Self sabotage is trying to protect you from the sticky, icky feelings of vulnerability and shame.
In this quick season finale, I’m coaching you on how to thank it and send it on its way. I’m also sharing what I believe is the antidote to self sabotage: a community of creatives alongside you, normalizing the process and sharing the journey.
If you’re ready to get some community support for your creative goals, check out PassionPacers.com and WorkingTitleStudio.com.
And if you’re not ready yet… get your butt on my email list at bit.ly/CaitNotes.
Transcription
Hey friends. Hello. Happy Friday and welcome to the last episode of Run Like Hell Toward Happy. And I’m gonna tell you what I mean by that later in this episode. But for now, get your popcorn, get a notebook. If you are driving in the car, don’t get a notebook. And if you are not driving in the car let’s take some deep breaths.
Let’s close our eyes. Let’s get focused and grounded and feel amazing and celebrate the fact that we are sharing this space together. Thank you for being here. Thank you for being a listener of my show. I started Run Like Hell Toward Happy about a year and a half ago. The first season went out in May of 2021.
and it is now like, yeah, it’s exactly a year and a half, and this is our 64th episode, and I’m super thrilled. I love doing this. It’s something that brings me joy and makes me happy, and it is part of my business strategy moving forward. Not that you care about my business strategy. You’re just here for the tips, right?
And the pep talks and the advice and the, the relatability and the ADHD tangents and the Gwen moments. So let’s, let’s jump into today’s topic, which is self sabotage and the antidote to self sabotage. So first of all, self-sabotage can be any number of things, right? So self-sabotage is a phrase that describes a bunch of different things.
Now we know that the result is that we have sabotaged our progress and that we did it to ourselves. This is normal. So if you are someone who has totally fucked up their own goals, you are not alone, my friend, at all. So please do not feel compelled to hold onto shame about that because that’s not helping anybody.
And I think more people need to talk about their self-sabotaging habits. We need to be aware of them. Like for instance I self-sabotage by having my phone with me when I am writing. Today, I didn’t have my phone with me while I was writing and I wrote 2,700 words. It’s interesting how that happens, right?
But self sabotage. So that can look like deleting your file part of the way through, you know, you’re working on an art project or you’re writing something and you think this isn’t that, that it’s not that good. I’m just gonna delete it. I’m gonna start over because this isn’t going where I want it to go.
Well, okay, how are you gonna grow from that? How are you going to be able to look and see your growth and your progress over time if you delete everything? That’s a little question from me to you. It can also look like being unwilling to show your work to anyone else. So you’re alone with your thoughts about your skills, your talents, your passions, and you think this isn’t very good, but you’re also not putting it out.
You’re not asking for any kind of help or support you, you don’t even show your friends. You know, we all knew that that person in middle school, we might have been that person in middle school who, you know, they were always drawing in their sketchbook and then you kind of lean over and you’re like, What? Whatcha doin? Whatcha drawing? And they’d pick it up and they’d hold it to their chest and they’d be like, ‘Nothing.’ And then you finally do get to look and it’s absolutely stunning. Like it looks like a photograph and you’re like, Why were you so scared to share this? And it’s because we are all really, really, really critical of our own work.
And I’m here to tell you that that’s bullshit and that sharing it with other people is the way that we get better. So, What’s another self sabotage thing? Let’s see. When we don’t wanna be uncomfortable, right? So a lot of art, and I don’t wanna say that art must come from pain in order to be real art. That’s fake, but really deep moving art, music, writing… that often relies on the human experience. You know, when you want to call an emotion forward, when someone sees or reads or hears your work, you’re often putting a lot of personal emotion into it. And a lot of the times that’s uncomfortable. It’s vulnerable, and we don’t want that because being vulnerable means risking danger, okay?
But it’s 2022. Vulnerability does not mean that we’re gonna get eaten by a tiger, or that we are going to be shunned by our tribe. These are old, old, old fears that live in our brains and our bodies, and I’m here to tell you that those are normal. But I’m also here to tell you that you’re only going to grow when you get comfortable being uncomfortable when you notice what you’re up against when you notice, Oh, I quit every time X, Y, Z thing happens.
