Monday's Mantra: Step Outside Your Comfort Zone

Let's all take a pledge to start the week off on uncomfortable footing. This week's mantra is:

Yay! I feel like coming out of my skin!

In his great blog The More Clients Blog, Robert Middleton makes an excellent point about marketing inside your comfort zone. That is:

Although it seems strange, I've observed that people would much rather do something inside their comfort zone, even if it doesn't work, than to do something outside of their comfort zone, even though it would be much more effective.

Our comfort zones shape our actions. Comfort zones are a set of beliefs and practices that are, well, comfortable. There is no possibility of a breakthrough inside your comfort zone.

Well said. Have a dream client you're afraid to query because you fear the rejection will crush your soul? It seems to me the bigger threat is not an eventual rejection--after all that could give you good justification to head back to that ineffective comfort zone--but actually the feeling of discomfort and that sense of peril that comes when you start to act outside your comfort zone.

I know the feeling well. As I mentioned last week, I was preparing to send a query to a dream market.

Well, I did it.

And they're considering it.

My head hasn't yet caved in, but boy do I want to come out of my skin. If I were a drinking girl, I would have spent the weekend in a drunken stupor. As it was, I had to resist eating everything in my house. It does not feel good. But as Middleton points out, we shouldn't confuse discomfort with error or mishap. This is how it's supposed to feel. If it felt good, I wouldn't be pushing myself.

So choose something you've been avoiding out of fear of discomfort, rally your support system, and get to work on it this week.

I wanna see you sweat over it.

Serenity Q&A: Getting Over Rejection Creatively

You ask, we answer. To tackle the ever-present question of coping with rejection, I asked Kristen Fischer, author of Creatively Self-Employed: How Writers and Artists Deal with Career Ups and Downs, to explain the resilience necessary to continue to market yourself in the fact of rejection. Have a question? Contact me!

How big of a problem is rejection for self-employed people and is it different from rejection in a full-time job?

This is huge for self-employed people. It's a very real, legitimate fear. Think about it--when you work a 9-to-5, you may be hesitant to offer up ideas, but you know you'll have your job even if they're not approved. For a freelance writer like myself, if they get rejected for a big job, it can cost a month's mortgage. That's why it's vital to be using lots of marketing techniques and not putting all your eggs in one basket.

I find that the people who seriously want to be in business will do what they have to in order to get out of their own way. It's not easy, and it requires baby steps. That's not to say that someone serious about their business won't have this fear--just that if you really want to be a business, you'll have to do many things you're uncomfortable with. I think overcoming this fear takes time. It's a trial and error sort of thing, so creatives need to have the support systems in place to help them take these vital baby steps.

How does rejection hurt us?

In the beginning of my career, rejection would really send me into some tailspins. I would become depressed and feel like I was never going to make it. Luckily, my husband was very supportive. Plus, I knew that one rejection didn't mean I was a bad writer--I learned that rejection, when you put your all into something and do it according to industry standards, is simply a way of telling us that something isn't the right fit. When you have the attitude that everything will fall into place, and you continually work on your craft, you'll get better at what you do.

Rejection is to be expected; simply by knowing that you'll get rejected (especially in the beginning of your creative career) will help you let it bounce off your back. And try not to beat yourself up over beating yourself up--it's normal to be bummed when something doesn't work out.

Rejection hurts us most when we don't take the time to understand it. After I would get a rejection on a book proposal, for example, I'd let myself be bummed for the afternoon. But I'd keep going. I knew that simply by persisting, I could beat the odds. My second book Ramen Noodles, Rent and Resumes: An After-College Guide to Life, is due out in April!

How does it help us?

Rejection, once you get past the anger and sadness, is a real motivator! One woman in my book Creatively Self-Employed: How Writers and Artists Deal with Career Ups and Downs, suggested becoming a "rejection collector." She says if you're getting rejected, you know that you're putting yourself out there and therefore doing something right!

Once you get over the bitterness of it, use it to excel!

How do you take care of yourself when you've been rejected? How much time should you spend babying yourself and how much do you just need to tell yourself to get over it?

