Deprogramming Caution
By Jan O'Hara | April 17, 2017 |
Assuming you have a non-writing professional background, have you ever blamed it for those moments in the writing life when your courage deserts you?
If not, perhaps you should reconsider.*
The topic I want to noodle on today is one sparked by an online article I read some years ago and wish I could cite. (If you know the post I refer to, please leave me a comment so I can give the author credit!) Alas, all that remains with me is the core idea: that certain types of occupational training, especially training connected to professions like law and medicine, invite caution and steadiness, making it harder to enter the entrepreneurial mindset or take creative leaps.
This idea struck me forcefully at the time and felt deeply true. It also led to a number of discouraging thoughts. (I already struggle against introversion and a nature that defaults to reflection, rather than action. Now I’m to fight 21 years of super-reinforced training?)
Fortunately, it didn’t take long until I saw the counterbalancing argument—the side of hope. For if one can be trained into a state of over-caution, one can presumably be trained out of it. (More on how to deprogram yourself in a bit.)
First, is there any evidence to support this idea?
I’m not aware of any academic studies, so I put out a call on Facebook, asking if other careers had a system to formalize caution. Here are some of the replies:
From Priya Gill : In engineering we use “fail safe” positions so everything is designed such that if it fails it would go to the position of safety. So lights would turn off and systems shut down upon failure rather than staying on and put everything and everyone in danger.”
Terri Lynn Coop mentioned the voluntary oath she took upon graduating. In part, it contains this text: “I am an Engineer. In my profession I take deep pride. To it, I owe solemn obligations… As an Engineer, I pledge to practice integrity and fair dealing, tolerance and respect, and to uphold devotion to the standards and the dignity of my profession, conscious always that my skill carries with it the obligation to serve humanity by making the best use of Earth’s precious wealth.”
D.A. Winsor, an academician by day and writer by night, provided an example of the ethical considerations which go into any kind of academic research. One quote: “The design of the research should be such that all risks are minimized as much as possible, and that any remaining risks are clearly identified to participants so that they may make an informed choice about whether or not to participate…”
And then of course there’s my own contribution. Medicine. A land of high-level contradictions and the Mother of All Risk-Avoidant Professions.
Consider that, to become a doctor, you must adopt:
- a suitable wardrobe, including standardized uniforms and equipment to signify your level of education.
- medical language
- best practices, which can be ritualized to the point they resemble a choreographed dance (eg. How to scrub for OR, how to run a code.)
- illegible handwriting
- most of all, a mindset about risk in a landscape that is oriented to highlighting pathology and danger, rather than strengths.
I know of no better example than First Do No Harm.
Think about that principle for a second. First Do No Harm. When a doctor weighs the potential risks and benefits of a treatment, if he/she can’t be assured of a positive outcome, even in the face of suffering, they are expected to default to inaction.
Further, the courts and governing bodies are not especially kind to medical innovators, or those who would make intuitive leaps and provide off-label treatments.
A Brief Disclaimer
Please note, I’m not trying to say that writing and entrepreneurship require a manic commitment to incaution. But people who write about Resistance, like Seth Godin or Stephen Pressfield, often advocate for a ready-fire-aim worldview, whereas in medicine, the approach might be described as ready-research-aim-consult-aim-aim-fire.
In writing, what might this learned caution look like?
- You hold back on the page—you don’t go there when there is what excites you, and might set your work apart.
- When told your protagonist might alienate readers because of a certain quality, you smooth out their unlikeable edges rather than unearth another trait which would render them compelling and memorable, if controversial.
- You don’t seize an opportunity to connect and collaborate when you yearn to do just that.
- Your work never manages to get completed/ sent/ published/ critiqued for reasons you know in your heart could be swept aside.
- In general, you are reluctant to dance on the razor’s edge.
