image courtesy of viZZZual.com

Are the newest plants in your garden of New Year’s resolutions already wilting due to neglect? Or have you simply given up on making resolutions because you know they just lead to frustration and self-recrimination?

What if your whole underlying assumption is wrong?

What if it’s not willpower you lack, but clarity?

You know you need to clarify your priorities and let some stuff go. (Ouch!) But how?

Guess what? Your intuition knows. And it can tell you in just 5 minutes.

A fun 5-minute exercise to set your priorities for the new year.

Enter The ImageCenter, a simple, online tool that bypasses the analytical “thinky-brain” and taps directly into your whole-brain wisdom.

“I really liked using the ImageCenter, because I actually saw what my subconscious needs. The combination of seeing the images and hearing your thoughts about them gave me the ‘extra something special’ that provided just what I needed to finally start moving toward the changes I’ve been trying to make.”

Jenny Ryan
www.CrankyFibroGirl.com

During your session, you’ll be presented with a series of evocative images and an online virtual desktop to arrange them. You choose a question you want to answer (don’t worry, I’ll give you plenty of examples), and In an enjoyable 5-minute session that feels like playtime, you arrange the images you want to use into a very personal collage that answers your question.

The 5-minute time period ensures that you don’t overthink things—you jump straight to your subconscious, intuitive mind. Past ImageCenter sessions have been described as “remarkably insightful,” “amazing,” and “almost like magic.”

Within 72 hours, I’ll review your images and respond with feedback. You might be surprised to learn how much the images you choose and the way you place them can reveal about the answers to the question you asked yourself, and also the ways in which you best process information (a very useful thing to know).

Harness the inspiration of the new year and reserve your ImageCenter session today!

ImageCenter sessions are easy, fun, and convenient because everything is done online. No need to schedule a phone session and deal with the hassle of time zones, dropped calls, etc.…you do your session whenever you’d like, and I will get back to you quickly with my feedback.

All of my past clients who have used ImageCenter (and many others!) have been amazed at how much information and clarity they’ve received from a 5-minute session with the image deck. They rave about how much fun it is, and how they’ve gained valuable new insights about themselves, how they think, and what they value.

The details.

A New Year’s Clarity Session costs $69, and can be booked any time through January 31, 2012. Your session can be used any time once purchased. However, I highly recommend using yours within a week or so to get the most benefit from it, because we all know what happens to the stuff just sitting there in our inboxes. That’s right—nothing.

Book your session by clicking on the “buy now” button below. You’ll be taken to a Paypal checkout page (you don’t need a Paypal account yourself—any major credit card will do).

Within 10 minutes you should receive a confirmation email with a link to The ImageCenter and further instructions. (If it doesn’t show up right away, give it some extra time in case the server is having a slow day, and also check your spam box.)

If at any point you experience problems or you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact me at michelle@PracticeMakesImperfect.com, and I’ll get back to you as quickly as I can.

Here’s to reaching your most important goals in 2012!

I sit in the early November sunshine in Justin Herman Plaza where, just past the usual Friday arts and crafts fair, I can see the mushroom clusters of Occupy San Francisco tents.

While the big stuff locally has been happening across the Bay in Oakland, these folks have been quietly (well, mostly) camping out here for days. I’ve heard several viewpoints on the worldwide Occupy movement, and I’m still wrestling with how I feel about it.

Because there aren’t just two sides—there are multiple sides.

Just like San Francisco, which I love for its colorful variety. In fact, where I sit now is like a microcosm of a much larger picture.

The artisans in front of me are trying to earn some cash through their crafts, while behind me a homeless man sleeps on the grass, soaking up the free sunshine. The working rich, the working poor and the working in-betweens crisscross the street in front of me in their high heels, sensible working shoes, old jalopies, and fancy cars.

Tourists from everywhere gawk at the Ferry Building and stroll along the Embarcadero while a couple of giggling schoolgirls with oversized backpacks walk by. A city worker rolls past on his cement-sweeper. No clue whether this is his regular shift or if he’s pulling extra duty cleaning up after the Occupiers.

Ethnically, culturally, economically, ideologically—San Francisco is about as diverse as it gets. That’s part of why I love it so much.

And why I’ve been having trouble with the whole “99% vs. 1%” thing.

99% vs. 1% sets up a false dichotomy.

Who decides who is in which group? The extreme ends of the spectrum are clear to all of us, but I bet there are dozens of protestors out here who would consider many of the passers-by to be in the 1%, while those very people think of themselves as part of the 99%.

