In his recent e-zine Michael Bungay Stanier http://www.possibilityvirus.com/blog/2009/01/20/otl-tbe-keeping-power-losing-power/
gave some great advice about building and maintaining power so that you can do Great Work.
gave some great advice about building and maintaining power so that you can do Great Work.
1. Get clear about your Great Work.
Unless you know what work really matters to you, what impact you want to have in this world, it’s hard to decide what to say Yes to and what to say No to - ultimate expressions of your power. Know what you want. Ask for what you want. (Knowing the answer may be “no”.)
Resource: Find Your Great Work
2. Remember that feedback is not the truth.
Mostly, it’s just someone else’s opinion of you, and more often than not, that’s a mix of judgment, projection and hypothesis. When someone gives you feedback, take what’s useful and ignore the rest.
Resource: Non Violent Communication
3. Go easy on yourself.
One of the places our power leaks out most conspicuously is through our own self-judgment. Our capacity to beat ourselves up - the notorious “inner critic” - constantly diminishes who we are.
Resource: Taming Your Gremlin
4. Stop taking it all so damned seriously.
Hands up if what you’re doing is life and death. I thought so. OK, hands up if what you’re doing will really matter in 100 years time? Yep, the same. It’s one of the paradoxes of Great Work - it’s both important and in the big scheme of things, not that important. Remembering that can free things up nicely.
Resource: The Eight Irresistible Principles of Fun
WInk has made New Year’s resolutions and if the quantity of material at the critique group meetings is anything to go by we have decided to put our writing towards the top of the list.
For us our writing is our ‘great work’.
It’s easy to forget that as the year moves on, we have to take up the responsibilities and tasks that we put aside during the holiday season. By defining our writing as our ‘great work’ it’s easier to make decisions about how we should spend our time.
Michael’s second tip is about feedback. As writer’s we need it. It is too easy to own the stories that we want to tell and even the individual words on the page. Probably we have to own them to some extent for writing to be our great work. There is a space between denial and confusion where we can take advantage of feedback without allowing it to damage our ‘power’. The value in feedback is also in delivery; Confucius has some great words about the power of ‘no’ when it is kindly meant.
The inner critic can be our most savage; for me, it is the source of my procrastination. Being confident that I can put work out into the supportive environment of my critique group has given me the power to battle (but not yet defeat) the inner critic.
And at the end of the day our writing has to be fun. Why would we work so hard if we weren’t enjoying it?
Lesley Ann Smith
