Lifestyle – A.M. EDMONSON

Self-Improvement Trap

March 15, 2019March 14, 2019 Audra Edmonson3 Comments

A while back I mentioned I took a break from reading self-help/self-improvement/productivity books.

I did that because it was becoming quite the problem in my life, but I think there’s a wider problem in the world today as well.

The Self-Improvement Problem

…is that we know we aren’t where we want to be. We know how many people feel they aren’t living their ideal life, or even a very good life. Too many people are desperately unhappy, and it’s evident in the rise (or rise in public awareness, anyway) of depression and anxiety.

My previous situation – always stuck in a book.

Having struggled with both due to a total fear of the future, I turned to self-help books, like many others, in a desperate attempt to figure out how to make my life better, and myself more peaceful. I felt happy often; when I was with friends or reading a good book or making something, but my life itself never gave me a sense of security or the feeling that I wanted it to continue how it was.

I was not content. I am not content. I’m trying to be, because contentment is very important no matter what stage of life you’re at. And it’s hard to live out the fact that contentment and complacency are two different things, meaning you can be content in your life as it is but still actively grow and change it.

I just can’t seem to wrap my head around being happy now and still want a different life. It just doesn’t seem to work for me.

I’ve read Mark Manson‘s work over and over again. I read The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*** twice in the space of a few months, because it was so good. And he’s right – self-help and the self-improvement movement is a trap. You get sucked into that heady feeling of being on the right track.

I love being comfortable. I love baggy clothes and soft fabrics and old blankets the most because they’re comfortable. My number one dating and shopping criteria is if someone or something is comfortable. I crave comfort. So being uncomfortable is…well…uncomfortable.

I’ve always found it difficult to put myself out there in certain ways. I can play D&D with the best of them, wear what I want even when it’s not cool, and not take crap from people (if I don’t know them too well), but there are some things that still put me into freeze or flight mode (I’m pretty sure I don’t have a fight mode, unless you dis Matthew Mercer and then I WILL come after you).

It’s just so much easier to keep reading, right? Read about writing your unique story. Read about building that cool thing. Read about living your best life, while that life passes on.

As that other total badass, Jen Sincero, says in You are a Badass, staying in the track of almost doing something means you’re safe. I could do so much if only I try, you say, and so you’re never tested, never have to taste failure, and never have to do anything uncomfortable.

Almost no one enjoys being uncomfortable, but there are those to whom pushing it comes easier, and I feel like I’m not one of them.

I’ve been called brave. When I went to Korea, everyone said I was so brave. I don’t have a fear of public speaking, and I’m pretty good at making a fool out of myself and not minding. And so people call me brave. But they don’t see the abject fear instilled so deep it only surfaces in debilitating beliefs about money and career and love and happiness.

My question that I’ll never cease asking is how to make peace with being uncomfortable, because in order to move on, you have to be. How do they do it? How does someone make that hustle-schedule and keep at it when TV and games and friends and sleep call so endearingly?

The Self-Improvement Solution

…is not easy. It’s simple, yes, as most solutions are, but never easy.

Self-help books that tell you you’re on the right track, and the sort of new anti-self-help books like Sincero’s and Manson’s tell you that what you thought was the right track might not be the right track, but they’re all balms and buffers against the fact that nothing but pure action will get you anywhere, and whether you’re reading the fluff or the facts, you’re still reading about having a great life instead of living one.

As the Disreputable Dog* says, “It’s always better to be doing.”

Only action moves you in any direction. Reading is dreaming with your eyes open, as Yoyo says, and dreaming is a nice way to pass the time, but that’s about it.

Stop reading, start doing. Stop dreaming, start acting. And always go gently. It’s simple, but it’s not easy.

*Do yourself a massive favor and read Garth Nix‘s Abhorsen trilogy.

Designing My life

February 4, 2019January 30, 2019 Audra EdmonsonLeave a comment

Have you read Designing Your Life by Dave Evans and Bill Burnett? If you haven’t, you should. Yes, it’s another plan your life and that life will be good self-help montage, more or less, but this one was written by actual designers. Like, Stanford Engineer designers, so they know a thing or two about designing…everything. Being me, of course, I had to add another self-help book to my list and got it immediately.

