A Success About Failure Being Part of Success

I have written a lot about success and failure over the years, as I have learned and grown in my search to redefine success beyond power, prestige, and money. One of the most important things I've learned is that success is inseparable from failure, because success is about rising to challenges, and challenges require effort and practice to meet successfully. And what is practice, if it is not failing over and over again until you get it?

Another lesson learned is that success is about living life with meaningful work that is aligned with your deep values. Call them principles if you prefer. They are the deeper things that call to us when we are open to listening for them: the desire to help others, to create something, to grow and develop.

Underlying everything I have learned is this lesson: The framework from which you view your life is the most essential element of success. Call it frame of reference, or mindset, the message is that feeling successful depends in large part on having the the attitude that you can and will grow better and better with effort. Failing that, you are doomed to feel like a failure even when all external signs indicate otherwise.

I am proud to present to you a podcast interview featuring me. Me, me, me! Yes, I was contacted by the enterprising Paul Padmore, who read this blog post in Psychology Today and wanted to talk to me about failure and success. We talk about what I mention above, and more, so please listen. And subscribe to his podcast. Every one of his episodes is about the way people overcome what seems like failure and go on to find success.

Here's the podcast, when Paul Padmore interviews yours truly about failure and success:

https://www.buzzsprout.com/319835/1431364-challenging-failure-with-hope-perlman

Grit, Grittier 2

So, Readers, are we clear on what grit is? I’ve heard from a lot of people—meaning at least three—who want to know how to get grit. Well, before we try to accumulate it, we’d better define it. 

Grit is what you think it is: tenacity. But this new definition of grit adds the element of passion. So grit is perseverance in pursuit of something of intrinsic interest to you over a long period. That last bit about persevering for a long time is key. It’s not that you have to be single-minded or workaholic in this pursuit; however, your interest must remain over months, years, even a lifetime. That’s grit. 

Now, why is it important? “This book has been about the power of grit to help you achieve your potential,” says Duckworth in her conclusion. That’s why. I want to achieve my potential. I sure do. And I don’t think I have, yet. And there are a lot of people out there who want to, who haven’t yet. 

Next, we need to know that grit grows. It's not a fixed entity. Duckworth says so. Grit grows in two ways, “inside out” and “outside in.” Duckworth draws her conclusions from anecdotal evidence, interviews of people who “epitomize the qualities of passion and perseverance.” So take it for what it’s worth. She concludes there are four aids in developing grit inside-out. 

Interest - She interchanges this term with passion, and she seems to mean intrinsic motivation.

Practice - This is a form of perseverance that involves “challenge-exceeding-skill practice that leads to mastery.” This sounds a lot like Carol Dweck’s growth mindset at work. The growth mindset is one that believes improvement by practice is possible. And it's about goal-setting. I've talked about this before. A healthy goal is one that is challenging by not too hard, something that makes you push yourself to achieve.

Purpose—Having a sense that what you’re doing is “both personally interesting and, at the same time, integrally connected to the well-being of others.” Now, I struggle with this one. I think many artists might. How useful or important to others is any creative work? It takes an internal mastery of self-doubt to see that creative endeavors have utility beyond the expression of one individual’s ideas. For me, self-doubt often overshadows that knowledge. It’s easier to be part of a sanctioned socially useful structure, such as teaching or public service, than to feel like you’re “ringing your own bell” by writing a novel, or, just as an example, a book about your struggles to find success. However, when self-doubt doesn't blot out everything else, I can see that others may find my thoughts useful. Perhaps as a cautionary tale. Perhaps as comfort. Smallest perhaps: as inspiration. 

Hope—This is another kind of perseverance, the ability to keep going “even when things are difficult, even when we have doubts.” So many things have been written about hope. It's a thing with feathers. It's eternally springy. It's a paradox (ever waiting, ever expecting, sadly never actually attaining). It's optimism. 

