Embrace Your Boundaries
By Dan Blank | February 24, 2017 |
Today I want to talk about how having clear boundaries can HELP you gain momentum in three key areas:
- Your writing and creative work
- Publishing and sharing
- Engaging an audience
Boundaries are a gift to your creative work. Embrace your boundaries. Let’s dig in…
Why Boundaries Help
I’m sure you have very real boundaries. You may care for kids, have responsibilities to loved ones, work a day job, support an ailing family member, work through bouts of anxiety, and struggle to make ends meet. These challenges are real.
It’s easy to look at others and assume that they have the following things that you don’t have at the moment: money, resources, time, physical energy, mental space, confidence, and skills.
They don’t. These other people struggle with their own unique set of boundaries. It is helpful to remember that nearly all creative work is crafted this way: amidst limitations, lack of resources, and incredible amounts of pressure.
This photo is a good reminder:
The image was taken and shared by Amanda Palmer of her husband Neil Gaiman, and the caption reads: “Neil Gaiman writing down ideas for his new novel as 9,000 people exit the Nick Cave show in Sydney.”
Some may look at this photo and only see someone who is “privileged”: two famous people attending a concert in a beautiful city.
Let’s put this in context. Some of what Neil is dealing with right now:
- He has a young 1.5 year old son
- He has three older kids as well
- He had a book come out on February 7th
- He has another book coming out in April
- He is doing a speaking tour that begins in March
- His wife is in the process of recording her next album while also playing live shows herself
There is likely much more going on with him, such as public things around his creative work that I haven’t captured here. But there are also likely private things he is dealing with that we couldn’t possibly know about. Difficult situations, someone close to him dealing with a health crisis, navigating his own relationship, perhaps a business situation that isn’t going as expected, managing his own physical and mental health, and so much else.
Now let’s go back to that photo of him from above. Amidst all he is doing right now, all he is managing, he is out on a date with his wife. In the middle of that, as she waits for him, as people on both sides of the aisle stare at him and whisper, “OMG, that’s Neil Gaiman,” he writes.
It is easy to look at all he is doing and see them as achievements. But to him, they can feel like boundaries. He is creating amidst so much else in life that is screaming for his attention. Yet he writes.
Boundaries Help You Create
I want to share what I have experienced recently in allowing boundaries to be a part of my own creative work. How boundaries have helped the work, instead of hindering it.
After years of working with hundreds of writers & creative professionals, I’m publishing my first book on March 7th. It’s called: Be the Gateway: A Practical Guide to Sharing Your Creative Work and Engaging an Audience.
But before I wrote this book, I wrote another book, and that project failed. I never finished the book, never had it published. My expectations were so high, that every decision felt momentous. I wanted it to be traditionally published by a prominent publishing house. I did months of research, wrote 85,000 words, and kept setting my expectations higher and higher.
The project was crushed under its own weight. It was too convoluted, and I found that it killed the sense of momentum I had originally had.
Last year I decided to re-approach the idea of writing a book, but this time, I embraced boundaries as part of the process. I did that in two ways:
I made it small. Instead of trying to create the biggest book possible, I reversed it and focused on self-publishing a book that would be extremely helpful to others. The measure of the book is not if it makes a “splash,” for me, but rather if it truly helps someone who reads it. That changed the focus from feeling as though I needed to make the book as huge as I could, to being just focused on how effective it is for others. It allowed me to skip the process of identifying the “best” agent, the “best” publisher, and of the waiting process in between. All of my effort with the book was ensuring it helped those who read it.
I embraced a real-life “deadline” as framing for the book: the upcoming birth of my second child in April. This fueled a deep sense of momentum for me. By making the project smaller, I was able to:
- Develop a very focused timeline for the project.
- Develop a daily writing and editing habit.
- Clearly and quickly decide which partners to bring into the process. I couldn’t wait around for the perfect book designer. I couldn’t spend two years editing it. I couldn’t do 8 weeks of research on the best possible way to publish it. That baby is coming, and I had to make these decisions with that in mind.
These boundaries steered me away from all of the things that took me off track with a previous book I was working on.
By making it small and embracing a boundary, I gave the project a chance to actually live. As I developed this project, I found that I had become so obsessed with it, that I couldn’t possibly stop. What’s more, the book kept growing in scope and size. I tricked myself into making it bigger and better than I originally intended because I didn’t saddle it with such huge expectations.
