In order to write Pay What It’s Worth, my first book of what I hope is many books, I needed to trick myself into not being so scared. I didn’t believe I could do it. I didn’t trust that I had what it took to fulfill a dream I’d held for so long. I couldn’t see how I could clearly share everything that was within me.
As time passed and I continued to struggle with inaction, I decided that a re-framing was in order. I needed to see my newly forming book not as a static unchanging expression (a singular book) but rather as a system of expression (a book that could be upgraded with new versions as my learning and growth arose). Complex systems get created incrementally, layer by layer, by implementing sequential and layered designs that connect to deliver a better whole. They are not formed all at once, nor are they formed perfectly.
I understood this truth, lived it in my non-writing work, and with space and continued struggle, I saw the necessity for this thinking to be applied to my writing work. I was paralyzed without it, stuck reaching for the impossible goal of permanent perfection. I desperately needed to see beyond my ego needs. I desperately needed to understand that there was no real reason that the systems thinking I had grown to love and trust, to incrementally connect things layer by layer, could not be applied to my (or any) book, or to the introduction of an idea and approach I desired to share.
By embracing this systems perspective in my book writing (and in my sharing of an idea close to my heart), it helped me to create freedom to take action on my ideas. In shifting my thinking, I allowed my creation to be imperfect, and I was able to accept that these imperfections would be highlighted and gradually improved upon with time-space and experience. As a person that uses perfectionism as a tool for inaction, this shift in thinking was critical for me to be finally able to move out of the stuck place I was in. I needed to get outside my own desire to get everything exactly right, whatever that meant.
I needed to think about my creation as a layered, changing system so I could feel free in it — free to change, free to grow, free to not know, free to let it out as it was. Seeing my book as system to be grown incrementally helped me create the freedom I needed to move forward to create and express. Systems thinking released me from the unreality of perfection. Systems thinking allowed me the space to naturally make the connections I needed to grow, and systems thinking will continue to support me in growing and building the freedom of creation I desire.
photo credit: Georg
