I told my friend “I think your mom is abusive.” She said “It’s not that.” I googled “What are signs of abuse?” I went thru the list with her. The second one I mentioned she said she experienced with her mom, but it was justified in whatever way. The third one, she had also experienced. Weak explanation. Then, there were some more. With each one, she lost steam for defending the actions. Then, she started remembering more actions.
This is the pattern I’ve seen in my life with experiences or behaviors that have been impactful. The idea of abuse didn’t match up with what felt like her relationship with her mom.
The look vs feel affects positive little situations too
We can think we know success when we see it and yet still not feel it when we have it. We can think we know how to be funny and not feel funny when everyone laughs. We can witness amazing creativity and not notice the tiniest smidge of it when it’s spraying out of our faces.
Distortion leads to demotivation
If we think we’ll know what it feels like to do the work to win an Oscar, we start the work, it doesn’t feel like we thought, we can immediately be turned off to it.
I forget who said it or what they said, but it was something like “People want to be the best comedian in the world, but they don’t want to live the life of being the best comedian in the world.” This goes beyond the idea that people don’t want to work for success. It’s the idea that people don’t have a realistic view of what the job looks like on the inside. It doesn’t look like it feels.
Take action: prove the feeling
make a list of the things that you want to be. if you don’t believe you are any of those things, write out a list of things that would prove that quality. Just like the abuse list, make it some concrete things. Edit that list to make it realistic.