Potential Remedies Against Institutionalized Risk-avoidance
Over the years, in trying to find my way forward, I’ve tried all of the following. Like most people, my subconscious is a snarled-spaghetti mess of unacknowledged limiting beliefs, and it can be hard to pinpoint which particular effort has been most helpful in untangling a strand, especially since I’m usually working my way through multiple approaches at once. Having said that, here they are in the perceived order of ascending helpfulness.
Awareness: When I’m dithering over an objectively low-risk activity, sometimes it’s enough to notice and remind myself to switch hats. I’m in a new world now, and different rules apply.
Read entrepreneurial wisdom literature (blogs, books) or listen to podcasts: A minor caution on this. For some of us, this is our comfort zone, and a way to stay on the study track forever.
Participate in an action-oriented group: Dr. Doug Lisle, one of the smartest psychologists in the world, said the following on a webinar about maintaining a healthy weight: “The number one thing is to get the environment right. You should stop trying to be a better person and put your efforts into cleaning up the environment.”
Welp, the people around you are a significant part of your environment.
I’ve now participated in several action-oriented writing groups, where getting sales links and ordering cover art and deciding on writing topics with actual deadlines is just par for the course. In fact I owe all my publishing credits to said groups. (Hello, Writer Unboxed team. Hello, Thurston Hotel writing cooperative. Hello upcoming Tropical Tryst box set planned for August.) It’s impossible to be immersed in that kind of setting, long-term, without learning to embrace scary things with increasing casualness.
Mentorship (aka Crawl Inside a Brave Person’s Brain): IF you are lucky enough to know an experienced writer who demonstrates a thoughtful, steady, prolific work pattern of high standard, and IF they are open to sharing their approach and thinking pattern with you, do what you can to crawl around inside their brain. Roll in it. Revel in it. Try their thoughts on like the sexy La Perla negligee you’ve been eyeing for a while. Buy them flowers and coffee and be unstinting in your gratitude to make up for the invasion, because it’s an incredible form of experiential learning.
I recently did this by accident when I took Dan Blank’s Mastermind class. I thought I was signing up for moderated peer pressure around writing commitments, and I was, but I got so much more.
Dan was in the habit of taping a morning message—a video of 4-12 minutes giving his thoughts on the entrepreneurial challenges faced by we students. Failing that, he shared his thinking process about his own work, including the release of his first book Be the Gateway.
At ~90 days of ongoing exposure, that’s ~11 hours of ongoing exposure to an unfailingly cheerful, forward-moving person. Granular exposure to an approach which makes the feeling you’re dancing on the knife’s edge just a normal and natural outgrowth of running a business. (Leading to Jan’s new acronym for the writing life, WWDBD?)
Open posture. Technically not an example of manspreading, because he’s not on public transit.
Finally, whenever you can, to whatever degree you can, take action: Studies show that an open posture, like the manspreading one, increases the poser’s confidence. Holding a pencil in your teeth, thus inadvertently being forced to use your smile muscles, will raise your mood without any other intervention. In other words, don’t wait for boldness to arise, but act boldly and wait for the feelings to catch up.
Because science says they will, as does this one writer’s fading timidity.
Now over to you, Unboxeders. Do you believe courage arrives like a thunderclap, or can you work your way into it, like a deadlift? Are you conscious of your non-writing training holding you back? If so, what’s your best method for counter-programming?
*An illustration about how the medical mindset impacts my writing: I’m presently acting as one parent’s advocate as they work through a series of health crises. My effectiveness in this role relies entirely on my ability to understand what my parent needs, then couch it in terms the healthcare providers understand, and vice versa. To be blunt, I’m pretty good in this role. But after spending as little as an hour on “bridgework,” I can feel an internal reorientation when I sit down to write. I’m hesitant, less quick to seize on fun possibilities. Even my word choice is different. (More clinical, a more detached POV as you might have noticed in this post.) All this change after one hour’s work, yet it’s been more than a decade since I had cause to write a single order…
[coffee]
A USA Today bestselling author, former family physician and academic, Jan O’Hara (she/her) left the world of medicine behind to follow her dreams of becoming a writer. She writes love stories that zoom from wackadoodle to heartfelt in six seconds flat: (Opposite of Frozen; Cold and Hottie; Desperate Times, Desperate Pleasures). Her latest Christmas novella, The Cowboy’s Comeback Christmas, is part of a 9-author-strong anthology (A Cowboy This Christmas: A Sweet Romance Anthology). She also contributed to Author in Progress, a Writer’s Digest Book edited by Therese Walsh.
