSW in Sacramento, CA, as well as the co-host of The Powder Keg of Awesome Podcast.

Engage with Jackie on Twitter: @jackiedotson or on Facebook: www.facebook.com/Jackie.Dotson.LCSW.

Getting By With A Little Help from Your Friends…

…and yet another round of apologies to Ringo Starr.

It’s often said that you teach what you most need to learn. Ha! Ain’t that the truth? Stepping back to look at my recent blog posts, I’ve noticed a trend, that I am writing about the challenges I am facing (and my peers and clients are also facing) in life and business right now. Funny how that works.

Seth Godin says in his book Linchpin, “eating ice cream is easy, making stuff that matters is hard.” Well put Mr. Godin, well put. Making stuff that matters is crazy hard! Making something out of nothing, or trying to do what other people have not done can really make you feel like you’re going off the rails. Thankfully, experience has shown me that when I am feeling like I am going off the rails, that’s a sign that I am absolutely on the right track.

First a bit of background on me. As I mentioned before, up until recently I had a pretty “traditional” career as a therapist. Graduate school involved 60 credits of classes and 2,000 hours unpaid internship, followed by 3,000 hours supervised practice after graduation. Then I did all of the usual jobs that people in my field do: inpatient psychiatric hospital, outpatient clinics, group homes, crisis work in emergency rooms, some private practice. I was building a standard, cookie-cutter resume. I even tried (and failed miserably) working as an administrator because, for some reason, that’s considered the “logical next step up” in my profession (which works well for people who like that sort of thing).

I set out into private practice nearly seven years ago with the goal of having more control over my life. But I made the mistake of modeling my practice on what other people had done (getting on insurance panels, working with clients who were not a good match just because they had been referred) because I was told, and read, that this is “how it was done”. I didn’t like it. So I put it on the back-burner, did it on a very part-time basis (with clients I loved seeing) and put my energy and focus into the contract crisis work I was doing in emergency rooms.

The life lesson in this was, never put all of your energy and focus into doing work that runs counter to your beliefs and values, it drains your soul. I think the psychiatric system of care in this country is a broken model that frequently causes more harm than help. So when I learned last year that our contract was ending, instead of freaking out and replacing it with a similar position with work that was familiar and “comfortable,” I decided to go full-out into creating and running the type of business model that I wanted, surrounding myself with the right people. I was only one of three people from my former contract team who did not continue doing the same type of work. Yikes! In other words, I opted for discomfort and uncertainty and I felt very alone in doing so (which told me I was making the right choice).

I am not going to lie, it has not been easy. Even though I had the basic business model in place since 2005 and in most of my existing systems, did not have to reinvent the wheel, it felt very much like starting over, which we know sends your “lizard brain” into panic mode at least once a day, on a good day. Feeling like a beginner and an outlier is tough. Dealing with negative self-talk when business is slow drains your energy.

The biggest obstacle so far in this journey has been that of “negative internal chatter,” the mean things you say to yourself out of fear of the unknown. Buddhists call it “monkey mind,” that incessant negative chatter that comes seemingly out of nowhere, telling you that what you are doing isn’t going to work, it’s not good enough and that you should give up. All of us are subject to negative chatter from time to time and I am no exception. The chatter itself is not the problem, it’s just there, it’s always going to be there in some form. It’s how you deal with the chatter that makes the difference.

So how do you know the noise is negative chatter? Firstly, ask yourself, what does the chatter sound like? Does it sound like someone from the past who you find negative and critical? Voices from the past, such as bad teachers or negative family often permeate your negative chatter. Also, listen to what’s being said. Would you ever say those things to another person? Would you tell a close friend or a child that they “should give up” on a dream or “are not good enough” to do what they want to do? Probably not. So it’s safe bet, if you wouldn’t talk that way to another person, that’s negative chatter.