Life design is something I’ve been doing unconsciously for absolutely years. I mean, what else has all the productivity-blogging and self-help-book-reading and passion-planning and goal-setting been for?

What cracked me up is the part in the book where they ask you to plan out three parallel lives that you could see yourself doing, and then figure out what resources, time commitment, and investment you’d need to make to have that life.

I laughed out loud because I’ve already done that, except I have about ten parallel lives, vastly different from each other, that I could see myself living. It is kind of nice, in a way, because I know I could be happy in each of those lives, but there again is the choice paralysis many of us face when presented with multiple options. I don’t know which one to pursue first. (This might be why the authors have you only pick three – choice paralysis happens less frequently with fewer options because opportunity cost will be lower.)

The whole point of the exercise is to expand your options and to help you realize that no matter which one you pursue first, it doesn’t matter. Just pick one, and that life will be good. We all have different lives available in us, and we’ll never know which one is “best” (hint hint; there is no best) so just pick one.

Ha. Easier said than done.

Let’s take a look.

My Five Plans

Writer

I see myself being a writer like my hero S.J Maas. I was reading her on fictionpress.com way back in the day before she became an NYT Bestselling Author. I remember reading Throne of Glass in its early days, and it was very different than the one that was published. The bones were there, but in the intervening years she edited and changed a lot. That’s how writing goes, and every time I think of her journey I get excited because I feel like I could do that too.

I see myself in my office, with journals of notes, a bulletin board with deadlines and events and tours and pictures; spending time writing, drinking tea, starting out my window as I ponder my story…

Yes, I can see myself doing that. I can also see myself writing short fiction, blogging, writing courses for empaths and other sensitive types, creating new RPGs and modules for D&D, and a whole bunch of other writing type things. I’ll never stop writing, but being a writer is a bit different. There are different investments required*.

Coach

The idea of being a life coach keeps creeping up on me. It started about a year ago, back in Korea, and has been in the back of my mind like a niggling worm ever since. I was really gung-ho about it at first, of course, and lost interest when my health declined, but I’ve been thinking about it again recently.

Even in my writing, I’ve always wanted to show people there’s a better world for them. Books showed me that, and my big why as a writer has always been about helping people realize their own magic. Coaching is another way to do this. I love it when my friends share their dreams with me, and I love the nitty-gritty of getting down to actions plans and steps and the how-to of dreams. So coaching has always seemed another natural option for me.

I could see myself doing that. Having an office with a filing cabinet for clients, having an appointment schedule book, emailing about packages and questions, skyping with clients and suggesting action plans and tools and books and exercises…

Non Profit RPG/GM Organizer

Another idea that’s bounced around in my head enough times for me to pay attention to it is starting my own non-profit that helps kids learn how to run RPGs. Or start my own chapter of 826 in my area.

This goes back to the whys mentioned earlier; helping people see their own magic. I give this choice of words carefully too, because I really believe that people are capable of their wildest dreams (the magic of life, right?), and I want everyone to be able to achieve that.

And hearing about kids getting into these creative endeavors, creating whole worlds, participating in stories together, learning serious life skills through fun…that just seems like a really important thing to be a part of.

Also I love kids and made a pretty awesome teacher, and I think leading a Game Master workshop would be epic.

(But the title needs some work. Organizer? Workshopper? Leader? Center? League?)

Game Designer/Writer

Going back to the writing front, I’ve also considered being a writer for games. I love D&D so much I think working at Wizards of the Coast (which is just around the corner from where I was born so, hello, fate) would be the most epic job of all.

I can imagine sitting down with a think tank of nerds and brainstorming the next big campaign book, the next batch of monsters, the next iteration of D&D itself…yeah, I dream about that a lot.