In composing a plot the antidote to caution is easy. Instead of “do no harm”, the principle to bring to bear on the story’s impact on a protagonist is this:
Do harm.
On the other hand, the ethical standards and best practices of doctors, engineers and research scientists are rooted in a spirit of service. The codes of our professions call us to abide by high principles.
High principles can be infused in our protagonists. When they are, we bond with them. The “cautious” side of our nature has its uses, then.
Thus, when thinking plot I’m for harming. When thinking about characters I’m for principles and change. Caution versus recklessness. Maybe both have their place?
“Thus, when thinking plot I’m for harming. When thinking about characters I’m for principles and change.”
Nicely said, Benjamin!
I’d add that there’s another mental contortion which might appeal to folks like me: consider the Do Harm principle to be an act of service. This is easier to do, methinks, if one understands and agrees with their fiction’s thematic message.
Jan, I totally get this “cautious” handicap. I have a Ph.D. in nutrition and have spent the bulk of my career, reading, analyzing and reporting on research articles. Were there controls in place? How many subjects were studied? Did they take appropriate measures to assess the effects? Are there inclusion and exclusion criteria?
Not exactly the stuff of writing compelling fiction. Throwing caution to the wind is the polar opposite of what I’ve been doing for more years than I care to count. And, because I’m still working full-time, I have to switch back and forth from being uber cautious, to ignoring those little voices in my head telling me to be careful, not to go too far without “proof.” It requires the creation of new synapses firing at sustained speed in the creative corner of my brain. Sometimes it works; sometimes not.
Anyway, thanks for this.
Sounds like you exactly understand the paradigm shift, Densie. You’ve heard that advice to write drunk and edit sober? It’s almost like our neurons have been wired to make the drunk part feel foreign.
But I think you’re right. With practice, it should be perfectly possible to wear some other grooves.
Do you have a technique to switch hats? I do better if I move to write by hand on an old desk in my basement. But I’m going to work on creating more of a ritual to signal a shift.
In today’s PC environment writers are constantly bombarded with messages about what to avoid.
I’m not even going to get into it because I don’t want to get a debate started, and it will. I’m tired of it. Ernest Hemingway would not have fared well.
I’m currently writing a Civil War novel about a young woman who becomes a spy. Oh, that’s cool. For the Confederacy. OMG, how could you! I had one critiquer say, I really want to like this character. She’s awesome, but she’s on the wrong side of the fence.
I decided I’ll be true to the story and let the chips fall.
Julie, in the current political climate, that sounds like a book with the potential to do a lot of good. It’s important we don’t see people as caricatures, particularly if they’re on the opposite side of the political spectrum. Empathy invites forgiveness, insight, and healing, IMHO.
I’m glad you’re continuing on.
Also? It could be argued that the world is ready for fiction featuring morally ambiguous people. eg. Walter White
I fight this every single day. Not only do I believe you can work your way into courage, I believe you have to. I often tell my kids, “Courage is like a muscle. It only gets stronger if you use it.”
My favorite secret weapon is music. There are certain songs I listen to when I sit down to write, or any other time I need to fight my risk aversion. Nothing helps me adjust my worldview faster.
My kids use music the same way. They each have their own particular playlist they listen to before they go on stage for a performance or before a competition.
Laura, I love the idea of a pre-writing playlist. You’ve probably read about Michael Phelps and how he listens to music right up until performance time?
You’re such a smart mom.
Thank you for the prod. I’m going to get conscious about this instead of always putting it off for One Day.
