I don't know what I'm doing, but I'm going to be ME while I do it

One of these things is not like the others...good for that one!

Ah, it’s Friday again, which means it’s Small-Business Tree day here on the blog. And I (Wendy) just held a free call where I talked about the Tree for an hour, which was great fun. I’m even doing a two-week workshop starting next week where I’ll get to help My Right People nurture their own trees.

Also in tree news, I’m working on a prototype for a new Small-Business Tree program that will lead some more of My Right People through daily exercises to help them map the tree metaphor onto their unique businesses (if this appeals to you, you may want to subscribe to this blog, because you’ll hear about it here as soon as it’s ready for prime time).

So, all this biggification is fun and exciting.

And scary as hell, too.

I’ve had this voice in my head for the past couple of weeks telling me that I really don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing. This is different from my usual voices that tell me that I’m incompetent (my old familiar friend), or that I’m doomed to fail (come on, who doesn’t think that once in awhile?), or that I will be living in a van down by the river soon (thanks to Pam Slim for reminding me of that SNL sketch in a way that’s actually useful and funny!).

This voice is specifically about direction, about “What’s next?”

Even though I’ve got plans and ideas and projects, none of them seem to be quite organized enough or good enough to go live with (note the operative word here is “seem”). If I let myself, I can get easily swamped in doubts about the commercial viability or contribution-to-the-world factor or a dozen other variables.

So here’s the big risk for today: Trusting that my plans and ideas and projects are good enough for now, and proceeding with the most important thing I can do to build any kind of commercial success or contribution to the world, which is just being myself. The real, tree-hugging, swim-goggle-wearing, less-than-perfect, sometimes-angry, sometimes-scared, but also sometimes-funny, often-compassionate, frequently-craving-doughnuts me.

This might involve tweeting about what I ate for breakfast, or what I’m reading. It might also mean sometimes taking a few days away from Twitter because that’s what The Real Me needs to do. It might mean giving myself much more time and pampering than I think I need to launch a new product… but for a different product, it might mean going ahead with less than 24 hours’ notice to the world, because screw timetables, I’m having fun, dammit.

It might mean publishing this post without figuring out what I’m doing wrong that is making the words smush up against my pumpkin picture up there. Gah.

Being The Real Me means that sometimes, I may spend several hours working on a web project that’s never going to be commercially viable, just because it’s challenging or fun. And sometimes I might screw up and watch a website blow up in my face (O hear me, Internet gods of irony: If you are planning on doing this to me when I update YWC to WordPress 2.7, which is long overdue because of precisely this fear, could you make sure it happens just when I get mentioned somewhere that will make me famous overnight? Thanks.).

One thing I know for sure: Being The Real Me means consciously accessing my roots whenever I’m deciding what to do next. I have enough experience at this by now that I know that if I don’t (or worse, if I do and then ignore the clear message I’m getting from myself), I’m being less than The Real Me. I’m not giving The Real Me a chance.

And you know? The Real Me deserves a chance. So does The Real You. Come be real! Leave a comment or @reply me on Twitter and let’s have a Real Conversation!

–Wendy Cholbi, your friendly neighborhood tree-hugger-with-swim-goggles!

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