So if you’re someone who loves to make art, but then when it comes to actually getting your art out there into the world, you know, maybe you have a conscious belief that you’d love to be featured in a local gallery or a local consignment shop or something. Just having your art on the walls of a local dentist office might be your dream.
I don’t know your dream. You might love dentists.
But you’re too scared to do it because what happens if the dentist hates it? What happens if somebody else sees it at the dentist’s office and puts it on Instagram and says, ‘Look at this weird art.’ You have to make the decision to do it anyway. And that’s where the self sabotage comes in because self sabotage is trying to protect you.
It comes from a place that wants to save you from vulnerability. So you have to decide that the vulnerability is worth the end result, and that is a choice that you have to make for yourself. I can’t make it for you. So if you are a self sabotage and any of that resonated, please let me know so that I can continue to talk about it cuz it’s important.
And the other thing I wanna say about self sabotage is that the antidote to self-sabotage is community. Because all these things we tell ourselves about our work isn’t that good or it’s, it’s not perfect. It’s, I’m never gonna let it see the light of day. Like all this stuff, all this fake bullshit terror about being seen and being vulnerable and being known and letting our art.
It’s so scary because we think we’re the only one. You think you’re the only person who doesn’t like your first draft. You think you’re the only person who has ever fucked up a painting when you were getting it out of your brain and onto the canvas. You think you are the only person who has ever published a book that you would change.
You’re not. You’re not alone. And these problems are not uniquely yours. You are not the sole embattled creative who is just devastated by your eternal failure. When you are around other creatives, other writers, other musicians, other painters. When you are around people who are going through the same thing, self sabotage is like, poof.
It’s gone. It is like you ghost busted it because it exists in the vacuum of isolation. When we see other people going through the same thing, I swear to God, it changes our perceptions. We start to normalize it. We start to normalize what’s possible. So when we see other creatives really nailing it and really feeling confident and really being vulnerable and sharing their story, their words, their music, their art, we see that vulnerability pay off again and again because we witness them and we witness the growth.
That they get from those moments of vulnerability. You start to see that that’s possible. You start to see, Oh, it’s not dangerous. It’s not scary. I’m not going to die of shame, of embarrassment of having a bad first line in my novel. You know, it’s November now, so lots of people are doing national novel writing month, and the point of that program is to just fucking write.
Like you don’t have time to critique it honestly. You’re supposed to write 50,000 words in 30 days. And that can really work for some people. It doesn’t work for me because I’m tired, but the fact that you have to be going so fast that you can’t go get stuck in the weeds, you can’t go self-edit. You just have to like blah your first draft out onto the page. That’s kind of delicious. That’s kind of gorgeous and I’m really into it. I love this idea of just. Just do the thing. Right? And NaNoWriMo especially is really cool because of the community aspect of it. So you can join Reddit things, what are they called? Subreddits. You can join a sub Reddit, you can join a Discord server.
You can join a local writing group. You can, I don’t know, there’s 9,000 million ways that you can be involved in a writing group to help support you during NaNoWriMo if you are doing it.
And likewise ,my programs that I offer, my communities, my memberships, my services. I love offering community support.
That’s honestly the selling point of my programs, like passion pacers and working title. They work because of the community. They work because if we’re just meeting one on one every week and you say, ‘Caitlin, I didn’t reach my goals this week’ and I’m like, ‘Hey, here’s how we’re gonna work on that. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.’ You’re still a little bit isolated. That’s still one on one and it’s very hands on and it’s very supportive. But I have found that my clients do better, people like you do better in group context. Most of the time. Now, I have had some people who are like, ‘No, I need the one on one because I can’t pay attention to groups. It’s too overwhelming. There’s too many people.’
So there’s definitely a time and a place for one on one versus a community based creative support group, but, Yeah, Having a community showing you what’s possible, modeling the behaviors that you also want to have, that’s hugely powerful, and that is why I say that the antidote to self-sabotage is community. So whether you want to buy into one of my programs and get active support from me on a coaching basis and also from the community, or whether that’s just looking up a local writer’s group or a painting hashtag on Instagram or TikTok and hanging out with the people who post a lot on that hashtag or joining a Facebook group.