This is a great question. Sometimes I'd be upset for an hour, sometimes for a few hours, or into the following days. I never let it eat me up too much--I knew I needed to bring in the bacon, that I had done it before, and that I could do it again. That's what I tell myself to this day when something doesn't work out. Things still fall apart sometimes for me. I recently lost a great-paying job but realized that the angst it caused me wasn't worth it. I trust the process. I go with the ebbs and flows, but at the same time, I stay proactive and never stop trying. Maybe I need a day off; I give that to myself now. I know how vital recharging is.

Anything else you'd add about rejection and self-employment?

I just want people to know that it's normal to experience rejection. Talk to others--even some friends online in your industry--and get the support you need. Realize that self-employment isn't for everyone. If you're so bummed about not getting a gig and you're dragging for days and not continuing to market yourself, working solo may not be right for you. It doesn't mean you're weak if you feel disappointed about
something--but it says a lot about your character if you can pick yourself back up after something falls apart. That's really what separates the successful freelancers from the rest!

Serenity Tip: Diversifying

To follow up on yesterday's post, let's talk a little more about how to set up your work to make cash flow more serene.

We've already covered how to create a cushion for your self with spending.

Now, let's talk about how to create a mix of clients to address cashflow and sustainability of your self-employed career. If you've been doing this for any length of time, you may already know this stuff. I hope this can be helpful, though.

When I started freelancing, I set out a plan:

* Find clients that pay quickly

In Six Figure Freelancing, Kelly James-Enger suggests finding clients who will pay you quickly to shore up any holes in your cash flow. Often, these are low paying clients. But if you can form a regular relationship with them, you'll have money to pull you through. And you'll have a guaranteed base of income, at least for a while.

* Find clients that pay well:

Ideally, these would be the same as the first, but many clients, I find, pay slowly if they pay well. But if you've got a balance, it won't matter much. The important thing here is to find several of these.

When you're starting out, it's easy to feel relieved when you've found a client that pays you a livable wage, but sadly one is not enough. If something happens to that one client, you're left scrambling and feeling, perhaps, like you're not being a good steward to yourself and your business.

One person I talked to recommended having no one client represent more than a quarter of your income in any month. The reasoning? A quarter of your income is easier to make up or cope with in a month than 3/4th of your income.

* Try trial and error:

Having said all this, I've found that experiencing the ebbs and flow of business naturally guide me to what I need to do to shore up cash flow. So be proud of that Big Fish client, and if for some reason it doesn't pay as expected, feel what it's like to scramble to replace most of your feelings. Create awareness by doing a written check in, meditate or at least take a day to experience what it feels like in your body, and then take the next step: seek out other abundant clients, follow up on pay, figure out what happened and add it to your list of situations that can--and will--happen in your professional life. And then accept it.

Serenity Tip: The Mid-Day Check-In

If you're anything like me, you power through your days, clicking through the items on your to-do list until you retire at night with a jumbled brain. Meditation helps with this, of course. But a friend constantly reminds me that I have another option. Now I'll pass that option on to you:

The Mid-Day Check-In

When you hit Frazzled on your daily stress meter, stop what you're doing. Move away from the computer or the office. Sit somewhere quiet (if possible) and get out a pad and a pen. Then make a list of the following:

* What you resent and why (this can be people--including you--and they don't have to be rational).
* What you're afraid of (those nagging fears that get louder in your head the more you ignore them? Write them down.)
* What things are out of your control (I call this my acceptance list--as in, "I accept that I'm powerless over the future and worrying about it won't change it.")
* What you're grateful for at this moment (it might be having a minute to think, or maybe you just landed a big fish client or maybe you're grateful for the flexibility of your self-employed life.)

Whatever those things are, write them down. Then take a minute to breath deep and imagine each one dropping into the ether.

After taking that break, you may find you're more centered and more ready to tackle the next thing on your list with compassion and poise.

Serenity Tip: Resiliency

A word about illness and my last post: I was, of course, being sarcastic when I said that illness itself is the enemy of serenity. It can feel that way: You've got work to do and you can't move and that can be a recipe for obsessive worrying and self-condemnation (why didn't I plan for this? Why didn't I wash my hands more, the way they tell you to?).

