Writer Mindset: Upper Limits and the Sneaky Secrets of Self Sabotage
Do you get in the way of your own success?
“Kerry woke with a headache. A few swallows into her morning coffee she realized her momentum had brought her head right smack against an Upper Limit and she was being crushed at the intersection of growth and limitation...”
The quote above is from my journal.
You see, I have this weird little problem.
There are too many good things happening in my life. I’m getting set to release Everything You Are and it’s getting some lovely buzz. I’m excited about my new Dancing with Your Demons class. I get to speak at upcoming conferences. Things in my life are positive and exciting and expanding in new and wonderful ways.
The morning I wrote that journal entry I woke up feeling miserable and a little depressed, with a low level headache just asking permission to turn into the real thing and disable me for the day, so that I could have a good and valid reason not to do a few important things that would help me fly a little closer to my dreams.
Right about now you’re probably thinking I’m crazy.
“Good things are a problem for you? Kerry, you are one crazy woman. Go ahead send all of your awesome positive things my way. I’ll take ‘em.”
I hear you. It’s completely illogical to shut yourself down when things are going well. But self sabotage is a common problem, and I’m willing to bet that you have a few self sabotaging behaviors of your own.
In his book The Big Leap: Conquer Your Hidden Fear and Take Life to the Next Level, Gay Hendricks talks about what he calls the Upper Limit Problem.
Hendricks believes that we all have unconscious limits that mark the boundary of how happy, successful, rich, famous, or loved we think we are allowed to be. It’s like our own personal glass ceiling, one formed by our own beliefs rather than the beliefs of others.
When we bump up against an upper limit problem it makes us uncomfortable. Anxiety kicks in—sometimes low level, sometimes an outright panic. And because we’re uncomfortable and anxious we do things to deflect further success, happiness or love so we can return to our level of comfort again.
Say you reach the amount of happiness you are comfortable with. The idea of more happiness makes you feel a little anxious, so subconsciously you do things to fix that problem. You start mulling on unhappy thoughts. Maybe you pick a fight with someone you love. Or you forget to do something important and drama immediately follows.
Or maybe you’ve been asked for pages by your dream agent. You forget to back up your work and lose your entire novel. Or you get into a big fight with your critique partner and feel too miserable to get the pages in the mail. Or you don’t have time, because you suddenly “have to” be involved in three different fundraisers at your kids school.
In my case, I got uncomfortable because I’d exceeded my comfort zone with the level of success I believe I’m allowed to have. My inner saboteur rushed in to save the day with a down mood, a headache, a desire to curl up in a corner and physically make myself smaller rather than to continue the actions that would lead to further success and abundance.
Fortunately, I’ve been dancing with my self-saboteur for a while now. I recognize the signs. I know what tends to trigger the impulse to dumb myself down, dim my shine, make myself smaller. And I know some surprisingly easy and effective ways to allow myself to keep soaring just a little higher.
I will be teaching everything I know about upper limits and dancing with self sabotage in the Dancing with Your Demons: Healing Writer Wounds class that I’m offering September 26, and I’d love to have you join us. We’ll be learning to identify our hidden barriers and shift them with EFT, forgiveness, mantras, anchors, journaling and other easy and effective methods that are going to open the skies for you and let you use the wings you’ve been given.
If you’re a DIY type, I get that.
Whatever you do, read The Big Leap: Conquer Your Hidden Fear and Take Life to the Next Level by Gay Hendricks. I’ve been working with my own self sabotage for a long time now, and have learned from many wonderful teachers, but when I read about my dominant hidden barrier I was hit with clarity so powerful it stole my breath and brought me to tears.
And then read Author Your Life: How One Writer Changed Her Life Through the Power of Storytelling, and How You Can, Too by Lara Zeilin. Lara teaches a journal technique of writing in the third person (as I did in the example at the beginning of this post) as a way of decreasing upper limit anxiety and creating new beliefs that allow us to live our dreams.
This is powerful and important work. How ever you go about it, I’d love to hear your story.
Sometimes You Have to Play Pig
Perfectionism can shut down creativity faster than monkeys close out a banana party. Only I’m talking about pigs, not monkeys. Wait - I’m not really even talking about pigs. I guess you’ll just have to watch the video. OR you can listen to the podcast version here.
(Creativity Quest is copyrighted by Authors on the Air Global Radio Network)
Write at Your Edge - The Art of Setting a Motivating Goal
Do you have a creative goal? Is it well-defined and time limited? Does it give you a little buzz of adrenaline when you think about it?
Here's a hint: if your goal has got the word "someday" in it, it's not a BHAG or a B-HAWG or really even a goal - it's just a wish.