And if not D&D, then maybe another game company. I could write dialogue and quests, creating a dozen different threads for each player action, and twining them all sinuously until they meet perfectly at the final boss…

Homemaker

Equally as appealing as the other lifestyles, being a stay at home mom is at least a phase I’d like to experience, if not live out, sometime in my life. I plan on having kids, and I plan on raising them to the best of my knowledge and experience as a teacher, creator, empath, and nerd (oh yeah, my kids will be playing D&D as soon as they can talk, yo).

But, of course, alongside that I’ll still be writing, crafting, coaching, and doing everything else, it will just have the volume turned down on it.

—

You know, it was really interesting to write this post. It was really interesting to see how so many of the lives I could plan out, while vastly different, have this one underlying thread. Helping people see their own magic. And the thing is, there could be a hundred other jobs that satisfy that requirement that I don’t even know about! But five is enough to be getting on with, and as I mentioned in the beginning, choice paralysis is real, and the best advice is to take a step in any direction, rather than stand still.

So the first lilypad, then, is and will be writing.

And now I’ll toss the ball to you. What lives have you imagined? I urge you to do this exercise and see what comes up, especially if you find, like me, the same impetus behind each desired life.

Happy hunting, friends.

*On that front, I have some very exciting news coming up soon!

Life In-Between: Waiting to Live

January 31, 2019January 25, 2019 Audra Edmonson2 Comments

I recently read a book called ‘The In-Between’ by Jeff Goins. It’s an anecdotal book for the most part, full of memories and small stories that illustrate his major point; that we spend most of our time waiting. Seriously. In fact as well as in our heads. We spend more time than we think in lines, on hold, in our cars traveling; always waiting for something. We also spend an inordinate amount of time waiting in our heads and hearts – waiting for the next thing to happen to us. For graduation, marriage, kids, retirement, death…and everything in between.

We spend so much time waiting for the next day or next whatever that we rarely find time to live in the moment. Sure, living in the moment has some bad connotations, like being flighty and irresponsible and never having a plan for the future, but most of us aren’t like that. We may occasionally let ourselves go in the moment when we’re having fun with friends or doing something we love, but those moments are like bright stars in the dark sky – small and minor compared to the vastness of life.

In Goins’ book, he talks about learning to appreciate the small things. Trite advice, you think. Perhaps. But true nevertheless. Look back at the past week or so and think about when you were happiest. Was it a grand moment full of importance and splendor? Or was it a small thing that simply made you very happy? If I do this, I think of being with my friends. Or finishing a book series. Or seeing my word count go up on my book.

All these are small things, but it’s these that I remember.

I’ve spent my entire life in the purgatory of waiting. I felt like my life wouldn’t begin until college, or then until I moved to Korea, or now until I’ve published my first book or gotten married or had a child… But it’s not true. Life is not a goal, it’s a state of being. I am alive now. I’m living, no matter what I’m doing. Waiting to live doesn’t even make sense. Neither does regretting something. I’ve regretted a few things. I always feel guilty that I’m not already married, that I haven’t already got an amazing, six-figure job or traveled more. But looking back, every single experience I’ve had has made me grow in a way that wouldn’t have happened in any other circumstance. I’ve needed all those waiting bits and periods in order to become what I am now, and all the waiting bits ahead will be necessary to get me further. I’m not the person I want to be, so I need a lot more waiting. I now appreciate the waiting, as time to reflect and grow. For, as Goins says, it’s frequently in those waiting moments that we do grow. We think, we reason, we imagine and learn within ourselves, often in a split-second.

I think we tend to hate the waiting and feel it’s useless because we often escape into books or movies, worlds in which no one ever waits for long and things happen consecutively. Action is frequent, speech is parsed down and simplified to exclude the nonessentials. We want life to happen like that, but it won’t. Imagine a book that actually followed, moment by moment, real life. It would be unutterably dull.

So we need to stop and consciously observe the waiting time and learn to grow in it. Reflect more, learn more, think more, appreciate more, and be grateful for the small things. We all live in-between the big things, and that’s where most of life happens.

But Out: Replace This One Word to Change Your Life

November 12, 2018October 16, 2018 Audra Edmonson4 Comments

We live in a world of contradictions.