It’s all relative.

There aren’t two groups—there are billions of unique human beings. Each with his or her own story, each doing the best they can within the circumstances in which they find themselves.

We’re all on this planet at this time together, working things out day by day. And regardless of our circumstances, no one wants to feel taken advantage of. No one wants to be marginalized, alienated, or singled out by accusations.

We are all the 100%.

The homeless man woke up and is now stretching. It looks a lot like yoga—similar to what the woman with the mat strapped to her gym bag might have just been doing on her lunch break.

I’m on my lunch break, too. I work in one of these high-rises, but it would be easy to take me for one of the activists, with my casual-day blue jeans, t-shirt, ethnic handbag and bandana in my hair.

It’s tempting, but usually inaccurate, to judge by appearance—or salary—alone.

Maybe that woman in the expensively tailored suit and leather handbag makes a 6- or 7-figure salary…but spends a third of it on healthcare for her aged and very ill parents. Or donates handsomely to one of the local animal shelters. Or works in a soup kitchen every weekend.

And maybe that guy to whom she just served a bowl of canned spaghetti and meatballs is on the street because he’s mentally ill. Or has been alone since his wife died and comes here as much for the companionship as for the free food. Or maybe he was working in the building right next to hers until the bank foreclosed on his home, his wife divorced him, and he became suicidally depressed for a while.

The point is, we never know.

We never know what someone else is struggling with until we ask them.

This involves deep listening, empathy, and a willingness to give space to viewpoints we might not share for the sake of understanding them better.

The issues here are complex and tangled. I’m not for the Occupy protests, and I’m not against them. I am thinking about the multiplicity of issues they raise.

Most of all, I’m engaged in the social conversation about what’s going on, because I think it’s hugely important. I’d like to think we’re on the cusp of some kind of turning point for the better.

What do you think?

Oh, and if you like the image at the top of this post, I just opened up a brand-new CafePress store so that I could print it on something wearable for myself. If you’d like to join me in displaying this sentiment, please visit my new store on CafePress! 50% of all profits will be donated to Habitat for Humanity International, so you won’t just be wearing the words–you’ll be acting on them, too.

Molly Gordon’s blog post yesterday, entitled “Wild Abandon, Perfectionism, and the Dance of Business,” brings up a very interesting distinction I’d never considered before.

In it, she quotes a colleague of hers named Alice Brock (who is apparently working on her web presence—Molly promises to pass along a link to her when it’s time). Alice says that many people “suffer from something that appears to be perfectionism. However, often it is not perfectionism, but ‘visionism’ that they suffer from.”

Perfectionism or visionism?

So what’s the difference between the two? I encourage you to click on the link above and read Molly’s entire post, but in a nutshell, she says that they are “different frames for the experience or fear of falling short.”

Perfectionism has a feeling of tightness and anxiety about it. You rush or procrastinate or otherwise agonize over getting a task or project 100% right because your very identity is at stake here! (Okay, slight exaggeration there. Maybe.)

Visionism, on the other hand, creates a sense of frustration because you’re not able to translate the faultless pictures in your head into the physical world without some sort of compromise.

Plans, meet reality. Sorry, but it’s never going to be as perfect as you imagined it.

Or if you’re a Star Trek fan, you could say it’s like having a faulty holodeck.

It can be a subtle distinction.

I used the fine arts as a metaphor in a recent blog post, so let’s extend that . . . only this time let’s use music. (Don’t you agree that music is one of the finest arts there is?)

Okay, let’s say you can envision . . . umm, enhearen? . . . a piece of music in your mind. There’s a clear melody line, and maybe some harmonies, and a strong rhythm holding it all together. It’s all there in your head—it’s perfect! All you know how to do, though, musically speaking, is plunk out “Chopsticks” on the piano.

But this music is so compelling that you feel driven to externalize and share it. So you take up an instrument and start practicing, and you assemble whatever group of musicians you need to play the other parts. But you can’t translate the fullness and precision of what you hear internally to the external world.

Maybe it’s because it’s just not humanly possible to play a guitar solo as fast as you imagine it. Maybe you’re trying to explain the mood of the piece to the other members of your string quartet, but they’re just not getting the feeling right. Maybe you just don’t know how to write out musical notation. Whatever it is, you’re frustrated.

Ask yourself who and what you’re blaming.