What you’re really saying, I think, is we need to take to heart that little, 3-word admonition, “Seize the day.” At 70 years, and with most of the sand shifted to the bottom of the hourglass, that has become much easier for me. But, for those of you who don’t want to wait until time is running out, here’s a great song that paints some pictures of this seizing. The title is, what else, Seize the Day, by Carolyn Arends: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kB0oPgCexh0
Harry–nice to meet you–I’ve loved that song since I first heard it years ago. Thank you for reminding me of it! I’ve obviously found one song for my playlist-under-construction.
You’re right in that there’s nothing like the sense of a deadline to get things rolling, too. An awareness of my mortality was actually what pushed me to start writing again after a gap of many years.
Jan,
You mad me laugh today (And knowing the rest of the story, you know how good that is).
I smiled to see me quoted (ha! I have arrived, or maybe arriving or maybe have taken the first step or maybe need to take the first step – my cautious side coming out???)
Then there is the little nugget about part of medical training is that you need to be illegible 😂😂😂. So true to the point that if I ever see a doc’s handwriting that I can actually read, I suspect it must be fake 🤦♂️.
Now to the part of overcoming our risk aversion. With these certain professions also comes a spirit of competitiveness (I think). To get to these professions, we have spent a lifetime of getting/ paying attention to grades and striving to be better than many academically. So that is what has worked for me even though it happened by accident once I decided to tell my non-writer friends that I was writing a book. In a few months here and there a friend asks me how my book is coming along and do I have a publication date. That’s embarrassing right? So I have to finish and more important hit send. But the bigger motivator was a few of those, not so good friends who asked me – how is that book that you have been writing forever coming along? Or oh that book that you have been working on forever, will it ever get published? Or the worst one – I don’t think you can ever finish that book (yup someone told me that to my face – and he thought he was being funny) . So after a going through embarrassment, hurt and even fury, I realized that instead of reworking my book one more last time, it was time to take a leap of faith and hit send. I tried a few twitter pitch contests and have had moderate success. Now I am forced to take the next step.
But the moral of the story for me is that we have in us something that counters our risk averseness and maybe if we channeled that, we could actually make the leap.
Priya, I’m delighted if I made you laugh!
Competitiveness is an excellent trait to harness when fighting fear. (I’m very competitive, too.) Thanks for the excellent reminder.
And I’m glad you’re getting out there, mostly because from what I know of you, you were ready for this step even before the non-writer friends started the trash talk. I’m hoping for good things for you, on all fronts.
to the point about characters who have unlikeable qualities or do unpopular things, I have a character in my second book who was in an abusive marriage (and an affair). one of my beta readers complained that she would not have kept going back to the [verbally] passive / aggressive abusive husband. a) yes she would. it’s classic victim mentality and behaviour; and b) i needed it for the plot of the whole story, lest the entire series stall out!
i did not change the poor woman’s behaviour, in fact, i killed the poor darling, and yes, [indirectly] at the hand of her husband
Robin, I’ve encountered that in critique groups, where the the reader conflates what the story requires with their wish for the character to extract themselves from an unsavory situation. (It can be a sign that you’ve created a lot of tension, and they want it resolved.)
Sounds like you’ve already made your authorial decision. If you haven’t read it already, you might have a peek at Girl on the Train.
Good luck with the book!
Interesting post, Jan, and something I hadn’t considered so thanks for this.
Caution, what’s caution? Even with a law background (conveyancing paralegal), I’ve never been cautious, never taken the easy route. The greater the challenge, the better I liked it, which got around the office. The senior partner took to calling me at all hours to tell me he’d just made a deal to buy an apartment block or a gas station or whatever and I was to start on it pronto and get it completed fast. Oh, and by the way, there was this problem and that problem. I loved it. The worse it was, the more exciting I found it. I also married a man to whom caution means nothing. He runs a business in a dangerous field and owns and drives a race car.
