Good Life Project - Embrace The Thrash

Episode Date: August 21, 2014

Every long-term creative endeavor requires you to cycle into "The Thrash."That window where everything you thought you knew gets thrown into the wind, everything certain becomes uncertain and the way you contribute to your art, business, career and life are all up for grabs.It's not about floundering or wallowing, it's about owning the fact that you've been going sideways for a while and it's time to step into that space that sets you up for the next big evolutionary step. Even if it scares the daylights out of you.The other side of The Thrash is possibility, growth and power. But, all too often, you can't see that until you're through it.How you handle this cyclic creative rite of passage determines whether you get to the next level, what it looks like and how much ease you experience along the way.That's what we're talking about in the third episode in our August Summer Jam Series. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to Good Life Project, where we take you behind the scenes for in-depth, candid conversations with artists, entrepreneurs, makers, and world shakers. Here's your host, Jonathan Fields. So part of growing and evolving is an intentionally testing the boundaries of an experience that's perceived as outwardly successful, but that's begun to feel inwardly complacent. The thing is, doing that means taking a risk, both in ego and ease. It means going from being on top of your game, or at least the perception of it, to potentially stumbling, falling down, not knowing which way is up. And the thing is, if you never feel that way, there's a good chance that you're going sideways. And sideways kills.

We all need to rattle our own cages on a pretty regular basis. I mean, the beginning of nearly every move, from a period of sustained success to evolutionary quest is defined by waves of uncertainty, of questioning everything you know, often realizing what you thought until recently was relative mastery was really ignorance, plus one maybe. And the first rung on a ladder, the end of which lies beyond sight. Now that awakening massively screws with you. It lays you bare. It forces you to start exploring the foundation of everything you believe in and everywhere you've sought to go and grow.

On the surface, it's not a good feeling, at least while you're in it. But funny enough, that's kind of where I am right now. It's not that I don't have fantastic projects going on or brilliant family and friends to support me. I do. On those fronts, I am blessed, but my heart and my gut are tugging me in a lot of uncharted territory these days into a more aggressive evolutionary stage. And evolution is by definition unsettling. Change embodied, sussing out a new direction, opening to a new level of ambiguity and uncertainty that betokens and then fuels innovation and making the shift

from being daunted to enticed and intrigued. And man, that is a process. And though I've been through it enough times to know that something gorgeous lies on the other side, it is nonetheless a challenge to keep acting and moving the needle when you don't yet know what direction the needle needs to be moved in at any given time. But this much I do know. Sometimes action is more important than direction because action becomes cause that leads to effect, to reaction, to affirmation, to correction, and eventually direction, followed by the building of momentum and impact on a level that not only didn't exist, but wasn't conceivable before.

There is a big qualifier here, of course, and that is your action must have some level of directionality and force. Can't be purely reactionary. They've got to go beyond just responding to what others might decide should land in your lap at any given moment in time. They've got to be originated by you and move you even just a smidge outside the bounds of your current paradigm. Even if the direction of the movement isn't the direction you'll eventually end up traveling. And you've got to assess and correct and build upon each action.

So the question really then becomes, how do you assess? Well, I can't speak for every person, but I feel it in my gut, in my heart. Literally, if my heart doesn't start to pound more, my stomach start to flutter on some level in anticipation of going further or in response to the steps I've just taken, it's very likely not right. It's a misfire, but that's okay because learning what's not right for you is as important as discovering your new direction. By the way, what's right for you today may have been wrong for you 10 years ago and vice versa. Live here and now. Act. Kill the missteps. Give birth to new steps. Build around what your heart,

your gut, your mind tell you is where you need to go. Heroes, leaders, visionaries, artists, renegades, rule breakers, change makers, and just plain old people on a quest to engage with life on a more meaningful level all thrash. We all flounder. We all struggle. We all go through periods of reckoning. But in the end, it's that intuitive sense that the struggle will lead to something richer that fuels us, that keeps us questioning and acting when it would be so much easier to just settle back into and milk that last moment of glory. So here's to the struggle. I don't invite it, but I do embrace it.