If your internal voice is directing anger and blame at yourself, it’s probably perfectionism doing the talking. “Who was I to think I could learn to write music? I’ll never be good enough to explain or play what I hear in my head!”

If your inner dialogue sounds more wistful, or angry about external things, it’s likely to be visionism’s voice. “No, that’s just not right somehow!” Or, “I need another whole octave on the keyboard!” Or, “If only I could just think into a machine and have it reproduce the sounds . . .”

Perfectionism and visionism can overlap. You can be feeling both simultaneously. But I think it’s still a useful distinction to make, because then you can pick apart the threads in any given situation and figure out what’s happening.

So what’s the takeaway?

This whole concept is about three hours old for me, so I’m only just starting to think about it. But it seems to me that in perfectionism, you judge and blame yourself. In visionism, you’re frustrated about what gets lost (or might get lost) in translation.

There are many ways of dealing with perfectionism, but for me they all come down to a certain kind of self-talk in which you remind yourself, “I’m only human.”

Visionism, it seems, requires the kind of self-talk in which you remind yourself the world is (*cough*) only human.

At least until they fix our holodecks.

Hey there.

I never intended to take such a long break from blogging. And no, that’s not an apology–just a statement of fact.

I’ve been doing a lot of work “under the hood,” so to speak. I wanted, as any card-carrying (recovering) perfectionist does, to wait until everything was shiny and complete and in its proper place, and only then pull back the curtain to show you everything I’m up to.

But one benefit of being a recovering perfectionist is that it’s taking me less and less time to realize the futility of this pattern every time it shows up. So here I am again, unready and imperfect and writing. ‘Nuff said.

Now, here’s an extended metaphor for you. You’ve heard the one that says “life is art,” right? Well, for the sake of making a point, let’s equate life with the fine arts for a moment. Drawing, painting, sculpting–that sort of thing.

(Yes, I have problems with the term “fine arts,” too. It implies other types of art aren’t fine. Or maybe aren’t even art. That’s a whole other subject. For today, please just stick with me for the sake of the analogy.)

What is, arguably, the most basic and important skill in the fine arts?

Line drawing.

If you’re drawing, that’s what the art is, full stop. The lines you create are the artwork.

If you’re painting, you’ll probably sketch at least some basic lines, to block out the main areas of your canvas.

If you’re sculpting or working in three dimensions in some other way, it’s also likely you’ll do some two-dimensional sketching first, just to rough out your idea.

Now what is, arguably, the most basic and important skill in living your life as art?

Line drawing.

Life needs boundaries to exist.

You are more than just a body, but you need that body to get around the world and effect change. Until the human species evolves a whole lot further, your body is a very necessary physical boundary.

A river without banks becomes a thin wash of water flooding across the land. No direction, no power, no focus.

A reservoir can hold that precious water, containing it in one place so that it’s available when we truly need it most.

It’s easy to feel hemmed in, restricted, by the lines of our lives. We often forget how much these restrictions can empower us.
Containers empower us.

Lines empower us.

They empower us by concentrating and channeling us. Like the reservoir. And the river.

One problem of modern-day life, as I see it, is that we don’t draw enough lines around our lives. We spread ourselves much too thin, and our power and focus dissipate, allowing us much less impact than we could otherwise have.

Another problem is how we tend to want to overfill our containers. So much stuff. So many commitments. So much we think we need to be and have and do.

What if we were to sketch out a few lines in the works-in-progress of our lives and say, “There, that’s enough for now”? To draw some lines in the sand and take a stand for the integrity of our boundaries?

A clearly delineated path takes away other options and directs our steps toward our goals.

A full container feels full no matter how small it is.

Just some things to think about.

I’m so pleased that Karen Caterson of Square Peg Reflections has asked me to be part of her Support Stories ~ Strength from Within blog round-robin today. That’s why just for this week, I’m publishing my first post on Monday rather than Tuesday.

This is a story from a few years back, about a time when I gave myself the inner support I needed even when it was kind of scary to do so. I went against the grain of how I’d done things up to that point, explored parts of myself that were clinging to old blueprints, and gave myself something I sorely needed—rest.

As I believe I’ve mentioned (heh), I have always been what I call an “overachiever and people-pleaser.” After a lifetime of trying to be the perfect daughter, student, and friend, it was only natural that once I entered the work force, I assumed I had to try to be the perfect employee.

I thought I had to be on the ball all the time. Ready to do whatever I was asked, no matter how inappropriate or unrealistic.