So how do you deal with negative chatter? Start by acknowledging it. We all know how pretending something does not exist backfires at every turn, “what you resist, persists”. If you deny that negative thoughts are popping up, they will only get bigger. So admit that you’re having them. Then ask yourself, “how do I know this is true?” Chatter usually makes a flimsy case. Now that you’ve learned to spot and name the chatter, how do you deal with it, in a concrete way, in the real world?

Surround yourself with the right people. Yes, I am, yet again, making the argument that you cannot do life alone. When you do everything yourself, you get caught up in your own head, unable to see the forest for the trees. When you don’t get outside feedback and evaluation from others, you tend to take everything your brain thinks up as truth and “reality”.

Notice I said, surround yourself with the right people. Who are the “right” people anyway? Think of the people in your life right now. They probably are a wide range of folks from a variety of backgrounds (this is good). Now think of how you feel when you interact with each person? Do you walk away from the interaction feeling as if you’ve learned something? Do you feel energized? Or does this person drain you and leave you feeling negative about things?

The best way to gauge the people in your world is to take stock of how you feel when you spend time with them. That’s not to say every interaction is going to be bright and cheery. Sometimes you share good times, sometimes you share sad times, we’re sharing lives after all. I’m speaking more in terms of averages. Are you feeling generally pulled up or dragged down by these people? Are you always giving and getting nothing in return?

It is essential to surround yourself with people who “get” you and get what you are trying to do. This does not mean they have to think like you or agree with you on everything, that can get boring really fast. Do you feel understood? When you come to these people with a problem, do they have the tools to help get you through it? Do you walk away from the interaction feeling transformed in some way?

Now more than ever we are seeing that we need to try different things in order to make stuff go in the world. Techniques that worked well in running my practice in 2006 do not work now. So, instead of being upset about that, I am not only trying different stuff every day, embracing transparency, I am also seeking consultation and feedback now more than I ever have.

I decided to lay it on the line and write this post after a daunting moment today that exemplified my phrase “the road to awesome is paved with a lot of suck”. I got through the moment by, not only simply admitting it was happening, but also relying on the people in my life who were able to provide the right perspective and listening skills. I walked away from those conversations understanding more than I have in weeks. I also received a very well-timed insight to look back at what I’ve been writing, because it shows that I am walking my talk right now. And I gotta say I didn’t realize that (duh, I know, as we often do not see what is plainly in front of our faces) and yes I am walking it, which is a pretty awesome feeling, I have to admit.

In your life, what are you trying to do that matters? What do you do to get past the negative chatter? Are you trying to go it alone or are you surrounding yourself with the right people? I’m very interested to hear how everyone is handling change and uncertainty in life and business right now.

Jackie Dotson is the founder of Jackie Dotson, LCSW in Sacramento, CA, as well as the co-host of The Powder Keg of Awesome Podcast.

Engage with Jackie on Twitter: @jackiedotson or on Facebook: www.facebook.com/Jackie.Dotson.LCSW.

Feeling Groovy….It Don’t Come Easy

Yes, I managed to reference not one, but two song titles in that headline, with profuse apologies to both Simon & Garfunkel as well as Ringo Starr.

Everyone wants to feel good. When you think about it, that’s the point of living, isn’t it? Or is it? A huge portion of our consumer culture is devoted to selling feeling good. We have songs to help you feel good, movies, books, foods, drinks, the list is pretty endless. Seeking pleasure, it’s what humans like to do. Sadly most of this stuff makes us feel good in the short-term and causes harm in the long-term, but that is a whole other blog post. In our modern, first-world society, beyond earning money to buy the stuff, we generally don’t have to work very hard to obtain the things that make us feel good, which leads to strong feelings of entitlement about feeling good.

Entitlement is defined by Merriam-Webster as “the feeling or belief that you deserve to be given something (such as special privileges)”. This is a very icky concept, so icky to me that if I were ever interviewed on Inside the Actor’s Studio, my answer to the “what’s your least favorite word?” question would undoubtedly be “entitlement”.

