For the last couple of months, this newsletter hasn’t had the time dedicated to it that I would have liked. I was busy and thought once I finish tasks x and y, I’ll have more opportunity to work on the newsletter. In February and March, the newsletter writing was definitely a rush job.
Fittingly, the topic that I want to cover this month is the struggle between product and process. Or another way of putting it might be the push to achieve something (the output or product or newsletter) versus enjoying the journey of getting there (the process of doing and creating).
In my rush to tick the box of having a newsletter ready to send, I stopped enjoying the process of creating it. I even felt that my inspiration was drying up whereas previously there was always a light bulb moment or a serendipitous encounter or something that helped the newsletter writing to just flow.
What changed this month was I read a short article from author Simone Stolzoff – read on for more…
Simone Stolzoff is an American author. His book “The Good Enough Job: Reclaiming Life from Work” will be released in the UK and Ireland next month. He also writes a newsletter, contributes to various publications, teaches an online course and speaks at conferences.
His book was released in the US about a year ago and Simo (rhymes with Nemo – as Simone introduces himself on his website) wrote an article about his disappointment in not making the New York Times Best Seller list.
He acknowledges himself the irony that his book is about separating self worth from work based achievements and yet he was invested in this ambitious goal.
Simo writes “The greatest risk of a goal-oriented life is that we remove ourselves from our present experience. If we are always striving to grab the next rung on the career ladder or to achieve the next life milestone, we can miss out on where we are today. Lasting fulfillment is the result of presence, not checking off boxes from some achievement rubric.”
He goes on to elaborate that process based goals (taking the daily actions and being in the moment rather than being obsessed about the outcome) are actually good for us, precisely because we never finish with them. Also, we can’t control outcomes like making the New York Times Best Sellers list but we can control our daily mindset and actions.
Simo’s article concludes with this advice, “Process oriented goals keep the focus on what you can control. Write most days, eat whole foods, move your body -they’re great precisely because they are never “reachable”.”
In Page Grossman’s do5ive February newsletter, she mentions seeing a TikTok video about how unsatisfying doing laundry is. Just as you get to the end of the dirty washing basket, more dirty clothes go in. She makes the point that we’ll never be satisfied if we focus on outcome oriented goals.
She offers the suggestion of replacing writing a to-do list that you might never get to the bottom of every day, with setting an intention of how you wish to feel throughout the day. This might help us be less focused on “doing” and better able to embrace just “being”.
Reading this helped me switch my thinking. I moved away from the box ticking approach of must create a newsletter to being open for inspiration to strike. I set my mindset to be one of listening and absorbing whilst I tried to move away from the frantic running out of time thoughts. Then I read Simo’s article and this newsletter clicked into place for me. It has been more enjoyable to write than previous months and I hope you like it too.
“I know plenty of people who have achieved incredible ambitious goals, only to keep pushing the goalposts further out. They spend their lives chasing carrots without ever feeling full.” Simone Stolzoff
“We humans were not meant to produce constantly. We were also meant to rest, restore, take-in and absorb.” Page Grossman
“When you fall in love with the process rather than the product, you don’t have to wait to give yourself permission to be happy. You can be satisfied anytime your system is running” James Clear
Sinead Huskisson 