Boundaries Help You Publish and Share
With the book coming out, there is an unending list of things I feel I could be doing to support it. I love independent bookstores, so I absolutely have to ensure this book launches within them, right? Well, no. The truth is, I don’t have time to do that and still get the book out before the baby arrives. I considered delaying the project because of this, but found that it became yet another excuse to not write and publish a book.
Here I am, a little over a week before the publication date, and there are a million things I could freak out about. Instead, I am concerned over a few key things, and ensuring I do them well enough.
Having a boundary has helped me be clear about what I can accomplish right now, instead of what I can’t. It has established more reasonable goals in the process, and has helped me focus on actually enjoying this process, instead of feeling overwhelmed and anxious that “I’m not doing it right.”
Boundaries Help You Reach An Audience
A constant I find with authors, is that they hope their book takes them “to the next level.” Where it becomes dangerous is when that becomes a REQUIREMENT. That, if your book doesn’t become a breakout hit, it translates to a catastrophic personal defeat. One that kills your momentum, diminishes your confidence, and distances you from the audience you who actually does love your work because you are mourning the fact that it isn’t bigger.
My advice: focus your goals. Consider the experiences you want others to have with your work. Identify a handful of ways you can truly connect to your ideal audience, then double down on them. Instead of collecting a list of 1,000 to-do’s, choose a few ways to reach your audience, and pursue them better than anyone else. Connect in ways that feel meaningful, that develop relationships with colleagues and readers, and that supports your writing career in the long term.
This is where I see so many get distracted. They feel they need to do every “best practice” they read about, and they get sidetracked with SEO, metadata, mobile friendly website design, and the newest feature that Instagram added to their platform. While each of these things is “important,” none of them should overshadow the connection you forge between your work and the reader.
For my book, knowing that my wife is due to have the baby in April has allowed me to consider a handful of meaningful ways to connect the book to readers, and to forgive myself for the 989 other ideas that I simply won’t have time to pursue.
Embrace Boundaries In Your Work
To embrace boundaries to fuel your work, I encourage you to:
- Name your boundaries. If you feel you have a barrier that is limiting you, write it down. Be clear about what it is. The goal here is to stop being inundated with an unending list of to-dos and stresses. When you name them, you can recognize them, honor them and begin to work with them. Too often, people move from one anxiety to another, never realizing that the moment they “fix” one, another will appear. Naming your boundaries is not about removing them, it is about confronting your ability to grow in spite of them.
- Be clear about your goals. When you know what you want to create and how you want it to affect others, that helps you to focus on practical ways to make it happen. Instead of “dreaming big,” how can you dream small? How can you ensure your goals are specific enough to be attainable, therefore fueling momentum instead of setting you up for disappointment?
- Negotiate with those who surround you. In the photo above, where Amanda lovingly shared a photo of her husband writing while they were on a date, clearly they have an agreement. She didn’t see this as an affront to their relationship, but rather as something she could empathize with and embrace. In your life, how can you negotiate with those around you to ensure there is room for you to pursue your creative work?
- Find partners to stay accountable to. When you work entirely on your own, it is easy to become overwhelmed, and put your creative work to the side. Instead of feeling you must go it alone, bring others into your process. People who support your work and can help you stay accountable to it.
- Create deadlines. Finishing and publishing your work is a key way to improve your skills. If you constantly delay your work with the justification that you are improving it, consider what you have to gain by sharing it with the world, and using what you learn on your next project.
Embracing your boundaries is not about being limited by them. It is about working with them to reach your potential.
How have you used boundaries to fuel your creative work?
Thanks.
-Dan
Dan Blank is the founder of WeGrowMedia, where he helps writers share their stories and connect with readers. He has helped hundreds of authors via online courses, events, consulting, and workshops, and worked with amazing publishing houses and organizations who support writers such as Random House, Workman Publishing, Abrams Books, Writers House, The Kenyon Review, Writer’s Digest, Library Journal, and many others.
Like every other writer out there, I feel my biggest boundary is time. Full-time day job, child, house, laundry, groceries, cooking, cleaning, etc. The way I have dealt with these limitations has not always been perfect, but I find that I can let a lot of things go when I’m in drafting mode–few home-cooked meals, nothing to wear, house a disaster (which makes me a little anxious about my son–I grew up in a spotless house, parented by non-creatives, and I wonder if his childhood memories will include a sink always full of dishes and a dining room table always covered with mail). Then I catch up on life once the daily grind of drafting is over.