But the reality is that illness is part of life and part of that 99 percent we can't control.

But what we can foster is resiliency--that is, the ability to bounce back quickly after a challenge or illness leaves us down for the count.

If you want to foster resiliency, the key is to focus on the future instead of the past. Sure, I could spend today gnashing my teeth over the fact that I lost a few days of work last week, or I can think about how to proceed with this week.

I once read something (and I'm sorry I can't now recall the source) that said that the difference between successful people and people who can never quite get there is that the successful people treat obstacles as a chance to change their behavior in the future (for instance, "Now that I've been sick I'll know how to approach clients about deadlines and how to manage my time better. I'll know to let myself rest earlier and not to take certain medicines that made me sicker this time."). People who struggle with success spend all their time looking at the past (for instance, "WHY did I do that? Why? I must know before I can move on." Or, "See? The fact that I 'failed' this time is proof that I'm a failure.").

But don't fear. You can have a little of both and still be successful. The Life and Work Connection at the University of Arizona reminds us of something very important:

Resiliency occurs on a continuum (it's not an either/or proposition)

In other words, feel free to wallow and beat your self up for a few minutes. Then think about how you can use this experience to make you successful the next time you experience it.

And have no doubt: You will experience whatever it was again. As the Buddha says, you have to remember that bad things will happen. And you have to remember that the only thing you possess are your actions around it.

So what actions should you take to develop the resiliency muscle? According to the University of Arizona, these are the keys:

1. Self-soothing: This is essentially anything that interrupts your stress response. A lot of the techniques are in the letting go toolkit. Meditation, yoga, support and prayer are all great ways to soothe your rattled mind. But it can also include cardio exercise and affirmations that contradict the anxiety building in your body.

2. Self-confronting: Essentially, this is challenging those self-doubts and negative thoughts that belong to you and pop up over and over again. For me, those are usually fatalistic beliefs about my ability to sustain self-employment and the belief that I will starve no matter what I do. Your mileage may vary, but please don't doubt that you have these grubby monkey-mind thoughts. Your job is to soothe yourself enough to contradict those old beliefs that are steealing your serenity.

The key here is to do both together:

Focusing on building your resiliency does NOT mean that whatever is going on around you is okay or that you should accept it, because maybe your growth issue involves saying no or setting a boundary where you've been afraid to in the past.

Self-soothing without the self-confronting leads to avoidance. Typical examples of avoidant behavior include withdrawing, being demanding, emotionally-driven eating, substance abuse, etc.

Conversely, self-confronting without self-soothing can lead to you beating yourself up (not good). Everybody walks a different road. For you, growing may involve backing off and letting go of control of a situation. For someone else, it may mean that they need to take more charge of the situation. Don't judge yourself by comparing yourself to others.

Serenity Tool: Back It Up

Serenity Tool is a new feature in which I highlight office equipment and tools that can increase your serenity by clearing your mental clutter, freeing you of anxiety and preparing your for those times when things don't go the way you'd like. If you have a suggestion for a tool or a question of what can increase your productivity while keeping you serene, email me at heather at heatherboerner.com.

If you're like me, you can feel like you are your thoughts and words. It's a professional hazard. But there's a way to put that feeling where it belongs. Instead of feeling attached to every word you send out and like you are your job, create a container for your work--literally.

Get yourself some backup for your computer and all its precious files. Aside from sparing you the gruesome fate of losing everything to the Blue Screen of Death, it's also an act of being a good steward of your work.

Here are the choices you have to make:

1. How much memory do you need? The easy way to figure this out is to look at how much memory your computer holds total and get at least half of that. For every professional, the amount of memory you'll need will depend on your profession. If you're only looking to back up Word files, which are small, you won't need as much as if you'd also like to back up photos, music or graphics.

2. External hard drive or online backup? Basically, you can either back up with a super souped-up version of those little keychain flash drives or you can subscribe to a monthly service that allows you to back everything up over the Internet. Each have advantages and I've used both. The joy of online is that you can access your work from anywhere, on any computer, quickly and easily by logging onto your account like you'd log on to email. The advantage of external backup is that you generally get more bang for your buck.

