When you're weary: Letting your story unfold.

This is a blog post about trusting our lives, and our stories, to unfold — a kind of allowing that is essential if we are committed to the ongoing practice of sharing our story with the world. Jump straight to the end for three ways to keep telling your story, even when it’s murky.

Key points: What I hope you take away

You’re busy, so if you don’t have time to read the full post right now, I hope you’ll still take these ideas with you:

• The practice of telling our stories is just that: a practice. More important than getting our story “right” is committing to showing up and sharing ourselves, our voices, our ideas and our experiences, even as they unfold. Taking up space in the world. Allowing ourselves to be seen and heard.

• We benefit when we let go of the pressure of “getting it right,” and when we trust our intuition when it says, "This — this is part of the story," even if we don't yet know the details of how it fits.

• Our stories are not static — they’re dynamic, just like us. Embracing this truth gives us — and our stories — power.

Piecing ourselves together

“When you’re weary, feeling small” is the opening lyric of Paul Simon’s famous song, Bridge Over Troubled Water. It’s also how I think a lot of people are feeling right now, after over a year in a global pandemic, and as systemic racism continues to claim the lives of so many Black, Asian, and other Americans.

Paul Simon on how he wrote “Bridge Over Troubled Water”

I grew up in a house where Simon’s music was treated as holy. I recently read his biography, and was struck by two things: his grit, and the faith he placed in his intuition. He made a lot of songs before he ever had a hit, and it took years for him to find his real voice as a songwriter. Once he hit his stride, he learned to allow songs to emerge, slowly, from the creative ether — trusting his interest in a particular sound, or lyric, and absorbing it as a building block into his creative process, without forcing construction.

"That's how songs happen," he told Dick Cavett, long ago. "They piece themselves together."

So do countries. And people.

Reject the pressure to make your story fit a template

Simon’s songwriting embodies a kind of trusting unfolding that I think is instructive for all of us.

What is unfolding in your life right now? Are you allowing the story of who you are and of what you're doing in this world to emerge? Or are you trying to force the resolution? After life in lockdown, and as the media talks to us about resuming our pre-pandemic lives, are you feeling pressured to fit all of your messy thoughts and feelings into a tidy container of so-called normalcy?

Are you holding yourself to a template of how you thought your life was supposed to look, by now?

Imagine what we might create for ourselves, and for those with whom we share our stories, if we could be honest about the messiness — about the in-progress nature of our lives. How much more permission you’d feel to say, “I’m not sure what direction I want my career to go in next,” or, even, “I’m lost,” if more people around you were saying the same things.

Judging by the conversations I’m having with women all over the country these days, a lot of us are feeling on the precipice of some sort of shift right now — a shift we may not be able to fully describe. That’s ok. Admitting this not-knowing doesn’t mean letting go of our power. As Brene Brown has tried to drill into our collective consciousness: there is power in vulnerability.

Here are three ways to keep telling your story, even when it’s murky:

1. Focus on authentic connection

At the end of the day, authentic connection — being seen, being heard, finding “our people” — is the main reason we tell our stories. If we’re job searching, we hope that connection will lead to a new job; if we’re dating, we hope that connection will lead to lurv. If you keep this goal of authentic connection in mind, it might help you let go of your desire to perform a perfected narrative, or act like you have it all together when inside, you know you most decidedly do not. Whether you’re entering into an interview, catching up with an old colleague, or figuring out your next social media post — remind yourself, “I am looking for authentic connection,” and let that touchstone guide you.

2. Reconnect with your values

As you piece together where your life, or story, might be heading next, you may not know the job title you’re looking for, or what direction to take your business, but you likely know what you care about most. Some of my most treasured values, for example, are authenticity, boldness, and warmth. Whether I’m coaching a Mighty Forces client, writing an essay or script, or hosting a happy hour for women, I aim to embody those values. The more I do so, the more a story forms in people’s minds that associates those values with me. If you could use help getting clear on your values, my friend Colleen is a coach who excels at this.

3. Lean into your curiosity

I love Elizabeth Gilbert’s advice in Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear that following your curiosity is key to unlocking your creativity. After the wild success of her book, Eat, Pray, Love, she didn’t know what was next, but felt a lot of pressure that whatever it was, it better be awesome. Then she found herself curious about gardening, so she started gardening… and it turns out, there was a story about a botanist brewing inside of her, which would turn into her next book, The Signature of All Things.

Unlocking your creativity doesn’t have to look like writing a book — at its core, it’s about creating something, anything — including what’s next in your life. So let yourself be interested in what you’re interested in. And when someone asks you what’s new, share something you’ve recently learned that genuinely interests you. This is bound to bring you back to — you guessed it! — authentic connection.

Bridge over troubled water

Like I said, these are times when so many of us feeling a shift underway. I hope this post helps you give yourself permission to allow that shift to unfold. To bring it back to Paul Simon: We can be the bridge — but we can also be the troubled water.

Both are powerful.

You are a mighty force.