But I didn’t get away unscathed. My problem? Self-imposed deadlines, and that relates directly back to law. In conveyancing, property purchases have to be conducted on strict time schedules. They have to be inspected by a specific date, have appraisals completed by a specific date, have purchase conditions lifted by a specific date, be financed by a specific date, have funds in trust by a specific date and close on a specific date. No exceptions. It’s all about deadlines.
And that carried into my writing. I wouldn’t give myself the needed luxury of taking my time during the creative process. I always had this wretch behind me with a stick, poking it into my back and saying “get moving, get moving”. I’m better balanced now but it took time to sort out.
Interesting, Linnea! You sound like you’ve found the legal equivalent of working the ER, or on a trauma unit. I can see how that would lend itself to fast-paced fiction with high drama, while at the same time, it could be hard to slow down for the detail work.
When I worked as an RN, caution abounded. (And my handwriting had to be good!) As an English teacher at the secondary level, I felt free and loved commanding the attention of my students as we discussed what the story meant, how it changed or didn’t change their way of thinking. As a writer (now my main event) I’m freed up. If I am cautious, it is only to rewrite, to not be satisfied with the first thing that comes on the page. I don’t have time to be afraid. Some days I think I’ve conquered hesitation, other days not. Accomplished writers will remind us–we write–and then we go back and read and delete. And write again. The plasticity of what we do must throw caution away. Great post.
Beth, I love that you’re feeling comparatively freed-up.
Did you work as a teacher after nursing? If yes, do you feel that might have had a part in “decautioning” you?
I’m a “measure twice, cut once” kind of person. Well, actually measure four or five times. I’ve still made plenty of mistakes. I think the worst was in my engineering days accidentally taking down an entire global network. At least I got it back up pretty quickly.
As a parent, I drove my kids crazy and some of my friends to laughter with my level of caution. Having a vivid imagination was not an asset when thinking of potential accidents. It didn’t help that one son was the opposite of cautious & had a collection of ER bracelets to prove it (once getting three in one day). My revenge is that he’s a doctor now.
I don’t feel the same level of risk in my writing. So what if someone doesn’t like what I write? Someone else will. So what if I try something and can’t make it work? That’s what the Orphans file is for.
My artist friend Jill Watts taught me long ago to bring a playful spirit to my writing. I’m inspired by her willingness to try new techniques and experiment with new materials to give her ideas form.
I’ve also found that taking up some new activity every so often helps me build my courage, get over my aversion to change, and let go of the need for perfection. I looked pretty ridiculous when I first got on the ice, for example, and spent a lot of time muttering “Don’t be such a chicken” to myself, but now I can skate forwards and backwards and even do a waltz jump.
Wow, Barbara, lots to chew on here. For one thing, I don’t think I knew you had an engineering background. (Oops on the global network, though I’m sure it makes a good story at parties.)
Re a vivid imagination: Interesting how the very asset that can help you write creative stories could have the potential of holding you back if put to imagining publishing difficulties. Wisely, you have correctly put them in perspective as never approaching publishing catastrophes. ;)
Play is enormously helpful, as is another creative non-writing pursuit. Thanks for the suggestions!
And how fortunate that you have a friend to emulate.
PS: I thought to add that Zumba is helpful to me because of the music, the oxygen, that I’m doing something good for myself and the sheer fun.
Jan, I just have to say how much I loved this: “The number one thing is to get the environment right. You should stop trying to be a better person and put your efforts into cleaning up the environment. Welp, the people around you are a significant part of your environment.”
So glad I found an environment like WU, which pushes me all the time to get out of my comfort zone and take some chances.
Liz, I share in your gratitude for this community! (Speaking of which, thanks for helping with this piece.)
Dr. Lisle has a way of distilling complex ideas into truthful, reassuring, and simple punchlines. A brilliant man.
What was the question? Oh, wait. There was more than one. The technique to get out of the non-writing life is simple: Understand that everything is at some point, writing.
Some writing is more prescient than other(s).
Grammatically, the above may need some work, however, it’s a blog post comment, right?