I thought that I always had to appear 100% enthusiastic and competent no matter what.

Something else I have—a neurological disorder known as Selective Sound Sensitivity Syndrome, or “4S.”

I’ve had it for most of my life, and over the years it’s gotten worse, not better. It would take several more posts to describe the many things I’ve tried to eliminate or at least reduce the symptoms, and how I’ve gotten over the shame of thinking that having it was somehow my fault, and that I was quietly going crazy. What has gotten a lot better is that I no longer feel ashamed of having 4S.

However. (Sigh.) At my day job, I’m reduced to getting through the days by wearing earplugs almost all the time, covered by huge Bose noise-reduction headphones (the best $300 investment I’ve ever made), plugged into an mp3 player running a constant loop of white noise or nature sounds.

I don’t exactly relish walking around our professional services firm looking like an airplane pilot, and I’m sure there are people who just think I’m plain weird, but you know what?

I’ve now chosen my sanity over their approval.

Which in itself is a big step up for me.

Still, you can imagine how being in fight-or-flight mode pretty much 24/7/365 for the last 30 years has worn away at my reserves. On top of the normal stresses of day-to-day life, plus the ones I’ve always placed on myself for being such a perfectionistic, the 4S means that my ability to cope with any kind of stress, internal or external, has been severely compromised.

So a few years ago, I did something I previously would never have even considered as a possibility.

I went on medical disability for a couple of months.

I decided to believe my psychiatrist and therapist when they told me that yes, I really and truly was suffering from the long-term effects of something resembling post-traumatic stress disorder—except that there was nothing “post” about mine. I listened but didn’t give any credence to the part of me that said I was “sponging off the system” and being selfish.

And guess what? The world did not end, and my company survived just fine without me.

For myself, I was able to erase enough of my internal blueprint specifying that my firm’s work was more important than my self-care to actually take the medical leave. Then, over those 9 weeks, I allowed myself to do several wonderful-for-me things without feeling guilty about any of them.

I spent the first three weeks catching up on my sleep deficit, often sleeping 10-12 hours a night, until my body informed me it was all caught up by spontaneously and regularly awakening me at my normal time again.

I spent tons of time just reading, reading, reading. Anything I wanted. Fiction, non-fiction, and occasionally, when I felt up to it, something that taught me a little more about how the brain and nervous system work.

I made a list of all the movies I’ve been wanting to see for ages, joined Netflix for those couple of months, and watched almost all of them.

I walked. Simply walked. Nothing more strenuous—I didn’t think of it as “working out” or “exercising” (ack!), but as just being outside, getting my muscles moving, my blood flowing, and my head clear.

I wrote for hours and hours on end. About myself, my memories, my long-standing patterns, my goals and dreams.

I gave myself permission to remove the world’s weight from my shoulders for a while.

I knew that going back to work would be difficult, and it was. I knew that after two months, I’d want even more time to myself, and I did. But I dealt with it, because I’d given my nerves and my immune system some time to seriously recharge for the first time in—well, ever.

I certainly wouldn’t mind winning a million bucks or so in the lottery (although I’d have to play it, I’m told), or finding someone to financially subsidize…oh, a year or two of my life. I’ve accumulated many more books to read, after all.

But because I was able to give myself the support that I needed at that time, I’ve since learned more about managing my energy, buffering myself from sonic stressors, and taking it easier on myself than I ever have before.

This is giving me the energy to subsidize myself as I prepare to step out in a new life direction.

More on that coming soon if you’d like to subscribe, above. (Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.)

In the meantime, I’m looking forward to reading today’s other inner support stories, courtesy of Karen and my fellow Square Pegs!

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you may have noticed that I’m kind of into National Novel Writing Month.

It’s going on right now, and this is the fifth year I’m participating. But…

It’s looking like I won’t finish my novel this year.

Rather than being depressed about it, though, I’m taking it as a sign of progress. Because in the past, I would have gotten all control-freaky about it.

Well…to be honest, I kind of started out that way this year, too. You see, this Sunday I’m going to NaNoWriMo’s annual fundraising write-a-thon, The Night of Writing Dangerously. At this event, there is much frivolity. There are noir-ish costumes which would inspire even Dashiell Hammett. There is dinner. There is a candy buffet the likes of which causes even the strongest of constitution to swoon. There are pep talks and raffle prizes.

But mostly there is writing.