Duckworth calls these internal grit growers assets. She owns her debt to Carol Dweck in the book, and she builds on it here by telling us that these internal assets are not fixed. Like intelligence, compassion, and maturity, they are qualities that can develop over time. 

What about the outside-in approach to growing grit? (“Growing grit”—What an annoying phrase). I hear you asking, Readers. Well, in short, it’s about developing those aforementioned assets within a gritty culture and with the help of others. 

I’m liking this, because it aligns with what I’ve discovered about success, that it depends in part on input from like-minded others. Coaches, parents, and peers all help nurture, inspire, and challenge us in these areas. 

Does constant growth and effort seem exhausting? Do you think you would rather take a nap? Would you prefer to watch all nine seasons of The Office on Netflix? Well, take heart, because according to Duckworth, gritty people have more life satisfaction. So it’s worth it to develop those assets. And remember, persisting with passion—a.k.a. being gritty—does not preclude bouts of binge-watching TV. Not that Duckworth says so, but I extrapolate from the evidence.

Now, how exactly to grow grit? How do you really build those assets? Tune in next time, when I talk about Caroline Adams Miller’s book Getting Grit, in which she takes all this info to the next stage and talks specifically about how to become gritty. 

Grit, Grittier

http://www.thehabitfactor.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/GRIT-Success-workthrough-it.jpg

Well, Readers, I have been adrift from the blog, and the blog has drifted from my subject, success, over the last several weeks. Perhaps you are thinking, “Weeks? Try months! Months? Try years!” It is true, this blog is sometimes only related to success in the most tangential way. I like to think I exhibit some ingenuity in those linkages, and that keeps you all on at least a loose tether and interested in what on earth Hope is going to say next. 

Some of you like it when I tell stories from my life. (Hi, Dad!) Because then you know what is going on in my life. Some of you like it when I get into some tips for success and living well. So as the old saying goes, you can’t please all the people all the time. 

But you can sure hope they’ll keep reading. 

Because I keep on writing. I persevere. I persist. I exhibit grit. And grit is what I want to talk about. In fact, I have to apologize to you, Readers, because Grit, by Angela Duckworth, happens to be one of the more intriguing and helpful books on success I have read. Along with Mindset by Carol Dweck it has been among the most influential. Yet, in going over my blog, I can’t find any posts on the topic. Perhaps I wrote one and forgot, but perhaps I just overlooked it, as one overlooks something familiar and integral, such as the family dog. Until you trip over him. Or he demands your attention by sticking his nose into your hand. 

What is grit? Is grit muscling through weekend traffic on 495 and 95 to and from visiting your rising 10th grader at her theater camp's performance day? Is it sitting through four musicals and plays in one day, sitting, let me just add, first outside on wooden planks, then inside on theater seats, then outside in the amphitheater on split logs that are trying to pitch you down a hillside, then inside in the theater, and finally on the floor on a sleeping bag that might be infested with fleas?

Sadly, no, that is not grit. Although there was plenty of grit around. But this is a different kind of grit.  Did you ever read that book, True Grit? They made a movie out of it in 1969, starring John Wayne and Kim Darby. And the Coen brothers remade it in 2010 with Jeff Bridges and Hailee Steinfeld. Well, True Grit is about pursuing a goal with single minded passion and going through a lot to reach it. It, in the story, is the girl’s father. 

Well, Duckworth came to study grit from an interest in achievement. She was a student of famous psychologist Martin Seligman, the founder of Positive Psychology, and she was trying to figure out how talent, skill, effort, achievement, and success were all linked. She noticed, through her own and others’ research and experience that talent alone was not enough to succeed. A person needs skill, in addition to talent. In fact, she discovered, talent is intertwined with skill. Talent is “how fast we improve in skill.” 

In short, spend a little time with Duckworth, and you’re in the pond with the ducks. By which I mean, she continues the work of Carol Dweck that erodes the myth of the genius born with “natural talent.” Until I read Mindset, which I've written about in several posts, I was one of those people who fetishised the idea of the natural genius. Duckworth’s not saying there aren’t differences in the ability with which we may improve in skill, i.e. differences in talent. However, talent alone doesn’t make for success. In fact, she says, talent, which correlates with, for example, high SAT scores, does not predict success in life when pursuing sustained pursuit of goals. 

