Professionals are people who take their shit seriously and who have training and schooling.
That's what I thought before I read Turning Pro. I was satisfied with this simple explanation. But I had an MFA from NYU and I worked in the entertainment industry. Yet, I was still an amateur in a lot of ways. I had written a lot. I had things published. I had produced theatre. I had a lot of gumption and motivation. I worked hard. But I was still an amateur. How could that be?
I was still afraid of what I wanted to do: become a writer. Yes, I had made a lot of sacrifices to do it and I had been validated a lot. But it had been awhile. I was going through a major transition with my Dad's illness and later, his death. Change was the first step in turning Pro. I know I wanted to turn Pro. But I didn't know why I felt stuck. Over time, I kept wishing that I would get unstuck.
Then I broke up with the boyfriend. Then I broke up with the boss. Then my Dad got sick and we were about to break up, too.
Change. Disruption. The death of relationships. The death of my relationship to myself. The death of the amateur. I was going to become a Professional, whether I liked it or not. And it didn't feel good. It felt like my whole life was crumbling. It felt like I was losing everything. I did not see a light at the end of any tunnel. Everything I had known about myself was starting to slip away.
Now what did I know about myself? I was a brilliant caretaker. I was an excellent assistant. I was really comfortable at standing behind the scenes and doing things for other people. I was living in the shadow of other people. Even my "career" was a shadow. It wasn't the thing I really wanted to do. But I thought I was doing the thing I was supposed to do. I felt being an assistant to a powerful person or a boyfriend to a powerful person was going to be my way to fulfillment and success. I didn't realize that the reason none of it was working and the reason I was suffering was because I wasn't meant to be anyone's second banana. I was in the wrong position. But I stayed there for so long because I was afraid to do anything else. And the whole time, the Universe was letting me know I was in the exact wrong place. It couldn't have been any clearer and I didn't pay attention. I had a low paying job. I was drinking too much. I was bitter. I was buying books on my boss' Amazon account. I was resentful. And I was acting out. I was hooking up with other guys. I let my boyfriend's bad behavior cast a shadow where I could do things that were bad too - for survival. But I wasn't surviving. I was dying. And I was stuck. I lived in deep unhappiness for years. Yet, I stayed there. I stayed in that amateur place.
Somehow the prayer was heard - the call to turning Pro started exactly six years ago today when I walked out of that life. I had no idea that's what I was doing. I left everything.
"What we get when we turn pro is, we find out power. We find our will and our voice and we find our self-respect. We become who we always were but had, until then, been afraid to embrace and live out."
It would be years before I started living that life. You could say that I turned Pro the moment I walked out, but I still hadn't embraced my true voice. I hadn't committed to it yet.
Once I left, other things were set into motion. I got another job offer. I left a job I had for seven years and I moved on. That job gave me a lot of my confidence back. I realized that I had so much to offer. Then that job ended and one day later, my Dad goes into the hospital. I knew in that moment that I was going to be on a journey until he died. And here I was again - a caretaker. But I had to learn how to take care of myself while taking care of my Dad. Writing became essential again. It became necessary to survive. I found my voice again. Now, the things I was writing weren't amazing. But I was writing and rewriting and living. After he died, I told my grief counselor that I wasn't working. He reminded me that I write every day. That meant that I work. I decided to believe him and I kept writing all of the time. I also took the time to grieve and to experience all of the pain that my father's death brought about. I didn't run away from those feelings.
But again, I found myself in a position where I was taking care of another boyfriend. It wasn't as bad. This guy was kinder, lovelier, better looking and more stable. But it became more about this guy than it became about me. Yet, this time I was writing a lot. Once I was ready to commit fully to my writing again, things started to go south. I wasn't able to go to his gigs every weekend. I had to make time for my writing - even though I didn't have an office to go to or a paycheck to tell me that what I was doing was real work. And once I did take an office, things changed even more. But I didn't stop. I had turned Pro by this point. Pressfield says that things change, people change, routines change when you turn Pro. And it had changed our relationship. I didn't care. I knew I was on the right track. I knew it.
Eventually, that relationship ended. And that's when my life opened up again to another level. That was the beginning of this year and has been well documented in this blog. I no longer had a shadow career. I had a real career. Turning Pro had started to change my molecules. And once I got in that writer's room, things began to change even more. But I'm not stopping.
I am so grateful for my amateur life, for my shadow careers. Because those things brought me to where I am now. In a public library. Writing.
I still have a lot of Resistance. I deal with it every day. I like to distract myself with sex. I have found that even over the past few months, I have chosen work over hooking up. That was not always the case. So even as I became a Pro a while ago, I still have to work at it. I still have to become a deeper Pro and not get addicted to the distraction.
Jealousy is a distraction.
Anger is a distraction.
Anxiety is a distraction.
Comparison is a distraction.
It's all Resistance and I carry my sword and go back to The War of Art twice a year because I know how ready Resistance is to take me down. I deal with doubt every day. I wake up knowing that I've got to get started ASAP because the longer I wait before sitting down to do the work, the better chance Resistance has at taking me down for the day. I don't wear my doubt on my sleeve, but that doesn't mean it's not there. I take it so seriously that I have my quiet, focused eye on it at all times. I'm not friendly with it. I don't try to make a joke out of it. I take that assassin deadly seriously. I'm going to take him out before he takes me out.
My distractions let me know that I'm on the right path. Because the stronger they are, the more I know I'm exactly where I should be and that the stakes are deadly serious.
Pulling the Pin
Pressfield tells a story of how when we're about to achieve something, at the very last minute, some of us "pull the pin." We set off the grenade that destroys everything at the exact moment where we have the most to lose. I would always pull the pin at the every end. I spoke before about how I would have three things due in a month and it was always the last thing that would take the longest. It was always the last thing that I was in danger of not doing. I was pulling the pin.
Pulling the pin is self-sabotage. It's that conversation with my friend where he asks if I feel I've made it. It's that doubt that seeps in. It's the doubt that makes me not want to make my friends feel bad, so I pull back. As Pressfield has said, Resistance is not personal. It's a cold-blooded killer. But it has nothing against us. David wasn't being a dick. He wasn't even doing anything wrong. But the killer had used his words and his body as a host. And it was ready to shiv me to stop me. I recognize him a lot quicker than I used to. My instincts are way better than they used to be. Resistance and I have been doing this dance for a long, long time.
Listening to other people, 9-to-5 jobs, "normal stable" life - those things are also pulling the pin. My brother thinks that my life is weird and irresponsible. He doesn't know how I'm going to live my life with so much uncertainty. I'm mobile. I'm an adapter. I shift around and have to constantly adjust and shape shift. I'm nimble. That would be frightening to my brother. It's not the life he wants. But I've pulled the pin countless times listening to people like him saying that it's impossible and that I'm selfish to think that I even deserve to have what I want. I pulled the pin so many times in my life because of my Dad, my brother, my boss, my boyfriends.
I don't pull the pin anymore. Because I'm a Pro. But that grenade is still within reach, in my line of sight and in earshot.
My intention is strength.
My intention is expansion.
My intention is enlightenment.
My intention is excitement.
My intention is growth.
I am grateful for friendships.
I am grateful for quiet library study rooms.
I am grateful for a full calendar.
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