So now, in our culture of entitlement about feeling good, we have grown accustomed to believe we have to feel good about everything. The problem with this line of thinking is: part of having an awesome life is acknowledging that there are a lot of things that go along with that, that aren’t awesome at all. I summed this up in my latest podcast when I said, “the road to awesome is paved with a lot of suck.”

Mile 2, before things got hard

The most epic moments in life, the ones you remember for a lifetime, don’t tend to come when you are sitting back with your feet up, sipping a cold drink (although those moments can be nice). They usually involve a lot of effort and periods of feeling as if you cannot do what you are setting out to do. For example (since I’ve actually done this and had the following experience), if you’ve ever done a half-marathon, mile 1 tends to feel great, miles 10-12 tend to feel like pure hell and the last few feet feel like heaven. Getting the finisher’s medal is a huge accomplishment and you feel like you’re on cloud nine. But you never would have made it to the finish line if you didn’t log lots of long hours training, likely feeling like hell for a chunk of that training time.

Living a great life means you aren’t always going to feel good about it and this, in itself is not bad. In fact, a lot of our self-created angst and depression comes from wallowing in feeling bad that you don’t have it easier than the next guy or that you “should” catch a break. In other words, it’s not the situation itself, but what you think about the situation that dictates how you feel. Accepting that it’s sometimes going to be hard is important.

A huge part of overcoming depression and anxiety as well as avoiding relapse is learning how to tolerate feeling crappy. Seems paradoxical. When you can tolerate feeling crappy, you avoid the circular pitfall of beating yourself up over feeling crappy. It removes the temptation to stay stuck, which leads to depression. In other words, when you are not expending energy feeling bad about feeling bad or wasting time complaining about how “unfair” things are, that frees up energy to take productive action to move through feeling bad.

Being able to tolerate feeling bad is the most valuable tool you can have in your arsenal. When you can tolerate feeling bad, you retain perspective (another key to warding off depression) that the feeling won’t last forever and does not define who you are. This is why I am against giving every kid a trophy in school or rescuing them from consequences and disappointments. If you are given the opportunity to (safely) build your mental muscle as a child, you’re less likely to have a major meltdown when you face obstacles as an adult.

Making a life that has meaning is a big deal. This is why learning how to tolerate feeling crappy is so important, simply because it is part of the bargain. It is also why having the right support system is key. Take stock of the people in your life. Are they yes-men? Are they nay-sayers? Do they give you honest feedback yet also believe in you? If they are part of the third group, you are on the right track. It is often said that you are the average of the five people you hang out with the most. Good people will get you through the crappy moments.

During those crappy moments, you will get the impulse to retreat to your comfort zone. Resist this impulse at all costs! People interpret this call to retreat as a “sign” things aren’t meant to be. In reality, it’s just your brain putting you on danger alert because, as I’ve mentioned in other posts, your brain interprets change as danger. Do the opposite, stick with the tough thing, build that mental muscle.

Jackie Dotson is the founder of Jackie Dotson, LCSW as well as the co-host of the Powder Keg of Awesome Podcast.

Engage with Jackie on Twitter: @jackiedotson or on Facebook: www.facebook.com/Jackie.Dotson.LCSW

Break Time

I will be taking a short break this week for a family vacation. My podcast will go on as scheduled this Wednesday, October 19 at 10 am with a special guest host (I feel like Regis Philbin!). See you next week!

Breakdowns, Dips, and Tantrums, Oh My!

Lets talk about breakdowns. A breakdown is much more than just a great song by Tom Petty. I know, I know, no one wants to talk about breakdowns. But think about it, we all have them. Breakdowns are a normal part of being alive.

I’m not talking about the so-called “nervous breakdowns”. As a licensed therapist, I can tell you with certainty that there is no such thing as a “nervous breakdown.” The term nervous breakdown is a made up, non-scientific, non-clinical phrase that describes the very real experience of getting stressed/depressed to the point where it is impossible to function. The term nervous breakdown is similar to the term “stomach flu,” which is used to describe a very real experience: intestinal illness. However, an actual “stomach flu” does not exist.