And if a rampantly noveling author actually manages to finish his or her 50,000 words not by the deadline of midnight on November 30, but at the write-a-thon itself, much glory accrues to said author. Who is cheered roundly by all assembled, gets to wear a large crown for the rest of the evening, and is generally made much of.

So of course I decided that I wanted to finish my novel at the write-a-thon.

Ah, the authorial hubris.

I’d clearly bitten off more than I could chew. A lot more.

Several days later, as I sat staring at my bedroom wall in an almost catatonic stupor, I mustered the energy for a single thought. “Where on earth did this crippling depression come from all of a sudden?”

Thankfully, because of all the attention I’ve paid to my perfectionism patterns over the last several years, I’ve become very, very good at spotting them in action. So I was able to understand almost immediately that I’d set myself up for an effort that wasn’t very good for me at all.

Sure, I could have pushed myself. Lost sleep, gone into an utter writing frenzy. But for what? Out of the four times I’ve participated in NaNoWriMo in the past, I’ve won (i.e., completed over 50,000 words during the month) three of those times.

I realized I no longer need to prove to myself that I can do this.

Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. Literally. Not to mention the coffee mug.

Nope—this year, what I need to prove to myself is that I have the ability to let go of this really, really fun but still arbitrarily chosen goal. To understand that the world will continue spinning on its axis even if I log less words than originally planned.

But also, to keep on writing anyway.

It would be just another manifestation of all-or-nothing thinking if I were to simply quit. It feels important to me to keep going even in the knowledge that my word-count bar on the NaNoWriMo website will almost certainly stay blue and incomplete rather than brilliant, glowing purple and adorned with a “Winner!” graphic.

I think that if I “lose” this year, it will be a significant win for me, because it will show me how far I’ve come in my battle against struggle with personal exploration of my own perfectionism.

So even though I probably won’t officially finish my 50,000 words this year…

This may be my most important NaNoWriMo year ever.

And it will be nice to close the book (heh) on such a significant lesson learned.

I’ve been taking some improv classes lately, and having an absolute blast while learning a lot. Including something I now accept as a truism:

Improvisational theater is like boot camp for perfectionists.

Only waaaaaaaaay more fun.

Never in my life have I been so pointedly challenged to loosen up and just try things. To trust that I have creative ideas inside me which will spontaneously emerge when I stop trying so damn hard to dig them up and force them out.

(Yes, I find improv even more challenging in that respect than NaNoWriMo. Though the latter is pretty much the former, done via writing.)

Here’s another truism for you, which is definitely the case in improv.

If you try too hard to be interesting, you’ll probably be boring.

It’s like the folks who try to call out clever titles when the actors ask the audience for a location and a relationship between two people for their next scene. There’s always a wise guy who tries to impress his friends by calling out, “A priest and a nun in a whorehouse!” But the (sad excuse for a) joke is already in the title—there’s nowhere for the actors to take it even if they wanted to.

Interestingly enough, the converse is also true. What you think will be boring is usually pretty interesting.

When I started improv classes, I understood intellectually that I was supposed to relax and go with the flow, but I didn’t know how to actually do it. All my life’s training had been in exactly the opposite direction—prepare well and know exactly what you’re doing when you go into a situation.

In the beginning, this resulted in some spectacularly dull acting on my part. Often it still does.

But if you stick with improv long enough (and I know I’ve only scratched the surface), you begin to have little breakthroughs, and occasionally big ones. I clearly remember the day I had my biggest one so far.

My breakthrough came the day I was told to be deliberately uninteresting.

Our instructor was teaching us to create a “platform”—a quick establishment of place, situation, and relationship when you’re starting a scene. It feels very awkward to stand there making up dialogue with someone on a bare stage when you have no idea where you are or who you are to each other. A platform grounds the players (not to mention the audience, if there is one), giving you something to grab hold of and work with.

So you walk in and pretend to pick up a bowling ball, sight down the lane, and roll. Then you turn around, notice your fellow player walking toward you, and say “Hey, Grandpa, you’re late,” as he mimes lacing up his bowling shoes. Maybe with shaking fingers, if he’s paying attention.

Or your partner walks out and leans against an imaginary railing, looking out over the heads of the audience. You join her holding a couple of “drinks,” hand her one, sigh, and say, “Thanks for inviting me come on this cruise. I really needed a vacation.”

That’s all it takes to know who and where you are before you get to see where the scene takes you.