So what transforms talent into skill? Duckworth says effort. 

Talent x Effort = Skill

But in seeking to achieve a challenging goal, skill is not enough, either. Achievement requires effort, too. 

Skill x Effort = Achievement. 

Which means, according to Duckworth, that effort factors into success twice. She says, “If I have the math approximately right, then someone twice as talented but half as hardworking as another person might reach the same level of skill but still produce dramatically less over time. This is because as strivers are improving in skill, they are also employing that skill…..[Then] the striver who equals the person who is a natural in skill by working harder will, in the long run, accomplish more.” (p. 51) 

Grit is “passion and perseverance.” Grit is enjoying “the chase” as well as “the capture.” That is, having a growth mindset as opposed to a fixed one. That means you believe in your ability to improve. Another indication of grit is the ability to be “satisfied being unsatisfied.” That is, the ability to return to your work, your project, your book, your painting, your research, day after day, knowing that every day you haven’t yet achieved what you wanted, but that every day you are making it a little closer to your goal. 

What makes us work hard over a long period? Passion. I think you could safely call this intrinsic motivation. A growth mindset helps us persevere. And when we persevere with passion over a long period, we exhibit grit. 

So now I’ll bet you all want to know if you have grit. I do. I have grit. Of that I am one thousand percent positive. Which is nice for a change from my usual state of self-doubt. I know from looking at how I live my life. I am a writer. Still. After decades of effort. But I also know because Angela Duckworth has a little quiz in her book, which I took, and yes, I have grit. You can take the quiz here: https://angeladuckworth.com/grit-scale/  

Let me know how gritty you are! 

Don’t be afraid. I feel like this is all good news. Success is largely in our control. We tend to get grittier as we mature. "Grit is growable," says Duckworth.  More on that in a future post. Plus, if all goes well, I will have an interview about this topic to share with you. 

Home Truths for Successful Living

While scanning our bookshelves for a quick read, I came across a little book belonging to one of the children and untouched in recent years. Despite the lack of documentation, the book purported to contain facts. Not even a bibliography! My US History teacher would have been appalled!

Anyway, I read that if I were swallowed by a black hole, I would become elongated. Eeellonnnnnnggated was how the book put it. Well, I thought, I'm sure I've read that somewhere else. I mentally noted I would check this fact with the college student, who has two semesters of Physics in her head by now. Then I moved on to other thoughts. Such as the thought that if I were e-l-o-n-g-a-t-e-d, I might finally become the leggy ectomorph I am in my imagination. Of course my next thought was that I might end up a human chihuaha. Or corgi.

It was time to shelve that line of thought. I moved on to some home truths.

• My dog smells. He isn’t supposed to, because he is a fancy designer dog, touted to have no doggy smell. Well. I’m here to tell you, he’s lying under the desk right by me, and he smells. It’s not a horrible, gag-inducing dog smell; his smell is milder, but still pungent. There is an odor, though, no matter what the dog people say. It’s equivalent in intensity to the scent of unscented deodorant and lotion. Unscented personal products have an odor.

  

  He has no idea

• A frittata is a great, quick meal. I make a mean frittata.

• “In life, if your focus is being something, then it’s not going to go very well, and it’s not going to be fulfilling. But if your focus is doing something, then that makes a difference.”* I didn’t say that. It’s a quotation from Jason Kander, former Secretary of State in Missouri and founder of Let America Vote, an organization devoted to combating voter suppression and increasing turnout. He’s beautifully describing the fixed versus growth mindsets defined by one of my heroes, Carol Dweck, as crucial to sustained success. 

• To accomplish many challenges, especially athletic ones, it’s important to develop what W. Timothy Gallwey in The Inner Game of Tennis calls relaxed concentration. How to develop this? By visualizing your desired outcome, focusing on exactly what is happening in the moment, and allowing your unconscious mind to direct your actions.