As for the job, I’m currently strategizing about going freelance in the coming years to make my schedule even more flexible. Maybe by the time I’m forty it will work. Maybe forty-five. :)
I do find it helpful to remind myself of all the great writers who wrote while working another job. And I try to always be aware of the fact that I have a stable, supportive family and (so far) no enormous health crises to deal with day in and day out. That takes so much energy and I’m amazed by those who can write through it.
Erin,
THANK YOU for sharing this! Having a supportive family is amazing — so wonderful. I hear you about how difficult it is to manage all of this, and that there is no simple solution.
Happy to help assist (if I can) on any advice you need in transitioning to freelance. I started my company when I was 37, and I’m turning 44 next week. It was the best move I ever made, and happy to address any questions you may have about navigating this: dan@wegrowmedia.com
Thanks!
-Dan
Thank YOU, Dan. I’m 37 now. And I absolutely will be in touch in the future. Appreciate the invitation to mine your experience.
Make it smaller. Focus on what’s important. Do what is possible.
Hmm. Okay. I’m with you.
I’d add this: If writing isn’t the ball in the air at the moment, that’s okay. The kids need stuff in their lunchboxes. The retirement portfolio needs pruning. The heart needs to pump. It’s a blessing to have work on the desk.
Writing’s time will arrive and when it does, I make the most of it. Look at Neil. I’m a circus juggler but that man keeps three times as many balls in the air as me. But when it’s time to write, when the concert is over and there’s a few minutes while the audience clears, he’s at it.
Focused. Doing what is possible. Notebook and pen at hand. A spare minute is a minute to write. Grab those minutes when you get them after April, Dan. They’re precious few but they’re yours.
Looking forward to Be the Gateway. (Gateway drug?) Your wisdom shines, friend.
Thank you so much Benjamin!
This is one of your best, Dan. Perhaps because you use the baby’s pending arrival as your motivator to pare down, and the event works both literally for the content of your piece and metaphorically for your overall point to your readers.
Full disclosure–even 5 years retired from the day job (which I loved), I STILL have time boundaries that I need to learn to embrace while I write the second book (well, the fourth, counting the novels from my youth). Thanks for your help!
Wow — thank you so much Dikkon!
Well done – thank you! I do find that boundaries need to shift with other realities, but as long I keep the most significant one in mind (“I am a writer – I will find time to write”) I can journey on. Your discussion of boundaries in all areas of the journey is going in my file.
Thank you Carol!
Dan, Thank you for this excellent post. The boundary I use is to put my creative writing first. Literally. The first thing I do every morning is what I call a Writing Blast. I set a timer for one hour and write in my current fiction project until the timer howls like a coyote. My goal is 500 words and I usually get between 800 and 1,000. With that done, I can then move on to the other parts of my professional and personal life.
This boundary is actually very freeing for me.
Love that! Thank you Henry.
-Dan
Dan, thank you for re-framing this issue in a way that actually makes it empowering. It’s so easy to spiral into thinking “I’m the only one…” And congratulations on the new baby!! There is nothing more awesome than bringing new life into the world. Thanks for all you do!!
Thank you so much Susan!
-Dan
“….forgive myself for the 989 other ideas that I simply won’t have time to pursue.”
Yes. This.
My biggest obstacle is me. My self-created guilt.
Your post reminds me that sometimes the best way to move is to let go and fall.
Great post, Dan.
Dee Willson
Author of A Keeper’s Truth and GOT (Gift of Travel)
Thank you Dee!
-Dan
Thank you for this thought provoking article, Dan.
As someone with dyslexia, I find verbal communication challenging. The desire to communicate lead me to writing. The desire to share my truth keeps me writing.
Love that. Thank you so much!
-Dan
I think immediately of Tolkien, Dan, who was philologist, author, soldier, professor, husband . . . and so on. His boundaries rivaled any I know, yet he wrote as if there were no tomorrow. By viewing my own boundaries as you state Gaiman must have, as “achievements,” I have learned to identify and embrace them. Mostly, I’ve learned, any real ones do not exist externally, not time or lack or resources; rather, they’re fixations of a lazy mind. I’ve been cleaning out the cobwebs for some time now. Love this post! Congratulations to you and your lovely family on your April gift–and your upcoming book.