I've been thinking a lot about goals lately, for a lot of different reasons.
For one thing, I'm taking a look at my own goals right now, because when I quit my day job a couple of weeks ago I told myself that I had a year to build a self sustaining writing and coaching business. And now that I'm lucky enough to get to do writing and coaching every day, all day, I'm so incredibly in love with life and I want to keep doing this FOREVER. Literally. If you're hoarding some secret elixir of life somewhere, I really need to get some from you because I need about another hundred years to do all of the things I want to do.
I'm taking a class right now that asks us to create what they call a BHAG - which stands for Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal. I have (naturally) flipped this to B-HAWGs - which stands for Big, Hairy-Ass Writing Goals. They feel a bit like being mooned by a troll. Or, maybe more like this:
Yes, you can conquer this hairy beast!
One caution before we proceed. B-HAWGS and B-HAGS need to be treated with finesse and caution. If they are too big and too hairy, they can immerse us in overwhelm, fear, avoidance, and procrastination. But if they are too tiny, then we can just lie around on the couch with a drink in one hand, muttering, "I can squash you like a bug, any old time I want."
With that understood, let me ask you a question. Do you have a creative goal? Is it well-defined and time limited? Does it give you a little buzz of adrenaline when you think about it?
Here's a hint: if your goal has got the word "someday" in it, it's not a BHAG or a B-HAWG or really even a goal - it's just a wish.
These tend to sound like this:
Someday I'll write my novel.
Someday I'll quit my day job.
Someday I'll lose weight.
Someday I'll learn how to make candles
Someday I'll call my mother. (This one is for me, because I've been forgetting for like three days now and maybe I need to actually put it in my planner.)
I've got a book in me, somewhere...
If you are a nebulous goal setter, I challenge you to set yourself a real goal. Make it one that raises your blood pressure a little bit. Give it a timeline. Write it on a calendar. Say it out loud.
BUT - be careful not to make your goal TOO hairy.
Once you have a good, real, adrenaline inducing goal, fear might kick in. I maintain that a teeny tiny little bit of fear is motivating. But too much fear drives us into overwhelm and fear paralysis. So if you're stuck or blocked and you DO have a goal, take a minute to see if that needs to be tweaked.
Is it realistic? Are you being fair to yourself? Are you making allowances for other things going on in your life?
Maybe you've got a chronic illness or you have a change in your living situation and you can't accomplish as much right now as you used to be able to, or as you might be able to do a few months from now. Consider adjusting your goal to reflect what is realistically possible for you.
HINT: This changes with health, grief, family circumstances, and the weather. It's okay to tweak a goal when the situations change. As my good friend Wes used to say: "Drive as fast as the road conditions allow, always remembering that you are part of the road conditions."
What are YOUR road conditions? If you're in a place where it's foggy or snowing or the road is washed out, then you need to rethink the timing of your destination.
There's an art to setting a good creative goal - finding the edge that motivates you without shutting you down.
Listen to the podcast version here: Creativity Quest with Kerry Schafer, part of the Authors on the Air Global Radio Network
If you are a writer, and you want a B-HAWG of your own, I'd love to have you join an exclusive group for writers with serious, BHAWG goals for 2019: Write At Your Edge. (If you don't have a big scary goal yet but you want one, I can totally help with that! Email me to set up a goal setting coaching session, or wait and take the goal setting class I'm going to offer in January.)
Write at Your Edge offers support from me and other writers, weekly write ins, a monthly writer group, discounts to classes I'll be offering and more. Join Before January 1 to get the Intrepid Writer discounted rate and a special journal to help you on the way.
Virtual Write In
Hey, writers! Whether you’re engaged in the chaotic fun of nanowrimo or writing in a more - ahem - responsible manner, you’re invited to join me for a virtual write in!
How does this work? It’s really simple. Click the link to go to zoom (does require an easy, free download of the zoom software) at the designated time and you’ll find yourself in the zoom room with other writers. I try to open the room a few minutes before the hour so we can settle in and talk a bit, then I mute everybody and we go to work for an hour.
It’s a fun way to write with other writers and helps to fend off the temptation of checking Facebook a gazillion times or running of to do other things. It’s also useful to tell family and other well meaning competitors for your writing time that you have an appointment scheduled.
Times for this week are all listed on the graphic above.
Hope to see you there!
Additional instructions if you want to join by phone:
One tap mobile
+16699006833,,9875386377# US (San Jose)
+16468769923,,9875386377# US (New York)
Dial by your location
+1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose)
+1 646 876 9923 US (New York)
Meeting ID: 987 538 6377
Find your local number: https://zoom.us/u/sAz26VMJ
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