Working with your bullshit, not against it
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Let’s talk about how to know your own bullshit. The thing here is acceptance. We all have some ideas of things that we could class as ‘our bullshit’. Whether that’s a way of working, or a quirk, or a thought pattern. Some of them we’re working to change, some we’re not.
We might feel ashamed of it, maybe we hate how easily distracted we are, or how we can’t keep a routine up, etc.
Whatever it is, acceptance is the first step. Bring it out into the open, and get the measure of it. This is about being curious. Not just looking for the imperfections or improvements, but being curious about all the nooks and crannies, the provenance of the thing. What does it feel like? Where has it been used? What affect has it had? How do you feel when you think of it? How do you talk to yourself about it?
It will be hard to redirect your self talk to be more neutral, but this is a really good practice. This doesn’t mean avoid any things that are difficult or affect you negatively about the trait, but it’s about acknowledging without beating yourself up about it.
Think: ‘this thing causes me distress because of a, b, and c’
Compared to: ‘if I fixed this stupid thing, I’d be better off’
One is a neutral statement about a thing, the other has some blame attached. Notice how the first one acknowledges how it makes you feel, but without apportioning blame. Looking at something with curiosity and neutrality can help you find new patterns or ways of working that work for you, because you’re not looking just at the flaws or how you’re wrong.
This can be especially difficult if the behaviour is a reminder of something or someone else. If you have a habit because of a traumatic relationship or workplace, or an injury or illness. The reminder that this thing is not of you, but of something else is a difficult one to approach neutrally. But even a mellowing out of your internal negative monlogue can offer new insights.
I used to really be ashamed and annoyed about my inability to get into ‘flow’. It’s held up as such a good thing, the best way to work and be. It’s described as a melding of action and consciousness, where you’re lost in a task but getting a high level of reward from it.
For me, it feels like dissociation. It feels like neglecting myself, hiding from the world, because the world is dangerous. It feels like losing time. Coming back to the world and realised it’s night and I’ve not eaten or drunk anything in hours and hours. It doesn’t feel like anything I’ve been told it does.
The fact it’s all tied up into my trauma doesn’t help with my shame. I used to think it was another way I was different and weird because of my upbringing. And it might be that that is the case! But I realised that it’s not actually detrimental to me. I can still do deep work. I can learn, and create, and anything else while also still being aware of my surroundings. I might just need to do it in smaller chunks, that’s all.
I’ve learned my patterns and work with it. I’ve found 25min blocks of work perfect for my brain. Sometimes I do work for longer if I need to, but mostly I do 25mins, take a break, sometimes I got back to the original task and sometimes I jump to another task on my list, and come back to the initial task later.
This is sometimes useful for when I get stuck in waiting mode as well. If I can do something in a 25min block before a meeting, I can use that to stop me from doing nothing.
This does work for me because I have some autonomy over my work and task list, and not urgent deadlines, but even taking a break and looking at slack for a bit, or checking emails can give me that break in focus my brain needs.
Could I do a bunch of work to make it easier for me to focus for longer bits of time? Maybe! Do I feel the need to? Nah. Of all the things I could work on, this is super low down the list of things. I’ll just work with this piece of bullshit, instead of against it.
What’s your bullshit that you work with, rather than against?