Every Month I Think About This So I Can Keep Going
Living Happy
Every month or so, I ask myself, “What are you lying about?”
That sounds weird, right?
It is! But it’s also one of the most powerful things I can do for myself. It’s how I keep moving forward instead of staying static.
It’s not about lying to other people. I try not to do that. It’s about lying to myself. And it’s usually connected to my fears. I take a hot second and I think: What b.s. am I telling myself about myself?
I am very good at lying to myself. Maybe you are too?
So, my most recent lie was that I haven’t done anything good in the world or for the world. This is a big one for me. And the best way to disprove that lie is to go out and do the opposite.
Last month, my lie was that I’m going to go bankrupt. That one is silly, too. I would have to give up a lot of things that I do (this blog, the paper, etc.), but I know I can make changes to keep from going bankrupt, and I logically know what markers would make me go out to do this.
These lies are deep-rooted like misbeliefs often are, right? Mine come from an older sibling being mean to me when I was a little kid. The other comes from my single-mom’s struggle to raise me.
LET’S TALK ABOUT THE BIG LIE
Sometimes when I help people develop their novels, I talk about THE BIG LIE.
The big lie or the character’s misbelief in your story is a major key to your character’s story arc, which is basically the emotional change and development of who you character is.
The lie drives the stupid or wonderful things that they do in the story.
It’s what motivates them in a way.
Sometimes the protagonist or main character or hero of your story doesn’t believe THE BIG LIE, but everyone else does. That’s super cool, too.
The lie can be a small deal—I am going to win the Little Miss New Hampshire Song and Dance Contest though I can’t move my hips and I am ancient and the contest is for 8 year olds and under. (I now want to write this story)
The lie can be a big deal on a societal and personal level—Might always makes right, so I’ll beat everyone up to get my way.
But here’s the thing. The big lie relates to people in real life, too. It’s often tied into fear. And that fear? It holds us back a lot of the time. It keeps us from becoming.
We think: I am not artistic. I will not try to draw. If I post my art, people will laugh and that will hurt.
We think: I am unlovable. Nobody will ever love me. I will not go say hi to those people over there even though I’m lonely.
We think: I’m not a straight-A student, there’s no way I can quit my job and become an entrepeneur. I can’t even spell enterepeneur! Entre-penuer? Entre-pee-nower? Damn it. I’ll go bankrupt.
But all of this is pretty much lies. They are lies we were told, lies we tell ourselves over and over, but they do not need to be our truths. And if we don’t want them to be our truths, then we’ve got to break through the fear.
That’s where fear-setting comes in.
FEAR SETTING
A bit ago (think 2022, that counts as a bit, right?), I wrote about fear-setting on here.
Goals are brilliant, Tim Ferris (author, thinker) says. Resolutions? Fantastic.
But nothing happens with those goals and resolutions if you are too afraid to make the steps.
So, for his own life, Tim Ferris delves into those fears and explores them and determines the potential and the risk.
That’s what you need to do with your writing (and your life).
Ferris’s process is quite refined and quite simple. You can find them in Ferris’s own extended version. He also has a TedTalk about them.
But it begins like this:
“Define your nightmare, the absolute worst that could happen if you did what you are considering. What doubt, fears, and “what-ifs” pop up as you consider the big changes you can—or need—to make? Envision them in painstaking detail. Would it be the end of your life? What would be the permanent impact, if any, on a scale of 1–10? Are these things really permanent? How likely do you think it is that they would actually happen?
“Next, think about what you could do to fix it if that worst-case scenario happens. Write it down. Was it not quite as hard as your fear made you think it would be?
“Next what are the benefits, the potential, the outcomes in forever ways and transient ways of all those scenarios and possibilities? Would you be more confident? Happier? Would you have more money? Make a scale of 1-10 and rate those outcomes.”
Compressed those steps are just:
Define the worst
Would there be permanent impact? Rate that.
What can you do to fix that worst
What are the benefits of everything? Rate that.
He asks,
“What are you putting off out of fear? Usually, what we most fear doing is what we most need to do. That phone call, that conversation, whatever the action might be—it is fear of unknown outcomes that prevents us from doing what we need to do. Define the worst case, accept it, and do it. I’ll repeat something you might consider tattooing on your forehead: What we fear doing most is usually what we most need to do. As I have heard said, a person’s success in life can usually be measured by the number of uncomfortable conversations he or she is willing to have. Resolve to do one thing every day that you fear. I got into this habit by attempting to contact celebrities and famous business people for advice.
And how is this hurting you? By not doing something because of your fear how are you hurting yourself? Inaction also has a cost. It’s just a cost that seems easier because it doesn’t seem to rely on as much choice.”
Ferris has some fantastic slides from his TedTalk that relate to this, too.
A lot of us who write novels, talk about the big lie that dominates our main character’s life, the wrong belief that dictates and holds the character back.
Fear is our big lie in the story of our lives.
For years, I kept myself from making my own local newspaper. Why? I was afraid it would be a time drain (it is). I was afraid I wouldn’t find a way to make it financially sustainable (still haven’t). I was afraid nobody would read it (they do, thousands do).
Then, I did it. I just did it.
I feel like this—this worry, this fear—about every big thing that I do. But if I listened to it, I wouldn’t be writing this right now; I wouldn’t be a mom; I wouldn’t have gotten myself out of some super bad situations; I wouldn’t have gone to graduate school or college; I wouldn’t applied for jobs; I wouldn’t send in my books to agents.
All of us have our own big lie. We worry so much about what might go wrong that we are afraid to embrace what might go right. We live so much in our heads that we fail to live in our world. We allow the fear, the lie, to hold us down. Our fear is also a symptom of our lie.
And us humans (us writers especially), we need to be truth tellers not liars. We especially need to stop lying to ourselves. We’ve got this. You’ve got this.
SOME LINKS IF YOU’RE INTO THEM
What Worries You, Masters You
Ranganathan, Ramya. “Crafting Realities: Work, Happiness, and Meaning,” IIMBx, Indian Institute of Management Bangalore. 2023.
The Ferris Post About Fear-Setting