Frustration is a common feeling for moms who want to launch or grow writing careers.
And something I’ve been reminded of over the past five months is that frustration can be transformed into productivity.
But only if you are patient and only if you are paying close attention to your own process.
People often think that productivity has to do with superb organization or planning ahead or goal setting.
But it doesn’t.
It has little to do with all of those things and everything to do with accepting frustration and channeling it to accomplish the single next most important thing that needs to be done right now.
I am sure it is not news to you if you are reading this blog that creative people have a tendency to feel frustrated. To spin their wheels. To surf the web too much. To have draining or distracting “friends.” And to pine for something that they think is going to be magically bestowed upon them rather than earned.
And that’s why frustration is our friend.
Frustration burns in you when you see someone else succeed at something you wish you had succeeded at.
Frustration burns in you when you wonder why you should have to start at the beginning and work your way up when everyone else seems to just have opportunities handed to them.
Frustration burns in you when you finally do accomplish a goal only to find that the satisfaction is short-lived.
Frustration is our friend because we would be complacent without it.
We might become overly involved in other people’s concerns to distract ourselves from pursuing our own dreams.
We might be deathly afraid of being “selfish” enough to pursue our dreams because blindly following the status quo has been ingrained in us instead of the alternative…expressing our authentic selves.
For me, helping a student channel her inherent creativity in a prosperous way means helping her turn her frustration into productivity. It is not an easy feat but it can be accomplished. (I’ve been doing it for ten years.)
And when it happens, I feel like a matchmaker.
Not the kind of match-maker who introduces a person to someone else. But the kind of match-maker who introduces a person to a part of herself that she may not have previously been using. Perhaps a part of herself that was dormant, ignored or even feared.
I’ll be working with a new-to-me group of writers in two classes beginning September 8th.
And I will be training groups of former students in my Dream Teams starting in August and running through December.
And I cannot wait.
Bring me your frustrations and I will teach you to put them to work.