3. PC or Mac? In my experience, backup systems are generally one or the other--though I chose my Maxtor because it can be written for either. Be sure to check your backup compatibility before you buy.

Now that you know the basics, may I recommend:

The Maxtor One Touch Plus External Hard Drive

I purchased one of these last year and love it. First of all, it's massive: it came with a full 750 GB of memory for $250. That could hold my whole computer hard drive more than seven times over.

Second, I found it easy to install and simple to use. That's a big deal for me, because despite growing up in a family computer professors, I'm not terrible tech-savvy. New hardware, computer breakdowns--they all make my fingers tingle with adrenaline and wash me with waves of nausea.

But with One Touch, you simply plug the hard drive into an outlet, attach the USB or FireWire cable to your computer, and after software installation (which was automatic with my Mac but comes with an easy-to-use CD for PC) and voila! The external drive shows up on your computer. Simply double click on the Maxtor Manager icon and set the backup schedule. Then you're done. You don't have to think about it again until you need to retrieve something.

Recently, I made a change to an article and wanted to see what it had been previously. So I double clicked on the OneTouch 4 icon and found the document. Easy. And what a relieve.

If you're more interested in online backup, I've used two that I can comment on:

iBackup:

If you have a PC, this is the one for you. Your mileage may vary and there are other options out there (Carbonite, eVault and others come up with just a quick Google search.) But I used iBackup at the suggestion of some colleagues and loved it. It starts at $9.95 a month for 10 GB of memory and goes up from there. I found that 10 was plenty for me when I started and then I needed more.

I found their customer service friendly and simple to use. If I hadn't switched from PC to Apple, I would have kept them for years to come.

BackJack:

When I first got my Apple, this is the service I went with. At the time, there were few options for an Apple user who wanted to back their work up online. Now .Mac, Apple's service program that includes online backup, offers 10 GB of memory for $100 a year and another 10 GB for $100 more, I believe. But at the time, I think they only offered 2 GB. So I went with BackJack. The best thing about the service is that it's quick and easy and when you call for support, you get a very friendly Canadian woman who just couldn't be more happy to help you. However, at the time I subscribed, the cost was high: $53.50 a month for the 10 GB I needed. Recently, they upgraded the service to work with Apple's new operating system, Leopard and reduced their prices. Now you get 5 GB for $15 a month, and each additional Gb for $2 more. Still, that can run pretty high.

Answer: The Letting Go Tool Kit

Recently someone asked a follow up question to my post on The 1 Percent Rule. Namely:

Aside from focusing on the 1%, how do you "hand over all that stuff to the
deity of my choice"?

First, I don't want to discount focusing on that 1 percent. Just like curbing cravings, don't underestimate the power of distraction. Just focusing your attention away from the maddening drone of Things You Can't Control can do wonders.

But once you've done that, I'll add that letting go of the uncontrollable 99 percent of my work and life isn't easy. It's one of the hardest things I do every day--harder even than marketing.

It takes vigilance and awareness, as well as clarity about what's my 1 percent and what's the rest. To wit, the things that help me most:

Meditation

It's often said and I experience regularly: Don't like what you're feeling? Don't worry. It'll pass. That aphorism becomes concrete in meditation or other mindful traditions, like prayer.

Anytime I notice my mind drifting in meditation, I note it and bring myself back, gently, to my breath or to the image on which I'm meditating.

That practice is priceless when I'm simply walking around my office and feeling that tight anxiety of things I can't control. Just like in meditation, I notice when my mind is back to asking Why hasn't that prospective client called/emailed?, for example. Then I notice it, practice detachment and remind myself, "None of my business. Let it go."

I've heard it said that "Why?" is not a spiritual question--but it's still a good one to ask if you're self-employed. If my question is, "Why hasn't that check arrived? It was supposed to be here last week," you better believe that my job is to call the client and inquire. But if the question is "Why isn't she calling me?" I have two choices: I can either call her myself, or I can let it go. I try to do both. I call, and then, no matter the outcome, I accept that I can't make things happen the way I always want and I let it go.

