Are you editing yourself too much?
When I attended a screenplay writing workshop, our teacher told us that there are two steps to writing. First, you need to let your creative juices flow. Second, you can edit yourself and let others edit you. When it comes to other real life tasks however, how many of us forget the first part and jump quickly towards the second one as though it’s the only step that matters? Are you editing yourself before you have ever begun creating yourself? Consequently, are you editing yourself too much?
There is another word for editing to which we are more familiar with – CRITICISM. All too often, we criticize our dreams before they have even been formed. If this is the way we build our dreams, how can we ever begin achieving them?
How many times have we caught ourselves trying to sense our desires, our passions, only to slap ourselves awake and say “Oh, you can’t possibly do that, no way!” Do we frustrate ourselves far too earlier than necessary?
One reason we may have for editing ourselves far too early in life is our FEAR that we may not be thinking of a PERFECT PLAN. We fear that we might commit a mistake and waste all our efforts in the end. We fear that we don’t deserve something as compared to other people. We use the achievemement of others as a comparison to how far we can go in life. If somebody with a similar educational background as us started to dream and then failed in his dream, then it is a gauge that we too shall fail. In order not to fail, we kill our dreams before they can even begin to take shape in our hearts.
Don’t you think you deserve better than that? Dont you think your dreams deserve better than that? Why not give them the chance to inspire you?
Right now, I am giving myself the chance to do just that. I have just resigned from work, work that I’ve held for the last twelve years and has provided for me well. I knew however that I deserved this break, this freedom to be me and to recreate myself.
Before I start out planning for my life again, strategizing, analyzing, editing, criticizing my every move, I need to relax a bit and just enjoy the fresh air. New ideas after all are not born out of criticism, they are received when the mind is most open for it.
Go ahead, together let us explore our hearts, let us revive our childhood dreams. Be spontaneous for once, empty yourself and be willing to embrace life one surprising moment at a time.
It’s true that it could be a fearful experience, but it is also a rewarding one. Every birth is preceded by excitement, that’s how life was meant to be lived.
If you find yourself editing yourself too much, here are some suggestions to get your creative juices flowing again:
1.Take a break from work, play more, do stuff you really enjoy.
2.Stop worrying for a while. Write your current worries in your notebook and promise yourself to get back to it later after a well deserved vacation.
3.Have a change of environment. You could be suffering from a suffocating work environment that crowds your mental space. It isn’t only physical space that we need but a space away from suffocating expectations and demands.
4.Buy some art materials and try to paint that new canvass with no plan in mind. Play with texture and colors and follow your heart.
5.Travel some place you’ve never been before. You’ll be amazed at the new discoveries you will experience along the way.
6.Get in touch with long lost friends or make new ones.
7.Try to spend the day doing nothing.
8.Forget about your to do list for once.
9.Get a real paper and scribble any story that comes to your mind. Don’t edit yourself and don’t judge anything you write as stupid.
10.Go to a DVD store and buy the first movie you could get your hands on to. Watch the movie no matter how boring or foolish it may seem to be. You may well find yourself laughing in the end.
Here are some recent pictures of me having fun and being grateful for the life given me:
It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again, who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause, who at best knows achievement and who at the worst if he fails at least fails while daring greatly so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.
-Theodore Roosevelt
Check Jocelyn's books:
"Of Waves and Butterflies: Poems on Grief", "Mend My Broken Heart", "Questions to God", "To Love an Invisible God", "Defending My Catholic Faith", and more - click here.
(You may freely quote excerpts from this website as long as due credit is given to author Jocelyn Soriano and the website itakeoffthemask.com)