PS. I like you is a newsletter for creative people with self-doubt. Subscribe and read along to get answers to all your questions you didn’t know you had about self-doubt and making a creative life 🌿
When we feel uncertain, it is tempting to want a structure.
We want a solution. We want a plan.
But the plan is not the solution.
The plan is a strategy. A tool.
It will not solve all your problems.
It will not solve your fear. It will not stop you waking at night wondering if you’ve made the right decision.
What will?
You’re going to hate me here… 😛
One. Nothing is going to solve all your fear. Nothing is going to take away all your problems.
You will always be human. (Soz.)
But, also, the closest thing I know that will help, is trust.
Deep, embodied, trust.
And love. And all those good things.
We (may, often!) think they are wishy-washy. Lofty ideals. Pleasant, even.
But not ‘strategies.’ Not ‘things you can rely on.’
Au contraire.
You can deeply rely on trust. You can deeply rely on love.
(In fact, I would say these are imperative. And to be clear, I know that these things can be shaken. But these experiences are also innate. They are part of you.)
A plan is a brilliant tool.
It is no replacement for trust.
Plan all you want. If you like it.
But notice, if you find yourself leaning on the plan as ‘the answer to all your problems.’™
Because that is when you find trouble, my friend.
That is when the plan becomes fraaagile. That is when the plan becomes rigid, and ‘must be stuck to at all costs.’
That is when we realise, that if the plan crumbles, we crumble too.
People come to me wanting a strategy.
I ask them, “What is your trust like? How much do you trust yourself?”
“My self-trust isn’t great, that’s why I need a plan!”
I respectfully disagree.
You do not create a plan to build trust.
You trust yourself, and from there you create a plan.
How do you trust yourself?
You remind yourself — of what trust feels like.
You remind yourself of when you last trusted yourself — and how you can do that again.
It’s a feeling to be felt; over and over again.
Trust is connection.
Trust is a deep sense of knowing, without having to reason.
From there you will create a plan 10 times more effective than any strategy you pick out from a book (or social media post).
Why? Because it’s yours.
Do not underestimate the power of feeling that something is yours.
It belongs to you. Take ownership of that. Take pride in that. You created it. You have relationship with it.
You trust it.
And that will make it go further than any random strategy, or plan you have picked out of fear.
A plan is a plan is a plan. They all look the same from the outside. It’s what inside, that counts.
Love,
Kathryn
PS. I am currently taking on one more coaching client. If you would like this to be you, get in touch. I help creatives who are feeling stuck and don’t know the way forward. There is no plan; but there is a great deal more. We integrate, we face our fears; kindly and lovingly. If you don’t know how to do that, don’t worry! That’s where I come in and help. As someone who has been through this journey myself, I promise that one thing you are going to do is surprise yourself — in some of the best ways possible. 💛