• Following through on your intentions is what separates the finishers from the rest. Just last week, I attended the husband’s work event as Supportive Spouse. I entertained myself by dressing in a poufy skirt and some bitchin’ metallic silver beads. One of the medical residents engaged me in conversation. When he learned I love podcasts, he began listing his favorites. After my eyes glazed and my tongue lolled and I glanced longingly at my congealing meal, he offered to email his recommendations to the husband. And he did, with recommendations for specific episodes. Of course, I can do nothing for his career, but I can vouch for his follow-through.

• Sometimes you should just buy the thing, even if it’s not on sale. Sometimes the amount you'll wear the thing or use the thing brings down its cost per use to something reasonable. You should try it on, first, though. I mean, if it's a wearable thing. Deliberate in the dressing room. Maybe snap a mirror shot and send it to your friend for approval (If you're under 16, that is.) Then leave the store. Walk around. Tell yourself you’ll wait twenty-four hours and see if you still want it. Wait at least twenty-four minutes. Then if you still want it, go back and buy it. Then wear it, don’t pickle it, as my Aunt Wisdom says my grandmother used to say. 

*Check out Jason Kander's interview on the new podcast The Great Battlefield, all about how the progressive resistance to reactionary policy is organizing. 

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Me and Jodie, Success and Failure

There was an interesting article in the newspaper about the latest movie directed by Jodie Foster, “Money Monster.” According to Frank Bruni, who wrote this piece, the movie is, “a meditation on failure: how keenly people fear it, what they do when confronted with it.” 

Is it refreshing to know that Jodie Foster feels like a failure? Or is it depressing? Is it liberating to know she grapples with inadequacy? Or does it make you want to lie down and pull a newpaper over your face and take a real long snooze? She’s had a few awards, and directed and acted in a couple of things you might want to forget. (“Tay-ay in the wiy-yind,” anyone?*) But I think we can all agree that she is a big fat success. She's a success not just because of her achievements, though, Readers. She's a success because she keeps on working, even when the outcome is "The Beaver." Or "Nell." 

“Does she often think of herself as a failure?” Bruni writes. “Failure is a big one for me,” she says. “‘Oh yeah,’ she said. ‘Oh my god, yeah. if Mother Teresa is propelled to do good works because she believes in God, I am propelled to do good works because of how bad I feel about myself. It’s the first place I go. “Oh, what did I do wrong?’”

Wow. I have something in common with Jodie Foster after all. Along with having no face work done. And highlighted hair. And being, as they said when I tried on wedding dresses, "low to the ground." I can relate to the failure thing. 

But where Jodie and I differ is how failure operates on us. Apparently it propels her towards outstanding acting and awards; me, well, I go to therapy. And I blog. And write books, apparently.

So. Yeah. The lesson is clear. She says she funnels her sense of failure into proving herself worthy through good work. I think that’s an excellent idea. I pass it on to you for your contemplation, Readers. 

What are you funneling your existential despair, fear of failure, and sense of inadequacy into? Binge-eating? Depression? Or action? 

The other day I came across something I typed up while killing time during my first job out of college. I was a receptionist in a law firm. Oh, my God, was that boring. When the phone wasn’t ringing, I performed calisthenics behind the desk. I also, apparently, read quotes from Marianne Williamson and typed them up for my amusement.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others. ― Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of "A Course in Miracles"

I found that inspiring, as I recall. It was a nice one-eighty from what I usually considered my deepest fear. I read that passage and wondered was my deepest fear really that I was powerful? Because it really did feel like it was that I was inadequate. 

Basically, my inner child really needed to hear she was special. And people just were not lining up to tell her. So I was trying to amass proof. 

The problem with the constant seeking of proof of specialness is that it runs right up against this idea of the growth mindset. Thanks to Carol Dweck, we are no longer allowed to believe in the limits of our intelligence. Nothing is fixed. All is potential. How lovely to be annointed a special one, with a special intelligence or a special something or other that makes success inevitable. 