On this particular day in class, the instructor had us go up in pairs, with one person sitting on the sofa (we do have a few simple props) eating an imaginary meal. (This is called “space-object work.”) The other would simply sit down on the other side of the sofa, pick up an equally imaginary magazine and leaf through it.

That was it. If we were too interesting or started creating a story out of it, she stopped us and had us do it again until we were sufficiently boring.

It was the first time I was ever truly able to relax on stage.

The feeling was tremendously liberating, like a backpack full of iron ore had dropped from my shoulders.

And the weird thing? It was utterly fascinating to watch each other do these simple actions and nothing else.

It’s a strange paradox. We try to be interesting and we’re tiresome. We think we’re doing something incredibly dull and we draw attention.

Why does this happen?

I think it’s because we like the familiar. We like things we can relate to personally. In improv, for instance, most people would rather watch a showdown between the overbearing boss and the fed-up employee than a scene on the planet Zorgon with orange-skinned aliens speaking in gibberish.

This is true in life, too. We like it when things are understandable, relevant, meaningful to us.

We also like it when things are genuine and not forced. And most of us have pretty good B.S. detectors. Don’t you?

In social situations, your insecurity (and don’t worry, we all have it) probably tells you that you need to work hard to fascinate others. But that’s just not true. You don’t need to be the life of the party, constantly telling jokes and outrageous stories. All you need to be appreciated is to be real.

I learned how to relax on stage.

You can do the same on the stage of your life.

Just relax and be your own unique self. Trust me—that’s interesting enough.

Life is one long improvisation. Don’t make it so hard on yourself. You don’t have to deliberately try to be boring, like we did in class…because if you’re simply you, in all your everyday glory, I guarantee you won’t be. You’ll shine.

You know how sometimes you can be in love with the idea of something but not take any action on it?

That’s how I’ve been about gardening for a long time.

I live in a rental property, so outdoor gardening isn’t permitted. I could do it indoors except that we’re not allowed to drill holes for things like shelves or hanging planters, and the two cats pretty much prohibit having plant life any lower than head height.

But last month I heard about San Francisco ’s Kitchen Garden Project, which inspired me to rethink things. I realized that I could set up a free-standing shelf unit on our minuscule front porch. So I did that, and then I went to Hayes Valley Farm on 10/10/10 (the day of the initiative) to pick up my free seedlings and mulch.

One month later, here’s some of what’s growing so far!

I’m hoping, in particular, that the broccoli and the carrots make it to their full growth. The broc because it’s my favorite vegetable (well, okay, other than potatoes—preferably in chip form), and the carrots because they’re a tiny, round variety and I’m really curious to see what they look like! I promise I’ll post pictures of whatever grows.

Have you ever heard of Kickstarter? It’s an awesome website through which people and organizations can raise funds for their creative initiatives—they set a goal and write a web page about it, and then try to get enough pledges to fund the project. If they don’t make their goal, no money changes hands, but if they do, they can make some amazing things happen.

Yesterday I found out that Hayes Valley Farm, the volunteer-operated community farm where I got my free garden starter kit (and which, incidentally, is located on top of a closed freeway on/off ramp—the ultimate in recycling, how cool is that?) has only until Sunday to raise the money it needs to fund its continuing projects. As of this writing, they’re almost there!

If you’d like to check it out and maybe even pitch in a bit (if they go overtheir requested amount they get to keep that, too), here’s a link to their Kickstarter page. And here’s one to the farm itself. Where it’s highly likely I’ll be going back to volunteer and learn some more.

Meanwhile, I’m proud of myself. In years past, I would have felt the need to check out at least 3-4 books from the library on home gardening, study up on our local soil and weather patterns, do complex calculus to determine what pot size I’d need for each vegetable, create a detailed shopping list for the plants and supplies, etc., etc. before feeling confident enough to begin.

I love the fact that I was able to let go of the need to be “perfectly” informed and ready, and just wing it. It’s a liberating feeling, even for so small a project.

I don’t know what will finally emerge from all my pots, but it feels great—empowering yet tender at the same time—to nurture along some green, growing things. And if I’m lucky, I’ll get to eat at least some of them. When they hopefully will be tender.

Turns out it really is possible to do things and have them work out (well, at least so far) without having a grand plan!

“He shamelessly stole all the credit for the project we’ve been working on together.”

“Just look at how you’re dressed, young lady. Have you no shame?”

“She should be ashamed to have raised her children that way.”

“What? Go to my reunion looking like this, when I used to be so athletic?
Come on, I have some sense of shame.”

