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What to Do When Low Rates Hold You Back
“I think there’s something you should know. I think it’s time I stopped the show. There’s something deep inside of me. There’s someone I forgot to be.” - George Michael, Freedom! 90
In 1990, George Michael wrote a song about breaking free. It’s one of my favorite songs, and the lyrics reach me each time. They talk about a man who has had it, one who wants to get rid of everything he was to rediscover who he is.
At the same time, the lyrics ask forgiveness, hoping that listeners and fans will understand and stay true. I find that touchingly sad. George Michael had let himself become what everyone told him to be – and forgot who he was to begin with.
How many of us do that? How many of us listen to others tell us who we should be or how we should act? How many of us portray faces for the people who listen to us in the hopes that they’ll continue to accept and like us?
When You Fall and Can’t Get Up
I received an email recently from someone asking how to break free of the problems he’d created for himself. A new writer, he’d fallen into the trap of high production for low pay in a sweatshop-style scenario.
He asked, simply, how to stop the cycle. How to raise his rates. How to get out of the problems he’d created.
The answer was fairly easy: Just stop. Decide that enough is enough. Move on to better things. I shared some advice for starting down a new road and gave a few tips I thought would help.
The issue goes a little deeper than that. When you’re caught in a cycle that you try desperately to keep up with, making a break isn’t so easy. You feel like you’re just digging a deeper hole instead of climbing out.
When you accept to be less than you are and forget that you’re worth more, it can be very hard to get back up again.
Finding Yourself Again
To find yourself again, you have to do two things: look to the past to know who you’ve been and look to the future to know who you want to be.
The writer and I exchanged some emails, and I asked the person to share more details about who he was. What were his values? What business ethics did he have? “Impress me,” I said.
So he tried to. He wrote a little about his history, attempting to astound me with years in this position or experience in that job. But as he wrote, I noticed the words began to change.
They grew more heartfelt. They sounded like a person instead of a job application. They rang true. I could hear the thoughts roll around the writer’s head. Who was he? By the end of the email, I had the sense that the writer knew a little more about the person he’d forgotten he could be.
Why not do the same? Why not take a piece of paper and write down a list of the values that you stand for?
Go somewhere quiet where you can think by yourself, and write down who you are as a person. What defines you? What ethics do you have? Who are you – and who do you really want to be?
Calling a Timeout
George Michael wasn’t very happy in the late 80s. He felt confined and caught up in other people’s expectations. He knew he had to do something, and Freedom! 90 explained that clearly: “Today the way I play the game has got to change, oh yeah. Now I’m gonna get myself happy.”
So George cast off everything he was tired of. The Freedom 90! video showed the smashing of a guitar, the destruction of a jukebox, a wrecked leather jacket. These symbols of George Michael’s past were his chains.
He wanted to be himself – and be accepted for who he was. George Michael stood up and called a timeout on his life. He stopped the game. He examined where he was and adjusted the play.
The writer who responded to my questions had to stop and think. He had to call a timeout. Who was he? Where was he at now? What game adjustments did he need to make?
He didn’t ask me for a job. He didn’t ask for work. I’d blown the whistle on him and he had to think about his strategies. And he realized he was grateful that he could stop and remember his values so that he could redirect his life.
Some people would call the revelation the deciding moment, the instant where the person knows that everything has just changed.
That remains to be seen, though. Will the writer smash his guitar and break the jukebox? Will he set memorabilia on fire and watch the flames burn the past? Maybe. Maybe not. I hope so.
George Michael did. He looked back, acknowledged who he’d been and who he really was. He turned his whole life around. He took a conscious decision to set himself free and he broke the chains that held him back in a very public way.
The lyrics of Freedom 90! shared George’s heartfelt worries – and his faith that people understood there was more to him than people could see: “I just hope you understand that sometimes the clothes do not make the man.”
He was going to be who he was. He had to try. Would he make it? Even he didn’t know. He took his hopes, faith, and courage in hand and he provoked change. These lyrics explain it best: “There’s someone else I’ve got to be.”