But, really, is that possible? Isn’t seeking that type of assurance the same as having a fixed mindset? It’s the same kind of mindset that believes that you have to have a particular makeup in order to succeed, so you spend your time trying to prove to yourself that you do have It. Instead of pursing your goals. 

Yes, you are special. So am I. We are all special. And yes, therefore, nobody is actually special. Not even Jodie Foster. She's not special-special.** You’re not special-special. Isn’t that ok? 

What might be special, however, is the work you produce when you try to transcend yourself. Or just to express yourself - which is what I hope for, nothing more, really. 

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), who would have been a blogger, battling Montaigne for followers, if the Internet had existed back when he did - and if he and Montaigne had lived at the same time - had this to say about success and despondency: "From torpid despondency, can come no advantage; it is the frost of the soul, which binds up all its powers, and congeals life in perpetual sterility. He that has no hopes of success, will make no attempts; and where nothing is attempted, nothing can be done."

Johnson: Adventurer #81 (August 14, 1753)

So I guess another thing I have in common with Jodie is that fear of failure, which is really just the hope for success dressed up in drapey black clothes and goth eyeliner. 

*That’s from “Nell,” which, interesting to me, Jodie’s mother told her not to do. Just mentioning that because my authority as a mom is about zilch these days, what with two teenagers. Jodie might have listened to her mom. But, no. Anyway, it was a learning experience, I’m sure. 

** I'm sorry, Readers, but I just can't do it. I actually think Jodie Foster is pretty special. Call me a hypocrite. I can take it. Well, I can't - but I'll discuss it with my therapist.

Return to the Roots of Success: 2 Tips on Success

Sunday morning my friend, let’s call him N for “He shall remain nameless”, asked, “So are you afraid of success?” I don’t know what made him ask. I mean, there I was in his house, drinking Earl Grey tea, chatting with my friend, let’s call her C for “We met in college”, and sputtering when asked about my book. Yes, sputtering. 

Sputtering after I said the phrase “my agent,” a phrase I’ve been longing to say for lo, on thirty years. I can indeed say it now. So I did. But it didn’t feel organic. My agent. It felt tentative. Possibly fake. Or perhaps that was just how I felt, talking about my writing. So when N asked how it was going with the book, I had to admit that I was worried. I was worried that I wasn’t feeling positive enough, and that I would therefore be sending negative vibes around to the potential buyers of my book proposal, and thereby killing my chances. 

N is not your New Age kind of person, so he laughed at my fear. (Which of course I really wanted, which was why I told my fear to N, rather than to, say, the really spiritual, New Age-y lady in my NIA class that I like chatting with sometimes. Key to success, Readers: choose your support system wisely.) 

And then he asked me if I’m afraid of success. This is one of those facile fears you would like to think you could avoid, especially if you are me, a feminist, who doesn’t want to have to deal with an extra helping of personal hang-ups on top of all the other difficulties I encounter as a woman trying to be a professional writer. With an agent. I remembered that my MIL had pooh-poohed the fear of success syndrome herself, back when I asked her about her definition of success. She was talking about her decision to not write her dissertation. This was in the 1960s. She said there were several books about women and the fear of success that came out in the 70s, and she just didn’t buy it. Fear of success had not caused her to abandon her dissertation; it was boredom with her subject. 

And marriage and children, I might add, even if she wouldn’t. I’ll let her take that up with Anne-Marie Slaughter. 

So, let’s just say I, too, have a bias against assigning that particular fear to myself. After all, there are many things about success I do not fear. Here are some fears I do not have: 

• I do not fear having to appear on talk shows. I would like the opportunity to be on TV. I used to practice for this as a child, which I know I have mentioned. Me, the mirror, and the hairbrush mic spent a lot of time together. 
• I would not mind reading passages of my book to crowds of four or five at readings around the country. 
• I do not fear royalties. 
• And I am pretty sure I would get over the horrible self-consciousness accompanying being a New York Times Bestselling Author.