Such uses of the word “shame” imply that having none of it is bad, and will lead you to make a fool of yourself or be disliked. Therefore, having shame must be a good thing, right?

Can an occasional dose of shame help us?

Sure, it feels awful. But doesn’t that make shame a deterrent, something that keeps us on the straight and narrow?

If we had no shame at all, what would we feel okay about doing? Wouldn’t we become lazy and indulgent?

Consider Jessica and Maria, two third-graders who get into a fight one day during recess. Each comes home that night with some scrapes and bruises and a note from the teacher.

Jessica’s parents say, “Good girls don’t have fist fights. You should be ashamed of yourself. We never want to hear that you’ve been fighting again, do you understand?”

Maria’s parents say, “You’re such a good girl, why did you get into a fight like that? We’ve taught you better, and we know you can think of other ways to solve your problems with people. We don’t want to hear that you’ve been fighting again, okay?”

How will each girl feel, and which one do you think will be more inspired to avoid fights in the future?

My money would be on Maria. Why?

There is a key difference between guilt and shame.

We use them interchangeably, but as Brené Brown explains in her book I Thought It Was Just Me (But It Isn’t), guilt is about our behaviors, but shame is about who we are. She says, “…the difference between shame and guilt is best understood as the differences between ‘I am bad’ (shame) and ‘I did something bad’ (guilt).”

Jessica’s parents probably said what they did out of an understandably misguided attempt to change her behavior—after all, we’ve all seen shame applied as a corrective tactic over and over again, so we assume it should work. The idea is that if we can make someone feel terrible enough about what they did, they won’t repeat the behavior.

Or so it’s thought. Wrongly.

Think about it. Isn’t shame one of the most painful, isolating emotions we can experience? When we feel ashamed, we don’t want to charge out and do things differently—we want to hide and hope nobody comes looking for us.

The reason Maria will probably be less inclined to engage in fist fights than Jessica is that her parents discouraged what she did, while reinforcing their belief that she was a good person.

Again, to paraphrase Brené Brown:

Guilt can work as a positive motivator, but shame never, ever can.

With shame, your very sense of self-worth is attacked. This fosters resentment, negative self-judgment, and feelings of defeat and despair.

Guilt, on the other hand, encourages you because of the discrepancy between the kind of person you are and the thing you did. Your action doesn’t match how you want to think of yourself; you know you aren’t walking your talk. So you naturally want to close that gap.

Watch for this difference—and use it to make life better for other people and within yourself. It’s a powerful distinction.

I owe a great deal to Leo Babauta.

Before discovering Zen Habits while web surfing a few years back, I’d never paid any attention to blogs, thinking they were merely somewhat exhibitionist online diaries. Leo changed all that for me.

It helped that at the time he was talking a lot about David Allen’s Getting Things Done, exploring it, and developing his own stripped-down version, Zen To Done. I’m a productivity and systems geek. I was hooked.

But mainly what Leo did for me was show me that a blog could be topical, useful, and interesting…and make me think, “Hey! I could do that, too!”

So I was happy to hear of his just-released book, Focus: A Simplicity Manifesto in the Age of Distraction, and I downloaded the free version within minutes of hitting the page. As I waited for the download to finish, I noticed where he’d written, “…you’re free to review the book, give away the free version on your blog, or interview me.”

Considering that Leo is almost singlehandedly responsible for opening me up to the world of blogging, I jumped at the chance to interview him. Then, in the midst of thinking about what I wanted to ask him, it struck me that I’d rather give  my readers the opportunity to do the asking.

So thanks to everyone who shared with me what they wanted to ask Leo! They’re great questions..and here are the answers.

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Q: Leo, I know you’re an advocate of gradual, one-step-at-a-time change. But sometimes we really do get jolted by unexpected insights or new ways of thinking. Since starting Zen Habits, have you had any “lightbulb” moments when something just clicked for you suddenly? Even if you didn’t do anything about it right away?

Leo: I have those moments all the time. That’s what I love about life—there’s never any shortage of things to learn!

Some examples:  the amazing connection that you can form with readers and other bloggers when you start a blog, the way that blogging forces you to reflect on your life and what you’ve learned, the difficulty and joy in finding a way to communicate what you’ve learned clearly so that readers can understand and put it into action, the joy of giving up goals for your business, the passion I’ve found for what I’m doing, the power of stripping down my site to nothing but the content. I could go on all day.

