Show Up and Share My Work
One of my heroes, Jen Waldman, recently blogged about her mantra for 2021.
I love this idea of setting a mantra for the new year, rather than coming up with a bunch of mostly unrealistic goals and calling them New Year’s resolutions. Resolutions tend to set us up for failure, because we like to think that the rollover into a new year carries some secret magic that will empower us to accomplish what we’ve never been able to accomplish before. Like I’m going to go from never going to the gym to working out five times a week, just because the calendar has reset.
A mantra, on the other hand, acts as a filter, a lens through which we can examine our days and our choices. Similar to Simon Sinek’s WHY Statements, the New Year’s mantra doesn’t mandate that we accomplish any specific goal. It’s not about the “what,” it’s about the “what’s it for.”
Unlike many resolutions, the mantra doesn’t have a finish line. We can’t do the mantra and be done with it, meaning that we can carry it with us into as many aspects of our life as we choose. Rather than the limiting nature of a resolution (e.g. “I’m going to read more books this year.”), the mantra’s applicability is limited only by our imagination.
I’ve decided that my resolution for 2021 will be: Show up and share my work. Here’s the breakdown:
SHOW UP
To me, showing up means putting myself on the line. Rather than hiding behind excuses and buying into the self-doubt that says I have nothing of value to contribute, showing up means trusting that if I make the time to do the work with regularity, I will develop the skills and the idiosyncrasies required to make magic happen.
SHARE
Much of my 2020 was spent hibernating. The pandemic rocked me (as I know it rocked all of us), and there were more days than not where the prospect of looking at the news or any social media was far too daunting. And so I hibernated — and I’m glad I did. I listened to what my body and my spirit needed, rather than bending it out of shape and burning out. Instead of creating regularly, I read voraciously. Instead of speaking out, I listened as much as I could to voices I’d previously never heard.
Having gone through this period of hibernation, I now want to move into a period of sharing. Continuing to read and to listen and to be silent when necessary, I also want to begin speaking more, blogging more, singing more. Creating more.
MY WORK
My original mantra draft said “Show up and share the work.” I ultimately modified it to “my work,” because I want to intentionally focus on what I am able to contribute, what I can control — and let go of the rest. For me, this mindset moves away from the scarcity of needing to claim ownership of “the work,” and instead leaves ample space for all artists — myself included — to contribute their own work in their own way.
Originally published here on January 1, 2021.
