Returning to do what you love, what calls you

Last week I missed making the Mojo Monday video because of the very thing I’ve been talking about: procrastination and mind chatter. So this week I’m focusing on what it means to return to do that thing you want to do but are challenged to do – for whatever reason.

When I was a little girl I developed a bad habit of knocking my head into the wall repeatedly. I did it out of frustration; psychologists call it self-soothing. I eventually stopped (mom told me that I couldn’t go to slumber parties with my girlfriends unless I stopped), but I still have a zillion ways that I fight with the wall.

How do you fight the wall, or rather fight reality? Do you force it or just walk away and forget the whole thing? Or do you find a way to work with the reality you’re given?

A poem about showing up

The challenge of writing
Is to see your horribleness on page.
To see your terribleness
And then go to bed.

And wake up the next day,
And take that horribleness and that terribleness,
And refine it.
And make it not so terrible and not so horrible.
And then to go to bed again.

And come the next day,
And refine it a little bit more,
And make it not so bad.
And then to go to bed the next day.

And do it again,
And make it maybe average.
And then one more time,
If you’re lucky,
Maybe you get to good.

And if you’ve done that,
That’s a success.

by Ta-Nehesi Coates