But when N asked, I did realize that while I don’t fear success, I fear some elements that often are part of it. For example, I fear becoming a “relentless self-promoter par excellence” as he described my nemesis GR. (Close readers of this blog will know to whom I refer.) I definitely have that fear, the fear of becoming a sound-bite spurting annoyance, the cause of rolling eyes and gritting teeth. 

How realistic is this fear? Probably not very. After all, I’m much more prone to self-deprecation than to self-promotion. This, of course, is another problem. Self-deprecation gets old and annoying, too. And if I were to become successful and famous, it definitely wouldn’t play well on Late Night with Stephen Colbert. People would want to throw things at me. Maybe, Readers, you already do. 

Let me pause while I absorb that sad thought.

On the other hand, some self-promotion is important. Already, I post my blog to Facebook and Twitter, and I have my mailing list. I push “send” apologetically, but I do push it.

My ideal of success with my book is along the David Sedaris lines - people find me charming and funny, even if my voice is a little weird. They like to listen to me because I am definitely farther out on the limb of insanity than they are. I aim to reassure, not infuriate. And further, I would love to impart some helpful information I have learned about success. 

So I have that fear. Also the fear of insanity. And death.

Anyway, my friends N and C spent a little time bucking up my spirits by saying nice things about how they know this book is going to sell and other such stuff, and offering to read drafts of it and provide whatever kind of commentary I might like on it, even if it’s just, “Great job, keep going.” 

This conversation reminded me of two crucial lessons I have learned about success. First, the question of positive thinking and self-confidence is much more complex than I first thought. I've researched it a lot, because once upon a time I worried that the essence of my personality - unconfident and tending towards pessimism - indicated I was doomed to failure. While early writers on success certainly emphasized confidence and positive affirmations and unshakeable faith, recent research has proven that supreme self-confidence is not the only prerequisite to success. In fact, over-confidence can lead to missteps, because you forget to be careful and to weigh all considerations. It can lead to a fixed mindset, and a fixed mindset responds inflexibly to setbacks. More importantly, for some people - people who may skew towards pessimism - it’s much more helpful to think of what could go wrong than to try to be positive. By thinking of what obstacles might arise, you can then consider methods of dealing with them. That sort of thinking is more natural for worriers and pessimists like me. It helps make goals attainable. And, sneakily, it makes a positive of negatives. Because life is full of problems that need solving along the way. If you’re blind to the potential ways to improve a situation, or don’t consider how to handle contingencies, you won’t.

Second lesson. Readers: you need those loving mirrors. Loving mirrors is Noah St. John’s term for the people who see what you want to become and believe you can be that. They are not necessarily your family. They aren’t always even your friends. They can be, but they might not be. Mentors, bosses, teachers - any of these people can mirror the successful you at you. You need them in your community. These people might even be the ones who see positively for you when you are mired in doubt, fear, and self-deprecation. They might be the ones that give you a big mug of Earl Grey tea and casually give you a kick in the pants and get you back to work. 

Sources

Harvard Business Review blog

Carol Dweck, Mindset

Heidi Grant Halvorson, Succeed

Noah St. John, The Secret Code of Success

Independence Day 2

Readers, I have a few things to get off my chest.

• It’s raining. Again.

• Something died in the wall between the mudroom/entry and the dining room. again. and the smell drifts up the laundry chute into our bedroom, which is located above the dining room. Again.

• My hair is frizzing. AGAIN.

Meanwhile, the husband and I are waiting for the phone to ring. The 13-year-old is scheduled to call home from camp for a fifteen minute check in. We haven’t heard from her since she left a week ago, although we do see pictures of her on the camp’s website almost every day. 

Every day. Because, suddenly, I have so much free time. 

Speaking of reasons for which - last week after dropping off the 16-year-old at her summer dance intensive, I had dinner with some relatives who live nearby, my father’s first cousin, his son, and his grandson. My first cousin once-removed, my second cousin, and my second-cousin once removed, I think. 