Even though breakdowns are a necessary part of learning and growth, in our culture, they are seen as something “bad”, either to be avoided, or if you can’t avoid one completely: deny, press on and get out of it as soon as possible. This isn’t surprising because one of the shortcomings of our American culture is we tend to see anything that feels “bad” as being something to be denied, glossed over or not talked about. One of the most common erroneous beliefs many people share is, if you talk about or acknowledge something bad, it increases the likelihood that the bad thing will happen, also known as “magical thinking”.

Take grieving for example. Our culture treats grieving like a pox, staying as far away from it as possible, fearing contamination. Think about it, when someone you love dies, there is an expectation, either spoken or unspoken that you have to “function” in the aftermath of a loss and “move on” as quickly as possible. Bereavement leave at work is a joke: your spouse died? Three days should be all you need, and then come back and throw yourself in your work, right?

It takes a lot of time and energy to process and get used to living again, this is job of grieving. After a loss, you’re essentially caught between two worlds, feeling the pain of what you’ve lost while trying to figure out how to move forward, unsure of what that looks like. Paradoxically, the fastest way to do just that is by facing grief face on and NOT pretending everything is okay by proving to everyone how strong you are. Grief slows you down, it comes and goes in big waves that you just have to ride out until the storm settles.

It basically works the same with breakdowns. In a breakdown, the “old” isn’t working anymore. You haven’t quite made it to the “new,” so you find yourself in a liminal phase, between two points. Feeling unmoored is scary, it freaks your brain out, it’s uncomfortable and thus you want it to end fast.

Not so fast! The good part about being “broken down,” so to speak, is it leaves you open to new input and new information. It also often allows space for new thinking. The break in your usual way of doing things allows for new beliefs and behaviors to emerge. It’s a perfect opportunity to create something new in the world.

When breakdown happens, your first response will be to retreat, hide, go back to your old life, especially if you find yourself having a negative response to a positive, welcomed change. Resist this temptation. Any kind of change, welcome or not is going to come with periods of feeling really crappy, it will not be sweetness and light the whole time. Your impulse will probably be to retreat to what feels most comfortable for you. Instead, do the opposite! Feeling bad is not a sign it is not meant to be, it’s just part of the cyclical nature of adjusting to something new.

Jonas Salk, the scientist, used the concept of the S curve to describe the cycle of life, noting that growth is cyclical, not linear. We tend to think growth is a continuous, upward cycle, but it is not at all. The life cycle has been described as: inception, growth, maturity, decline and rebirth. The key is being alert enough to know when you are in decline, so you know to jump on a new curve so you can grow again. This break in curves is where breakdown occurs.

The breakdown is painful for a few reasons, for one, it puts your lizard brain on high alert that you are in mortal danger because it senses change is in the air. A breakdown also frequently shows you that what you once thought to be true just might not be true after all. Most of us, at one point or another, are confronted with new information that challenges long-held beliefs, and deep down you know there is a grain of truth in there.

This is excruciatingly painful and frustrating, and the immediate reaction is to lash out, throw a tantrum. We see this all the time in public/on television/in the press, when conventional wisdom and common beliefs are challenged. Behavior therapists and trainers call this the “pre-learning temper tantrum”. It’s a vital part of the learning process because it shows that real learning is happening deep down, you just have to regress a bit before you get it.

Much is written about this process. Seth Godin has an entire book, The Dip, devoted to it. In his book, he teaches how to tell when to quit and when to press on, and he does a much better job than I ever could. However, there is one nugget from that book I consider the most valuable. He says, “never quit something with great long-term potential because you can’t deal with the stress of the moment.” In other words, feeling “bad” isn’t bad, learn to sit with it.