Q: I’m currently reading Focus, and unsurprisingly, I think the content is fantastic. But I’m curious—what was your process for choosing and organizing the material in it?

Leo: I started with the issues I face with finding focus, and the solutions that have worked for me. I expanded with some of the broader philosophical things I’ve been exploring and learning about.

Then I asked readers to share some of their problems, and the holes that I didn’t cover, and they responded brilliantly. I wrote a bunch of chapters to address these problems and holes, and I think it turned out much better than if I hadn’t gotten feedback from readers.

Q: One of my readers would like to know what advice you would give someone with a pattern of all-or-nothing thinking, who gets overwhelmed by everything (s)he thinks (s)he has to do, and can’t imagine tackling only one small change at a time? Someone who thinks, “At that rate, I’ll never get anywhere”?

Leo: I’d suggest a little experiment: one week, try tackling everything you want to tackle at once. The next week, force yourself to make one small change and do only that. Repeat this experiment once more if you dare. See which works better. I don’t know which will work best, but it would be fun to find out.

Q: Another reader asks, “How can we convert intellectual understanding into action? I know everything up here (taps head), but I have such a hard time implementing it!”

Leo: You don’t really understand something until you do it. I conduct little experiments of 1 or 2 weeks, sometimes up to a month. I say, “What would happen if I try this?”

And then I see what happens—sometimes I “fail”, but actually it’s a successful experiment because I’ve learned something. So I suggest you approach it by putting everything you learn to a practical test—a 1 or 2 week experiment—and see what you can learn from actually doing.

Q: Here’s another insightful one—“I love the idea of rewarding myself for building positive habits, but the kinds of simple pleasures you talk about are actually hard work for me. I get antsy and uncomfortable just sitting and enjoying a sunset, or walking without my mp3 player, etc. What are some absolute baby steps for amped-up, anxious people who find stillness scary?”

Leo: It might be interesting to explore why you’re afraid of stillness. What are you afraid might happen? What’s stopping you from giving it a try, and enjoying it? Be completely honest with yourself or you’re wasting your time.

If you can figure out your fear, you’re bringing it out into the light. Then you need to shine more light on it:  is it really real? Test it out with a small test:  sit still for one minute, and see what happens. Did your fears come true? If not, maybe the fear isn’t grounded in reality—try a slightly longer test, and so on, until you gain the confidence needed to toss the fear aside.

Another important thing: find ways to be still or quiet that you actually enjoy. If you don’t like sunsets, maybe you like a quiet bath, or a massage from your spouse, or reading a good novel, or doing some yoga, or looking at art. There are so many ways to find beauty in stillness—if you haven’t found it, keep looking.

Q: A reader wants to know, “What role does fine art play in a lifestyle that values simplicity and decluttering?”

Leo: Simplify and declutter so that the fine art may stand out, so that you may enjoy it more fully.

A painting in your home, for example, is much better appreciated if it isn’t surrounded by clutter. Great music is better enjoyed when you’ve found the stillness and quiet that doesn’t distract from the music. A beautiful novel is best experienced when you’re able to shut off technology and disconnect for a little while. By simplifying, you find the time and space to enjoy art.

Q: And finally, someone asked a personal question. She’d like to know how your recent move to San Francisco has affected your own life’s simplicity and focus? (I’m going to tack on my own question, since I live here, too, and ask you what the biggest surprise has been for you about San Francisco?)

Leo: The process of finding simplicity and focus are the same no matter where you are—they just allow you to enjoy wherever you are that much better.

Guam is a very different place than San Francisco, and I love the differences between the two wonderful places, but in the end, I still love writing, spending time with my family, reading, getting outside and getting active, taking walks, enjoying simple food. That hasn’t changed, but the nature and people and food have.

The biggest surprise … hmmm. I can’t really think of anything, except the Giants making it to the World Series! I’ve been a Giants fan since I was a teen-ager, so this has been incredible. Other than that, I came into the city without expectations, so no surprises or disappointments. Everything has been perfect.

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Considering that last answer, it’s definitely fitting that as I sit here finalizing this post for publication tomorrow morning, the San Francisco Giants have just won the world series. I can hear the fireworks and happy yelling through my open window right now. (Go, Giants!)

Thank you, Leo, for agreeing to this interview and responding so quickly to my request. You’re a blogger and a gentleman.

And thanks once again to those who contributed their questions. Feel free to continue the conversation in the comments!