Dad? Anyone? Bueller? 

They are living the life - and by The Life I mean the life where the family and extended family get along. In The Life they more than get along, they like each other and work together in a business. And live near one another. This closeness is something I’ve always wanted and never managed. My only hope, really, is my immediate family, the one I created, with the husband and the children and some friends. I hope the children will want to be near and close to us when they grow up and leave. 

I am going to ask my first cousin once removed and his wife for their advice the next time I see them, which will be soon, fortunately. They plan to attend the 16-year-old's performance at the end of the dance intensive.

Meantime, I have two more weeks to think about what it’s going to be like with an empty nest. Since this weekend, the husband and I and Milo the dog took a day trip that included a hike and a restaurant and sleeping in the car (Milo) and selfies, I am pretty sure it’s going to involve dogs in a way that might seem gross and annoying to non-dog lovers. (My second cousin, I noticed, has two dogs, now that his two children have grown up and moved out, even though his son lives near to him and works with him.) We felt proud of ourselves for filling our day without children.

But I digress. As I sat at dinner with the cousins, I found myself asked many questions about my life and my blog and my writing, and before I knew it, I was telling them - without embarrassment, without shame, and just in a regular sort of way, about my writing schedule, that I have an agent and a book proposal. This is big for me, I realized. I have admitted to having, first, a proposal, then an agent. I have admitted to having dreams, goals, and to putting effort towards realizing them. 

What this means is that I have actually succeeded in redefining success for myself - and living the redefinition. I have finally answered the question that started my whole success search. 

What was that question?  The question was whether I could unhook my definition of success from publication. That was the question my old therapist asked me. Threatened me with, actually. She said if I couldn't, I risked ruining my marriage, my children, and my life. 

So dramatic. Yes, but true. I was so single-pointed about success, like Tiger Woods, that nothing else seemed to register and I felt like a failure. 

At the time, that question seemed like her way of telling me I would never get published. Her way of trying to make me see the truth that she saw about my failure. But I interpret it differently now. Now that I think of success as process - that old jalopy built on several key parts: motherhood, marriage, community, friendship, volunteering, financial security, and so on- I feel successful as long as I'm moving. I still have that overarching goal of publication, but I am celebrating the small steps, the mini-goals I achieve. 

In the past, admitting to trying without knowing if I would succeed was just too embarrassing to contemplate. I felt like people would roll their eyes and snort in disdain if I dared to admit to this wish. I used to feel like I had to keep the big goal secret. The mini-steps, too. All that effort, which might end up with no result embarrassed me. I felt ashamed to admit to any of it. This amounted to stifling myself. And having nothing to talk about at dinner with relative strangers. 

In short, I had a very results-oriented approach to goals and success. I had a fixed-mindset about success, as opposed to what I have now, a growth mindset. (Thank you, Carol Dweck, for changing my mindset.) 

So, yes, I have found a way to feel successful without having a published book. And because of that, I can share my small victories. I appreciate them for themselves, and don't discount them because the ultimate goal is still uncertain. I appreciate that this moment and this smaller accomplishment is worth it in itself, because I’ve worked hard. And also, because, let’s face it, life is short and uncertain and today is the only day we have at hand. So I might as well appreciate it. 

Hard Work and Other Things

I've been peaky this week, Readers. Caught a little bug during a three day trip to NYC and have been just the slightest bit off since. But I'm on the upswing. So. Highlights of the week since last I wrote: 

Well, last I wrote was from NYC, actually. I finished up and posted from the mother-in-law's apartment. It was a rainy snowy day. I was in the city because it's audition season for ballet summer programs, and my ballet dancer had three auditions lined up. I accompanied her and waited around. This was actually fine with me. Each was at Lincoln Center, so there was plenty of coffee to drink and shops to look in. I squeezed into a pair of jeans a size smaller than I expected to, so naturally I bought them. And I had a lovely drink and appetizer at the bar of PJ Clarke's one evening with another mom whose daughter dreams of a professional dance career. That part was nice. 

