“I can’t contact them until I’m more established.”
That’s what a 10th grader told me when I asked him why he didn’t want to email an organization whose mission was to support students exactly like him, high school students who possessed an interest in building and running microlending organizations. Despite the fact that he was their target demographic, that he was the purpose and very reason for the organization’s existence, he felt that it was inappropriate for him to approach them to ask for help or explore opportunities to collaborate.
“I can’t join a soccer club or volunteer at a youth soccer league. I’m a 9th grader. I’m too young.”
This was the reasoning by a 9th grader who told himself that he couldn’t before he even tried to see if he could. Despite encouragement to try and organize his own tournament, as well as additional support reverse-engineering where and from whom he could find the guidance, he ended up expending more energy and emotion explaining why he couldn’t rather than explore he could.
“I have to publish something everyday as part of a practice to becoming a successful writer.”
That one is me. It’s the current version of a formulaic thought pattern: “I have to do A in order to get to B.” I form such beliefs based on the advice of experts and shared experience of those who have been there and done that. They’re technically suggestions — just one of many possible ways to do something — and even then they only need to be executed partially as “instructed” to produce effective results.
And yet, I, the students I mentioned, and many others live our lives following rules we never really wrote ourselves or that are strictly enforced by others.
Who said you have to be worth talking to before asking for help?
And who said you have to be 16 years old before you can start trying to be of help?
And who said you have to practice your craft, produce your work, and create your art any way other than what feels right to you?
The thinking goes, “If I follow these rules, then I won’t get in trouble. And if I don’t get in trouble, then I’m doing the right thing. And if I do the right thing, then everything will be okay and I’ll end up getting what I want.” The only problem with that is you might be the only one following those rules. Rules you didn’t write yourself. Rules you’re not even entirely sure who wrote them. Rules that might not even apply, that can be rewritten, that were never even really rules.
So if you could rewrite the rules, what would they be? And of the rules you do choose to follow — whether you wrote them or not — which ones actually work in helping you create the result that you seek?