Thank you so much Mary!
I feel as if your article was written with a special cc to me….it is so meaningful right now. I look at hundreds of ways to publicize a book and know it’s impossible…I have endless ideas, but which ones to implement? I am indie publishing an out-of-print novel which was originally done by a major press… I will reread your article whose main message to me was “Boundaries…and calm down.” No one is a super hero. (We always think the other writer is the one doing it all, doing it right which drives me crazy.) And I ordered your book! Thank you so much, Dan! The most perfect article in the world for me today! (The republished novel – not yet listed anywhere – is “The Players: a novel of the young Shakespeare.” It was first published by W.W. Norton.)
Stephanie — wow — thank you! For the kind words, and of course, for ordering the book. I really appreciate that. Have a good weekend!
-Dan
Boy, did I need to read this now.
It seems that the closer we are to success, the more we need boundaries. When I was writing just to learn the craft, I seemed to have oodles of time to dive in and play. And frankly, I think I did my best work back then. Once I decided to publish a blog and build a writer’s platform and submit short stories and rewrite a novel and build a copywriting business, the more I struggled trying to find the time to do so. Not surprising.
But chores? Oh, yeah. I had plenty of time to do those.
A Twitter following of 150 fellow writers and book-lovers made for meaningful conversations. Now at 1600 followers, I’m overwhelmed. My heart rate speeds up. I get tense. I long for the days of 150 followers. I decided to open a separate Twitter account, to focus just on writing and reading. Now I’m following vegans and environmental organizations and anxiety-sufferers and…
My boundaries are stretched and sagging.
Small, I need to think small. Great advice.
Thank you Diane. It’s a journey all right! Have a good afternoon.
-Dan
I LOVE what you said about keeping focused on REALISTIC goals (or did I just add that adjective because that’s what I need to do?) Thanks for speaking to something we all can resonate with.
Thank you Carol!
I have fought and pushed and shoved against life most my life, laugh. And that’s what I’ve been doing with my “boundaries” now – when I was married, that second income allowed me to spend more time writing and less time having to make an income to pay the mortgage/bills/food.
So, instead of creating a new paradigm where I figure out when I can write, I fight and fight and fight against the boundaries until I’m so exhausted, I am immobilized.
It becomes a “won’t” instead of a “can’t,” really, when it all boils down to it!
Kat — thank you for sharing this! I think everyone has “fought” a boundary at some point in their life, and there are certainly times that is required. But somethings, it is exhausting, which is why I have been focused on honoring some boundaries as a way to channel my energy to positive places. Anyhow — THANK YOU!!!
-Dan
First, I look forward to your posts every Fri.! So much incite. What struck a cord with me with this week’s post was the “Name your boundaries.” The way I’m choosing to interpret this is “Don’t ignore the elephant in the room.” Instead of freaking out with all I have to do in addition to caring for my dog who just had ACL surgery, I plan to work around the care I need to do for my dog. My husband is notorious for saying to me/himself, “Once we’re done with Project/Burden X, we can relax, etc. This was a good reminder that there will always be a boundary and we just have to name it and confront it.
Thank you so much Natalie!!!
I’m starting to get more frequent requests for favors, i.e. to write reviews and blurbs for acquaintances. One of my boundaries is to limit reviews and blurbs to those books I care deeply about on a personal level and that reflect what I’m saying with my own writing. When and if my name appears on a book cover or review, my own readers will be able to say, “that sounds exactly like Dawn Downey.” So my writing energy is always channeled into expressing my writing voice, which is about personal experience, reflection, and introspection.
I like to do readings, I’m somewhat of a ham. Most of my sales come at personal appearances. So I’m tempted to grab every opportunity to perform at an open mike, or join others for a group reading. But those audiences are not MY readers, they came to the venue, but not to see me in particular. There’s no connection between them and me. I’ve imposed a boundary on myself—only do readings I set up myself, that are just me reading, where the audience has come to hear only ME, because they already connect with my work. This is scarier than group settings, but I’m channeling my energy toward people who already feel a connection with my work.
Thank you for sharing how YOU are working through this Dawn!
-Dan