It turns out that “Trust Your Self” was a good place to start.
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About the book (sort of)
The Practice is a slightly odd book, in that it has over 200 short chapters. It’s a bit like Seth’s blog, in that sense, though it does add a layer of organization to the work. (I’m not saying I find it completely organized, but the chapters are gathered under a theme, and they do build toward a coherent set of related ideas.)
When I heard about the book, I thought that it might be interesting to treat it like a collection of daily meditations. Now that I’ve finished the first 34-chapter section, I’ve seen that there are trade-offs to this approach.
On the one hand, treating each chapter as a daily meditation means that it will take eight months or so to work through it. And, looking ahead in the table of contents, I see that it will be awhile before I reach the more practical advice, which is really what I wanted when I heard about the book. That delay has led to a surprising level of frustration: I find myself mildly annoyed at the (purposeful) repetition, or the (seemingly) random introduction of images or metaphors that don’t always (in my mind) work.
(By the way: this is not a critique of the book; the frustration or impatience that I feel is a function of how I chose to read the book. That’s not Seth’s fault.)
On the other hand, taking this a daily-meditation approach has forced me to examine my attitudes much more closely than I would have otherwise done.
So, while I’ve often felt like this groundwork isn’t that necessary, since I’ve already heard (and agreed with) much of what he’s said, I’ve come to realize, to invoke Seth, that this is really just a story I’m telling myself to avoid facing the challenges these “obvious” things are bringing into focus for me.
What I’ve Been Thinking
I have a lot of little things that I’m reflecting on, in response to the slow burn of this sort-of-daily meditation, but I’d say there are three main issues that I’m working through.
Trusting my self
In my “thoughts” about chapter 20, I wrote a bit about the double standard I have for myself.
When it comes to family, friends, colleagues, current and former students, I encourage others to pursue creative projects—and I do that without regard for the work’s potential.
And by “without regard for potential,” I mean that the questions, “Will this be great? Does it have a chance to succeed? Will a lot of people see it? Will it change the world?” don’t even occur to me. I’m not ignoring them, per se; they never even enter my mind.
Instead, I ask, “Are you creating? Are you exploring? Are you growing? Are you enjoying the process?” (And, often, “How can I help?”)
Yet, when it’s me, my expectations are completely different. I do ask those questions, and then add a nice twist of imposter syndrome: Why would anyone care?
Or worse: why would I think that anyone would care?
This has been an important, if mildly painful, insight for me, and I don’t know that I’d have reached it—at least, not as quickly—had I not taken Seth’s groundwork seriously, despite my impatience. It turns out that “Trust Your Self” was a good place to start.
Practice of What?
This month or so has brought me full circle, though hopefully I now have a more solid foundation. When I started The Practice, I was looking for ways to design habits or routines that would lead to completing the album I’ve been making incremental progress on. I wanted to move away from noodling around and toward shipping creative work.
Midway through the “Trust Your Self” section, I struggled to identify exactly what I was seeking a practice for. I’ve come to realize that the practice that Seth is building up to isn’t simply a method to complete a project. It’s a way to build a meaningful identity that consistently ships creative work.
So what identity do I want to build?
As I said, I’ve come full circle, resting on the identity of “musician.” I don’t know all that this means, at this point—but that leads me to the next issue that I’m working through:
Emergence
That question of identity—what does it mean for me, at this stage in my life, with a major transition (retirement) around the corner, to say that I’m a “musician”?—makes me surprisingly anxious. I’ve been a musician before, and none of the (imposter-inspired) adjectives I might attach to that negate that fact. And when I finally returned, I found that the practical skills lost (or undeveloped) were to a meaningful extent balanced by having lived a life. I don’t play better, in other words, but I do hear or imagine better.
I have a tendency, though, to want everything in order before I start. If I am going to be a musician, I want to journal and plan and examine and plan and schedule and plan everything out, so that I know what the target is. (This is not to say that I actually follow the plan….)
Seth suggests that, while Identity is a choice, the cause-effect development of that choice isn’t necessarily what we’d expect. That is, the choice is not a one-time decision, but a pattern that develops—and often backwards (or, perhaps, inside-out).
This is why it’s important to just start. Identity, voice, passion, flow, etc., are not the sources of motivation—at least, not solely or primarily. They emerge from action.
Thus: I don’t know what “I am a musician” means, at this point, but I don’t have to. I have a general outline, and the details will emerge as I do the creative work.
Wrapping Up
There’s more, of course. The insight from Seth’s juggling and fly-fishing examples—that there are fundamentals that allow everything else to take care of itself—offers an interesting line of inquiry as I figure out what to focus on when I practice guitar, for example.
And, of course, there’s the challenging notion of the “endless dance of selflessness and ego.” I have never been able to dance; as the saying goes, I have two left feet—and if “ego” is the metaphorical left foot of Seth’s “endless dance”… well, let’s just say that I am not dancing gracefully, at this point.
The next section of the book is called “Generous,” which (to overextend my “two left feet” metaphor) sounds like it will focus on the “right foot” in that dance: selflessness. Perhaps this will serve as a corrective, and I’ll learn how to dance.
Though, honestly, I expect this section will be even more personally challenging than the first. The practical advice that I’d been looking for is the easy stuff—but how useful would it be, really, without the foundational work?
This series is meant to capture my thoughts as I work through Seth Godin’s The Practice. It’s a book with over 200 (very short) chapters, which I hope to work through and, I further hope, to implement over time.
If you’re interested in more of Godin’s ideas, or my thoughts about them, you can check out this collection of posts. Note that if you’re more interested in the former, you should probably get Godin’s book and read it yourself; my notes will be both incomplete and idiosyncratic, and my thoughts will relate to my own experience.
But if my thoughts resonate with you, or if you think I’m just silly, I welcome your comments.
Top photo by JJ Ying on Unsplash