However, to each audition I brought a nervous daughter and picked up a disappointed one. It's really hard to witness the ups and downs. These girls are so hard on themselves it's almost impossible to understand the appeal of this passion. Where is the payoff for all the hard work they do, if they are always disappointed? I shouldn't say always. Usually. Mostly. And the road to a company is so hard, too. And there are so many young ballerinas hoping to dance professionally, all working towards so few spots. They're like, they're like sperm, programmed to give their all, even though only one lucky one will make it.

As a parent, is this what I want for my child?

Don't answer that. (She says to herself.)

Let me focus for a moment on the positives. Number one, the child has a passion that gives shape to her world. People with passions are lucky. Number two, she is accustomed to disciplined, hard work, repetition, practice, and incremental progress. These habits are transferrable.

Yes, they are transferrable. (She says to herself, under her breath, not suggesting that they would ever need to transfer.)

The 15 year old's belief in the transformative power of hard work is unshakable. Hers is the epitome of the growth mindset. If you’ve been reading this blog, you know about Carol Dweck and the growth mindset and how it’s key to sustained success. This is good, right? Hard work does accomplish a lot. Unbelievable things, even, sometimes.

But this belief has a downside, because it creates an unrealistic sense of control over outcome. It means she thinks that if she finds the right teacher at the right ballet school and works as hard as she can, she will succeed; whereas, those are incomplete determinants of success. We know that success depends on factors outside our control. Genetic factors like inherent talent or flexibility or musicality or body proportions, to speak specifically of dancers, for example. It also depends on circumstances. On luck. On being the one the program is looking for.

So I can't help worrying what will happen when she realizes that hard work won't take her all the way. It'll get her close. If hard work were all it took, she'd succeed - no question. But those other factors. That random chance thing. Smack into that at the wrong time and you wind up with an existential crisis.

So there's that to worry about.

Along with her dancer's feet. Have you ever looked at a dancer’s feet? They are not lovely, Readers.

In addition to the audition tour with the 10^th grader, here are some other things I’ve been doing this week:

• A drawing a day. Well, not exactly every day. A drawing a day was and is the goal, though. A friend suggested it. We share the pictures on Flickr. The 11 year old is drawing, too. So it's also a mom-daughter project.

• Three book clubs. I know. Don't say it. Three is a lot. Especially since I have a knee-jerk reaction against being told what to read. In my defense, I will say that one of these book clubs is a mother-daughter book club in which we read YA books and always have homemade baked goods; another is really a monthly dinner with old friends during which we pick a book to discuss the next month because we’re all interested in a lot of the same books - which is one of the reasons we are friends. That leaves one more official book club where I'm getting to know the people, as opposed to already being friends with all of them, and since we’re not a community of leaning over the fence chatting, the book club is the official, sanctioned way for women to get together.

• My shitty first draft.

• Meditation. Sort of.

• Yoga in the mornings. Sometimes just the barest of sun salutations.

• Kegel exercises. If you don't know what those are, you can look it up. You should be doing them, too (if you are a woman).

• Plucking chin hairs before they grow long enough to curl around themselves.

• Therapy Dog visiting at the middle school.

• Belonging to the Make-up Committee for the middle school musical (Seussical, Jr), which means face painting a cast of 75 students, one of whom is the 11 year old. She is a jungle animal.  

• Wondering if the pain in my side is cancer or gas. Wondering if the intermittent pain in my eye is cancer or fatigue. Wondering if my fatigue is just fatigue, or cancer.

So that’s an update on what’s been occupying my time and my mind - a lot of different stuff, which always feels like too much and not enough simultaneously. Periods like these feel like muddle, and muddle seems like inefficiency, although sometimes it's fertilizer for creative growth. One can always hope.

Update: This just in. One of the NYC auditions panned out and the dancer has been accepted for the summer. The dream continues uncrushed for now.