Learning to not only not run from bad feelings but be able to tolerate them in the moment is some of the best mental muscle you can develop. It sounds cliche at this point, but breakdowns lead to breakthroughs. Once you get past the tantrum, the dip, and finally bridge the gap between your old and new, you get the breakthrough. The best part about a breakthrough is that the great feelings that accompany them tend to be just as strong as the icky feelings the come in the breakdown.

I’d love to hear about your breakdowns? How did you acknowledge them and get through them?

It’s the Complacency, Stupid!

Over this past week since Steve Jobs died, I’ve been talking to most of the people I know about the concept of greatness and what takes people from good to great, to over the top epicness. Heck, before Steve Jobs died, this topic has tended to dominate the majority of my conversations so I can’t really pin this on his passing. During these chats, one topic that came up repeatedly is that of complacency, something keeps people and organizations from going from good to great to epic.

Complacency is an evil little thing, primarily because, unlike most other things, nothing good comes from it until you take action to get out of it. It is something that is easy to fall into, feels familiar while you’re in it and it is hard to spot. On top of that, complacency often gets rewarded in society. It keeps your limbic system thinking it’s not in danger, which we tend to misinterpret as a good thing.

Complacency is an attitude, a mindset. Have you ever achieved a goal and thought to yourself, “I got it made now!” That’s complacency. Have you ever had a job or a relationship that you hated and told yourself, “I’ll just have to live with it?” Maybe you’re staying in a marriage that died long ago “for the sake of the kids/house/bank account?” That’s complacency. When you decide something is true about yourself (even if it isn’t true or is changeable), such as “I’ll always be overweight” or “I’m just not a writer/singer etc”, you’ll tend to pick that belief and set your identity around it. That’s complacency too.

One reason why humans are easy prey to complacency is because we instinctively do what we can to avoid stress, pain, change and uncertainty. We do this because our brains interpret all of those states as mortal “you are about to be eaten” danger.

As I’ve written before, this kept us safe during the caveman days, but proves to be just a whole lot of overkill in modern society. It kind of sucks most of the time that our brains default to this mechanism on their own (though it is a great mechanism for removing from actual danger) because human beings are not designed to lay around and rest on their laurels.

People need goals, things to aim for, the stuff that makes us grow. Look at what happens to many people when they retire. For some reason, we equate the concept of “retirement” with ceasing to work, sitting back on the porch or on the beach and doing nothing. Ever notice when people retire to a life of doing nothing, they tend to get depressed, or even drop dead suddenly? It’s because it is not human nature to do nothing for extended periods, beyond short periods of basic rest and relaxation. If you’ve ever gotten cabin fever or gone stir crazy after a few days on the beach during a vacation, this is why. We are made to engage with people, places and things. People who thrive in “retirement” know this.

The book, Get Out of Your Own Way by Robert K. Cooper, Ph.D., cites a study done of Fortune 500 companies. The study showed that 30% of the companies on the 2000 Fortune 500 list no longer exist and 40% of the ones on the 1979 list are also gone. It indicated that excellent companies rarely sustain excellence, because of complacency. When you corner a segment of the market that is profitable to you, you’ll often stop investing in research and development, start relying on what worked in the past and ignore indicators that things are actually changing (which they always are). The recording industry, newspaper industry and television industry are just three industries who have been blinded by complacency and as a result are losing money, market share and relevance at alarming rates.

It’s easy to fall into complacency because it’s understandable wanting to take a rest after meeting a huge goal. You’ve been busting your ass for a long time to get what you want and when you finally get it, time to relax, right? Yes, but briefly, very briefly. Too much rest quickly turns into “I don’t have to work so hard the next time.” It also switches from striving for what you want to defending what you have. Apple did not stop to rest when it came out with the iPod. Nor did it try to prevent it’s competitors from making their own versions. Apple just kept on marketing, innovating and moving forward to better iPods, iPhone, and the iPad.