Support

Remember all those people I have in my life to support my business? This is one of the things I use them for. If meditation and mindfulness doesn't work, I call them so I can have someone outside my brain tell me to let it go. Sometimes just by talking to them, and by getting the reassurance that I'm doing everything I can (or by getting a new action step to take), I feel better. I'm back to my 1 percent.

Prayer

At some point, I have to say, those tenacious little worries just aren't going away on their own. That's when I call in the big guns. If I'm suffering something having to do with work--or my personal life--I try to interrupt my anxiety and my obsession by praying to whatever I believe in to have it removed. I will do this as many times as necessary throughout the day if it's really bothering me.

Yoga

It almost always helps if I can get myself out of my mind and into my body. When I'm worrying about something, or ruminating on that 99 percent, I'm almost always shrugging in my shoulders, holding my breath or breathing shallowly or contracting my chest wall. It helps me to go into a pose like legs-up-the-wall pose, fish pose supported by a bolster or blanket under my back, bridge pose or reclining bound angle pose.

Your mileage may vary. For you, it could just be a good run on a treadmill or some quality time with your elliptical machine. Clear your head. And then come back and see if it's any easier to focus on your 1 percent.

A Word about Forgiveness

When things aren't going your way--when a prospective client strings you along only to turn down your marketing efforts, when the computer breaks, when your kids are driving you nuts, when your deadline is approaching and a subcontractor flakes--that's the time when it can feel hardest to practice nongrasping or detachment.

But will you be surprised to hear that that's the time it can benefit you the most?

We cling so hard sometimes to our resentments--hoping that by sheer force of energy those by whom we feel wronged will get a flat tire or develop a dental emergency. But usually all that does is cause our own suffering and keep us from focusing on our 1 percent.

So instead, try something counter intuitive. Forgive them.

I know they're wrong and they should burn in the fiery pits. Forgive them anyway. I know they deserve a voodoo doll full of long, dull and painful pins.

Still forgive them.

Need help? Consider practicing metta, or loving-kindness.

Here's how it works: In the simplest sense, it's wishing good things for those you'd most like to see file bankruptcy (or perhaps just get a really nasty hangnail).

In the traditional Buddhist sense, it's a specific type of meditation in which you pray for specific things for the person you resent. The way I was taught it was to pray the following:

May you be free of pain.
May your body know peace.
May you be filled with loving-kindness.

I think there's a line or two in there I've forgotten since my first yoga teacher introduced me to it years ago.

So here's a more complete loving-kindness prayer, courtesy of YouTube:

What's Your 1 Percent?

The Buddha may remember that our actions are our only possessions, what should we do when we forget?

Here's another rule that works for me: The 1% Rule.

Basically, the 1% rule holds that only 1% of anything that happens in your life is within your control. Everything else you have to just accept. But that 1 percnet... That's a powerful single digit.

When I'm frustrated with the way things are going--either because they're getting better but aren't where I want them to be yet, or because I'm judging something in my life as inadequate, I ask myself:

Okay, what's my 1 percent here?

If I can't control 99 percent of what's happening in my life, I have to hand over all that stuff to the deity of my choice. But that 1 percent... It's a relief. It's so nice to remember that it's not actually my job to mind-meld someone into picking up the phone and calling me, or to force my brain into being ready to spill a story onto my computer screen.

Instead, I focus all that energy I was spending being frustrated on controlling that 1 percent. I do more marketing. I work on projects where I'm not blocked. I organize my desk. I shred the junk mail.

It's so much more fulfilling than fighting with that other 99 percent--because, I'll tell you, that other 99 percent? It always wins when I fight it.

So what's your 1 percent right now?

Now, go do it.

Serenity Tip: Create a New Mantra

On the heels of the most recent discussion on this blog about how to identify serenity when you've got it, I'd like to add a mantra:

I am not my work.

I know, it chafes. As self-employed people, we pour so much of our hearts and souls and intellects and emotions into the job that at some point it becomes tempting to merge with it. It isn't just a fulfilling, and sometimes erratic, part of our lives, it is our lives. It isn't just part of our identity. It becomes the whole thing.