There are infinite ways to access a community that is supportive of your particular creative goals and dreams, and I think that you should do it. I personally think that you should work with me because if you’re here listening to this, and that means that you vibe with my chaotic bullshit and you love me anyway, and it’s like having this podcast, but alive and on your Facebook for all of your creative needs. It’s pretty rad.
So I’m gonna give you the pitch. I’m gonna tell you why passion Pacers is literally the place to be for neuro divergent, chronically ill disabled queer creatives with limited spoons. You don’t have to be all of those things, but most of my clients are at least one. Passion pacers is designed to help you unlearn the hustle, so it is all about pursuing your passion.
Whether you have a passion in mind already or not. If you don’t, there are plenty of activities to help you connect with what your deep down passion really is. Or you can just fuck around until you find something that you love. We’re not judgmental and we also don’t hustle, right? So what you get in Passion Pacers is the community.
You get the accountability of setting your own goals for your creative dream, your creative hobby, business, anything that you want. It’s not just for business. It’s not just for hobbies. It’s for anyone who’s creative and a little bit weird in their brain. Okay? It’s for weird creatives. That’s who we are.
Most of us have ADHD and we’re gay, so if that’s you, come on down. But it’s a place to set your own small, manageable goals and practice holding the boundaries around your self fulfillment, right? Because what’s the first thing to go when life gets busy or somebody needs you is you say, ‘Okay, I don’t have to work on writing my book tonight. I don’t have to paint this painting today. I don’t have to finish XYZ art project that I was making. No. I can stop. I can come make dinner because our dinner plans fell through. That’s fine.’
No, don’t do that. Hold the line. Your shit matters. And Passion Pacers is the place where we teach you that and where you get to see what’s possible when you see other people doing it.
So you will see your fellow passion Pacers posting about dancing more, just dancing around the house because it feels good, and they have made that intention to bring that little bit of self fulfillment into their everyday life. That might not sound like a big deal. But it is, I guarantee you, after one year of dancing more often, you’re a different person.
One year of focusing on your paintings or learning how to make music in a new way. It doesn’t have to be a year. I’m, I’m just saying like, you know, in a year, in five years, in 10 years, what’s that gonna look like? What’s it gonna look like when you have actually learned how to set and maintain boundaries around your own self fulfillment?
That’s what Passion Pacers is. It’s pretty fucking dope. And it’s $44 a month, which is like, I don’t know what lattes are going for these days, but like, let’s say like a, a really fancy Starbucks is like eight bucks, right? It’s a few starbuckses. I don’t care how many Starbucks is. It is. If it’s important to you and you have $44 a month, come on down.
If it’s not important to you, then I can’t help you.
Next is the working title, writing incubator. So, you know, in marketing you’re not supposed to do this. You’re not supposed to have two offers in the same piece of content. But I don’t give a shit. I am just a chaotic person with adhd. So you get both. Working Title writing incubator is a 12 month space, experience, group, incubator, right?
Think of like a nest. You’re cozy, you got little eggs. The eggs are your, your story, your book, your identity as a writer, it lasts 12 months, not because I think it takes a year to write a book. Obviously you can write a book in 30 days, right? We just talked about NaNoWriMo. You can draft a book in any amount of time that you want.
You can fuck off into a cave or book yourself into a hotel or just go into your own bedroom and say, ‘Nobody speak to me for three days. I’m writing a book. ‘That’s great. If that’s how fast you wanna write your book. This is 12 months, because I decided it was 12 months.
Because I want you to come out of the program A) with a book. B) with a sense of identity in being a writer and feeling confident about that and not having any weird shame about it because we’re gonna break through all the weird shame about it. And three, to have a sustainable writing practice that is made of habits and routines that actually work for you and your neuro divergent mind, and your chronically ill body, and your energy levels and your amount of spoons.