“I want to do this, but I have to do that.”

We hear this all the time. We say this all the time.

“I want to build my business, but I spend so much time at work.”

“I want to achieve my goals, but I have to take care of my family.”

“I want to travel, but I don’t have enough money.”

That one word, but, removes our power in those statements. It makes the two items around the but absolutely incompatible. You can’t do both, is what a statement like that says.

Our words are powerful. They have the power to change our minds, and in doing so, change our lives. We all know how the stories we tell about ourselves impact us. Being a linguistics major, I can tell you that the words we choose to use about ourselves, about others, about anything, matter. They matter a lot.

And, unfortunately, this habit of using but between two items is very, very common. So common we don’t even realize there’s another grammatical way of saying the same thing, one that gives us power back.

Instead of using but, use and. Replace every but up there with and and see what happens.

“I want to build my business, and I spend so much time at work.”

“I want to achieve my goals, and I have to take care of my family.”

“I want to travel, and I don’t have enough money.”

By replacing that one word, we’ve given power back to ourselves. Instead of lamenting that we don’t have enough time to work on our business or our dreams, we realize that we have obligations, and we have dreams, and we can do both. We aren’t sacrificing our families or quitting our jobs, we’re finding ways to work with them.

In the last example, the use of and creates an incentive for action. Okay, so you don’t have enough money to travel, and you want to, so now, how will you get that money? But kind of implies that “oh well, I don’t have enough money. That’s that,” and forces no further action. It stops us in our tracks. But and implies a realization of your current situation and a call to action.

It’s amazing how this simple change can affect your outlook, your optimism, your mindset, and your energy levels.

Now, I don’t recommend replacing every but with and all the time. You’ll sound weird. Just try it out with things that really get you stumped. That make you feel down. The phrases that put a pause in your action plan.

Reframe the idea that two things are incompatible with the idea that there is a way to have both. You can have a full workload and build a business on the side. You can be less than wealthy and travel the world.* You can take care of your family and pursue your goals.

You can do whatever you choose to. So give power back to yourself now. Take the buts out.

*For tips on traveling cheap, check out anything by Chris Guillebeau on Travel Hacking.

Why I’m Giving Up Self-Help Books for One Month

October 29, 2018October 15, 2018 Audra Edmonson10 Comments

I’m a self-improvement junkie. I’ve listed it as one of my hobbies because it takes that much time, energy, and passion from me.

The thing is, the proportion of the amount I’ve read to the amount I think I’ve improved isn’t as much as it should be. Have I improved? Absolutely. Hands-down, books have been my greatest teachers in learning how to understand myself. But compared to the vast, VAST amount of books and articles and podcasts I’ve consumed? It should be more. I’ve read enough business books to have started a hundred businesses. I’ve read enough dating books to be married. Or so I think.

The thing is, at some point, self-improvement books become another means of putting off actual action.

For instance, I need to stop logging the time I spend reading self-improvement books as productive work time because it’s really not. I’m enjoying the books and getting a buzz off them, but they aren’t upping my rate of actions taken or anything. In other words, the return on investment stinks.

Just like how I can plan and plan my business and project and never actually get anything done, I can read and read about writing and never have a novel written, but still feel like I’m getting somewhere. Only I’m not. A self-improvement book is a whirlpool in the river to progress, sucking me around and around. It feels exciting and fast-paced and useful, but I haven’t gotten any farther.

So…I’m swearing off them for a month. Starting November (when NaNoWriMo starts, so it’s a great time to buckle down) I will only read for pure pleasure. Like fiction. Or history. Any time I might have spent nobly reading a book on writing will be spent…you know…actually writing. Any time spent reading a book on communication will be spent, hopefully, communicating. Any time spent reading books on business will be spent on actions around that business.

I’m hoping I can count on you guys to help keep me accountable for this. Tweet at me, Instagram me, comment here…however you want to barrage me with reminders to stop reading and start doing, please do so. Heaven knows I’m addicted.