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| Photo courtesy Pexels |
Yesterday I found myself near tears in the produce section
of my local Publix supermarket. No, I don’t have a strange phobia related to
cantaloupe and corn on the cob. Let me explain.
For the past 150 years (it seems) I’ve been working on a
redesign of Catching Happiness. I’m trying to update its appearance, provide a
way for readers to subscribe to posts, and come up with some new goodies for
you. These things sound simple, and taken individually they might be, but taken
all at once, by me, an impatient, tech-ignorant, semi-perfectionist, they
haven’t been simple at all. Just when I think I’ve got one item sorted, some
other thing pops up to derail me.
I’m in the messy middle. The messy middle is where you find
yourself when the first flush of enthusiasm for a project has drained away, and
you can’t quite see the finish line and draw energy from being almost done.
The messy middle is where it gets…messy. Messy with
possibilities, both pursued and cast off, messy with decision-making. There is
often confusion. Sometimes there is crying. Or cursing. The messy middle is
where fear lives.
After taking the afternoon off in favor of grocery shopping
and having two cracked teeth repaired at the dentist (if you can call having
one’s teeth drilled “taking the afternoon off”), I decided that instead of
weeping and tearing my hair out—and writing long, whiny emails to Laure Ferlita—I am going to grit those newly repaired teeth and figure out how to get
through the messy middle so I can learn from it, and maybe even find some
happiness in it.
Here are some things I came up with to help—maybe they can
help you then next time you face the messy middle:
- Take extra care of my body and mind. While I’m stressed out by uncertainty and frustration, it’s important that I eat healthfully (rather than mainlining cookies), get enough sleep, and continue my regular exercise program. I also need to allow myself some downtime so I don’t let the well run dry.
- Envision the end product. Take a moment to picture what finished looks like, and how it feels. Anyone can persist with what comes easily—how proud will I feel when I stick with it, even though it’s hard?
- Simplify other areas/streamline. Even though I might be tempted by the next shiny thing, I cannot take on too many different and complex projects right now. I have certain commitments that I’ll keep up with, but I’m not going to undertake any new, major tasks.
- Seek support. (See: whiny emails to Laure Ferlita.) I don’t have to go it alone. I can ask for help. I stink at this. I hate asking for help, because I know everyone is busy with their own stuff, and I feel like I *should be able to handle this project. However, there is no way around the fact that I can’t handle this project by myself, and I’ve had to reach out for help. And whaddya know? That help has been there.
While I was writing this post, I did a quick Google search
of the term “messy middle” because it felt so familiar. I found 72,500
references to the phrase, related to topics like spirituality, management, and
creative projects. Apparently the messy middle is A Thing. It’s not just me who
struggles during the period between “started” and “done.”
In the past I’ve been guilty of rushing through life to get
to the “good parts,” only to find that what I rushed through was the
good part. I have a feeling that I’m rushing through this blog redesign just to
finish it, rather than taking the opportunity to learn something every step of
the way. Laure kept urging me to have fun with the process, and until today, I
couldn’t even imagine being able to do that.
So despite the fact that I’ve been talking about and working
on blog redesign for 150 years, it’s going to take a bit longer, and I should
just get used to it. As Brene Brown writes in Rising Strong, “The middle
is messy, but it’s also where the magic happens.”
I think it just did.
Are you in the messy middle of anything? How are you coping?