That is why working title is 12 months long. It is luxurious. I’m gonna say that because so often there’s all these bootcamp things, right? It’s like, write your novel in 90 days, write your novel in 30 days, get published and be a best seller in six months. Like, okay. That’s great for people who can sustain that.
That’s great for people who can go into a period of hustle. But I am here and you are here if you are listening to this to disrupt the norm of hustling the thing, I don’t want you to have a season of absolute hustle and then a period where you have to recover from that burnout. I want you to develop a sustainable writing practice where you’re like, Fuck yeah, I can write a book a year.
That’s incredible. We’re not trying to be Stephen King. We’re trying to get fulfillment for our dreams. So if your dream is writing a book, then come on down to working title. That program is $3,000. There is a payment plan available, but if you pay in full, you get a bonus 90 minute one-on-one call with me, your favorite, weird, ADHD gay person. And we will use that 90 minutes however you want. We can strategize, You can pick my brain about any topic except weight loss. It’s yours to do with as you please. I would recommend that you use it to maybe plan out your book, but you know, I’m not in charge of you. I also cannot guarantee that you will write a book because that’s up to you.
I can’t make you do shit. The end. I love you. Cool.
So those are two ways that I offer community to neuro divergent creatives. Just like sort of general practitioner, come in here to get, get your vibes right. That’s passion pacers. I wanna write the hell out of a book, that’s working title. There are links to both in the show notes.
Also, you can reach out and talk to me about them. Hit me up on Instagram. Or Facebook. I’m, I’m terminally online, you guys. Okay, so now I’m gonna wrap it up and go back to what I said at the beginning, which is that this is the last episode of Run Like Hell Toward Happy, because I am relaunching the podcast with a new name.
When I come back from this break, so this episode’s coming out on November 11th. Happy Veteran’s Day. Go get you some free pancakes somewhere if you’re a veteran. I’m gonna take the rest of November off because I love breaks and we don’t hustle in this family. And then I’m gonna be back probably in December cuz I can’t stay away from you too long.
And when I’m back we’re gonna have a new name. And that name is The Neurodivergent Creative can you believe that wasn’t taken? Like what? I feel so lucky because this podcast really is for the neuro divergent creative . It’s, that’s what I am, right? I’m sitting over here, I’m autistic. I got adhd, bringing on people all the time to talk about trauma and mental health and stuff, and it’s like, oh. Duh, you’re, you’re the creative coach for people with weird brains, so I’m embracing that and I’m changing the title. I’m hoping that it’s going to put us in the path of a lot more people who could use this advice, who could use this community that we are building. I’m not sure what the Facebook group is going to be called.
I may just keep that run like hell toward happy community, but I also might not, I don’t know. We’re gonna see, We’re gonna follow the vibes. So yeah, this is, this is your series finale of run like hell toward happy. I would love to hear from you. I would love to hear how your creative goals are doing. I would love to read your five star reviews on iTunes.
Please leave a review. It helps more people find the show, even though the show’s about to change, but we’re so close. We’re six reviews from the big grand prize giveaway in the run like hell toward happy community on Facebook. So if you are listening and you have iTunes when this episode finishes actually, like as soon as you understand the assignment, just hit pause.
Go to Apple Podcast, log in, find, run like hell toward happy. Rate it five stars and write me a couple sentences about why you love the show. You could even say like, ‘It’s great, really love it,’ although the more specific the better because I am a words of affirmation person and I eat your paragraphs for my soul.
So that’s that. This is. It’s the final countdownnnnn be ne ne neeeewwww
I had to. The meds wore off. Okay. It’s the final episode, but you know, it’s not really the final episode. I’ll be back soon. I’ll be back in a couple of weeks. I love you. Drink water. Remember that Thanksgiving is a genocidal colonizer holiday, so if you celebrate, that’s cool, but maybe don’t make it about pilgrims cuz they’re bad.
And yeah, let’s fucking rock the next couple months of the year here and head into January… to write a book. Am I right? You definitely wanna write a book? Totally. Okay, bye.
Run Like Hell Toward Happy 