In relationships (both romantic, business and friendship), we fall prey to complacency all the time. When people get married, they no longer are in a position of having to “win over” and “court” the other person. In romantic relationships, living together day to day, you get comfortable and start taking one another for granted. Couples start to think that the other person does not care about them anymore, because the relationship becomes a given instead of two people working towards some common goal together. Attrition that arises from complacency is one of the biggest killer of relationships.

Complacency eventually starts to gnaw away at you and contributes to a lot of anxiety and depression. You can tell you are in a complacent situation/relationship if you find yourself constantly complaining about it or engaging in destructive distractions (such as drinking or shopping too much). Another way to know if you are stuck in complacency is if you find yourself not learning anything new, just looping around old knowledge and habits and feeling hopeless that things can change.

So what can you do to get yourself out of the jaws of complacency? One way is to “do the opposite”. I couldn’t wait to write about this part because it allows me to reference my favorite TV sitcom, Seinfeld. In one of my favorite episodes, “The Opposite” the character George decides that his instincts are wrong, so he responds by doing the opposite of what he would normally do. Things then just start falling into place for him.

Granted in real life, it won’t often happen in such a rapid and comedic fashion and you are most probably not an epic putz like George. But doing the opposite of what you usually do can yield some amazing results. For example, if you are presented with a new opportunity, and you’re usual response is to say, “I’ll think about it” (and do nothing) and you instead say, “yes,” you’re likely to get a much better result. If you’re having trouble in a relationship and you tend to passively let the other person get their way, instead, try speaking up. You may or may not get the result you want, but it will break the usual communication dynamic and change your interaction.

The bottom line, whether you do the opposite or not, taking action will help get you out of complacency. Inertia leads to complacency and we all know inertia fuels depression. So don’t just stand there, do something. What action can you take to help pull you out of complacency today?

Steve Jobs: He Did Stuff

Over the past three days, it seems that everything one could write about Steve Jobs has already been written. So I thought about not writing anything at all, then I decided it would be like ignoring the elephant in the room. Just as one day I am sure I will write about the passing of Richard Branson and Elvis Costello (hopefully many decades from now), I just can’t not write about Steve Jobs, because he was one of my biggest influences.

I’ve been a “Machead” since I first learned layout and design on a Macintosh IIcx in high school, in the fall of 1990, a time when the operating system (OS 6) crashed constantly. Since that time, I’ve owned eight different Apple Computers. I have a first generation iPod which still works but sits unused like a museum piece because I love how much it transformed how we listen to music. I’ve never purchased a Windows-based PC, ever. I guess that makes me a fangirl. Deal with it. I love great design and irreverent thinking and as a fellow square peg in a round hole, I’m owning my fangirl-ness.

Me, in 1990 as a high school senior, working on my first Mac, the IIcx, on a very bad hair day.

Much is said about how Steve is our generation’s Thomas Edison, and I completely agree. But to me, what was so amazing about Steve Jobs is that he was not inherently different from the rest of us, he just had much better habits.

It’s also being pointed out in the wave of press, that Steve was not perfect. Of course he wasn’t. He was, as I said before, just another human wanting to make stuff go. And when you are doing work of that caliber, in a company that huge, with a vision that bold, you are bound to be a dick sometimes. It happens. He had a horrible time delegating, he was obsessive, autocratic, had problems with his relationships (just ask his oldest daughter). Nasty shortcomings, just like the rest of us have. And when you do epic shit, not everyone is going to love you. He didn’t stop. He got on with it.

So unlike most of us, Steve Jobs actually did stuff. Yes, he was a visionary but he acted on his visions, he did not sit around and whine about the ways of the world or the art he wanted to create “someday”. And, when he got cancer, he did not crawl into a hole and lament his plight, he got treatment and kept on making stuff. He got on with it.

Jobs always took action, in spite of uncertainty, in fact, I think uncertainty fueled him. He illustrates this habit quite clearly in his Stanford commencement address when he points out that when he made the decision to drop out of college, he didn’t “drop out” of learning. He kept going to the school, checking out this and that, taking the now-legendary calligraphy class that changed the way he viewed design. He followed his curiosity, without demanding to see the payoff in advance before he took the leap.