If you're like me, there's even a bit of a swagger to it: Yeah, I run my own business. What do you do? Oh--sit behind a desk every day doing someone else's bidding? That must feel... safe.

Yikes. Just like there's a difference between pride in making self-employment in a field you love actually support you and arrogance, there's a difference between your job and you.

I had a hard time with this one at first: My job is basically my thoughts. I'm a sole proprietorship. In a very real sense, Iam my job, right?

Not really. Even the IRS recognizes a difference between you and work--you can't deduct everything, after all. And my job is my thoughts--it's creative. But I'm not just my thoughts, am I? This gets very philosophical very fast. But it's a good question to ask. What else am I? I'm the things I love, I'm how I treat the people I love, I'm how I treat the people I hate, I'm my feelings, I'm my spirituality. I just am.

But most important, when it comes to serenity, this is one of those techniques for practicing nongrasping. When I was a newspaper reporter, my job was my entire identity. I was a workaholic, as I've already said. So when I left, I went into crisis. I didn't have a life outside work. I didn't have anything that gave me a sense of wellbeing or self-esteem. It very quickly became clear how unmanageable my approach to my self-concept had become.

Nongrasping frees us from suffering. So when a client rejects a marketing effort, when the work is draining, when the checks aren't flowing, remembering that you're not your job can free you from feeling like this is something you have to fix. And remembering that you're not your job when everything is fabulous and everyone lovbes you and you're rolling in dough can free you from the delusion that it will always be this way. Neither is a reflection of you. It's just business. Both of those are part of the job. But they aren't a reflection of who you are as a person.

When you're off work, whenever you're obsessing about things you can't control and that are keeping you from enjoying family and friends, practice saying to yourself:

I am not my job.

What Serenity Is

Now that we know what serenity is not, let's talk about what it is.

At its heart, I think, serenity is about living in reality and accepting what comes to us--and then doing our part to care for ourselves, regardless of what's going on around us. Serenity comes from developing a strong center that can weather or quickly recover from big emotional blows or reversals of fortune.

I remember when this realization changed my thinking. I was on public transportation, heading to my last full-time job before starting my business. I hated that job--or rather, I loved what I was doing and many of my coworkers, but something about it wasn't right for me. I was in agony over it every day. So, on the way to work, I entertained myself with an issue of Yoga Journal. Here's what it said:

Ignorance, or avidya, is a root cause of suffering, according to Patanjali's Yoga Sutra. But the ignorance Patanjali refers to is less a lack of knowledge than an almost willful ignoring of reality. Today we call it denial. For instance, we may intellectually know that all things change, yet we desperately deny this truth--a denial that leads to anxiety, fear and confusion.

What he's working up to is a discussion of the Buddha's Five Rembembrances. They go something like this:

I will grow old.

This body will know sickness.

There is no escape from death.

Everything and everyone change.

All I have are my actions.

The writer, Frank Jude Boccio, recommends repeating these remembrances--these reality checks--every day to interrupt the machinations of denial.

As I think about serenity in my business, I need to adapt these remembrances for the workplace. For instance, I will get sick and not be able to work some days. Pretending like I can work nonstop and never set aside money or time or compassion for myself for those days I'm struck with illness creates in me--what did he say?--"anxiety, fear and confusion."

Yeah, that.

Or, pretending that the kind I work I enjoy won't change or that I can keep the same clients forever does nothing but leave me waiting impotently for the other shoe to drop. It creates a kind of self-satisfied, hazy denial where I refuse to think about what I would do if my biggest client dropped me.

That's why the last remembrance is key (from Thich Nhat Hanh's The Plum Village Chanting Book):

My actions are my only true belongings. I cannot escape the consequences of my actions. My actions are the ground upon which I stand.

So again, the antidote to stress, anxiety and fear is to focus on your behavior today. How much marketing are you doing? How much are you relying on one client to make ends meet? What would make you feel more secure, like you could weather any storms? Think about it and then take one small step today to achieve it.