It’s this insistence on certainty that drives so many people to anxiety, depression and living in fear. How many times have you not made a major decision because you could not figure out all of the variables in advance? How many times have you created scenarios that sent you spinning back to the comfort of the known because you decided in advance what the outcome was going to be and decided that it was going to be bad? Steve Jobs knew to follow his gut and detach from any possible outcome.

This week, as I started filtering through the tributes and the obituaries, I decided to watch the commencement address as I hadn’t seen it in several years (thought I must admit I’ve probably seen it more times than the SNL “More Cowbell” video). It was strange watching it knowing that he is now dead. And for the first time (yes, even after dozens of viewings), one sentence jumped out and slapped me right in the face: “You can’t connect the dots going forward, you can only connect them looking back.”

This statement cut to my core because I realized just how damn true it is and how many things I said no to because I couldn’t “connect the dots” in advance. So many of us follow paths and take linear, logical routes to what we think are specific ends. Then we get upset, angry, even depressed, feel cheated when things don’t work out as planned or predicted. And in this process, we cheat ourselves out of a lot of peace, fun and learning because things “don’t make sense” and we choose to stamp our feet and cry “no fair” instead of getting on with it. Jobs instinctively knew the need to keep moving forward and taking action is even more vital when things don’t make sense. So when he was fired from Apple that time, he got on with it.

In addition to what I call “just plain doing stuff,” Jobs also understood the importance of why. He worked from the inside out, not the outside in. As Simon Sinek explains in the TED talk “Start with Why”, Jobs knew his “why” and everything the company did flowed naturally from that. He also knew that all of the components of production were of equal importance: design, engineering, marketing, advertising. Jobs knew everything mattered, nothing was separated or fragmented from anything else.

In our lives, when we live from the outside in, things tend to be turbulent because we let outside forces do the deciding for us. Our moods are dictated by what other people do and how situations play out. We try to make ourselves feel better by trying to control other people. We blame other people for our depression and problems. We alter our moods with bad habits and chemicals. We buy things in the hope that we will feel better, stronger, more attractive. But when things are turbulent on the inside, nothing from the outside can “fix” any of that.

Living from the outside in, we tend to compartmentalize and fragment, not seeing that everything matters, in creating the whole. For example, if we are really overweight, we often tend to downplay or outright deny how this affects our mental and physical health. I’ve met many smokers who won’t attribute their high blood pressure to their smoking habit. We don’t see how negative relationships and not taking action on things we want to do contributes to feeling depressed. Instead we see depression as the root cause instead of the symptom.

When we have a strong sense of self and actually do stuff in the world, we are better able to deal with the uncontrollable outside forces, otherwise known as resiliency. We see that all the parts are related and if our physical or mental health is not good, other things are going to suffer We know that none of our problems exist in a vaccuum.

As I mentioned in an previous post, you aren’t born with self-esteem and don’t just develop it out of thin air, you actually have to do stuff to cultivate it. I think Apple is in a much better position to survive and succeed in a post-Jobs world because they know how to operate from the inside-out. But that story remains unwritten for now.

In the end, even though Jobs’ life was cut painfully short, he did have piece of certainty to work with over the past 7 years: he knew his life was going to end soon (as it could for any of us) and he used each moment. The habits he developed before he got cancer served him very well in his final years: he took action on what mattered, he made stuff and he knew, as he said at Stanford “almost everything falls away in the face of death”, so to hell with the critics.

I think of all the ways writers have tried to sum up Steve Jobs in the last three days, John Gruber, on the blog Daring Fireball said it best: “one of Jobs gifts was that he knew what to give a shit about.” That just about sums it all up.

Don’t just think different. DO STUFF. We are all a lot more like Steve Jobs than we think.