What about you?
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@ Janice – Yes, luxury. Hear me out:
A disaster happens. A major event wrecks everything. You have nothing but yourself and you need to start over.
But you have something to blame. Something to be angry at. Something to point to as the cause of your problems and the reason you have to start again.
When you need to force yourself to make a conscious decision to start over, that is entirely a different matter. You only have yourself to blame. You have nothing to point to but yourself as the cause for your problems. You can only be angry at yourself.
You have to look at YOU in the mirror and face yourself. This is one of the most difficult things to do in life – why do you think most people never achieve inner peace? But they do live through natural disasters and pick up the pieces to move on… and yet, admit the truth of who they are? And then be so strong as to live it and breathe it?
How many people do you know who are 100% true to themselves and hide nothing from the world?
(I’m sorry if I made you mad. That was not my intention.)
@RLD LOL! If you could only listen to my playlist! Seriously! Roger Whittaker and Tom Jones rank somewhere in the top ten most played artists… and I’m fine with that thankyouverymuch.
But then I love Moxy Fruvous, any classic holiday tune (yes, year round), Tchaikovsky, ABBA, Merle Haggard. I’m all over the place!
Nicole’s last blog post..Making the Most of It
@Nicole – Yay for Moxy Fruvous
I’m a huge fan of Tchaikovsky – I love what he did with Romeo and Juliet. Sure, the love theme is overused – Still, I think his use of specific themes was not only musically strong, but also did a great job of telling the story (and conveying the emotion) in about 15 minutes.
RLD: Taekwondo Happiness’s last blog post..Whoops!
@RLD In fact, I think I’ll put a little R&J on right now. I could use that sort of mood to finish up my work week and prepare myself for that hammock in the back yard.
Nicole’s last blog post..Making the Most of It
James- That is called cowardice, you ass. Not difficulty. The inability to look oneself in the mirror. I will regret saying that in public so bluntly. But you have made me cry. You simplistic ass. I will try to calm down.
Janice C Cartier’s last blog post..Naughty Friday Vegas Cake For Two
@ Janice – No, cowardice is hiding something for years on purpose because you’re too scared to face it. Introspection is delving inside because you realized something new about yourself that you never knew was there.
Again, I’m not trying to make light of your situation – just trying to explain the difference between what you’re talking about (a situation I can’t say I’ve experienced so I won’t say I know what it feels like) and what I’m talking about. I think we’re discussing two different matters.
Please don’t be sad – email coming at you now.
And yes. I can be an ass. I don’t ever mean to be one, though. So I’m sorry if I was.
@Janice,
At the risk of stepping in the middle, Something like what you went through is a horrible experience and I am sure that James wasn’t minimizing it in any way. But it is a forced change. Only a dead person could come away from something like that experience andnot feel something, perhaps not question their life’s meaning. It is one of the only good things to come from such a tragedy. Yes, there are those that come away from a tragedy saying poor me, poor me, but still..the many face an altering moment. IF this is how a person comes to their change, it doesn’t make their change any less significant or valuable.
Any time a person gets closer to their true spirit it is valuable.
@James- none of us are 100% there. It is a process, always a process that continues.
In general:
When you haven’t had a life-altering event, when life has just rambled on in a disatisfied manner, well, as my mother says, when all the world is wrong and you are the only one who is right…it is time to look in the mirror. the numbers aren’t adding up.
But I don’t believe it is being a coward not to question. We all come to our mirror when we are ready to see. We walk at our own pace. It takes courage to look. It takes courage to take the first step.
Just my thoughts, of course,
Wendi Kelly’s last blog post..The Pie Theory: A Story About Pie.
@Wendi I like your mother.
Nicole’s last blog post..Making the Most of It
Love this post James.
I must admit for me it wasn’t so much what other people expected that kept me doing fishtails around myself, it was me chasing my tail wondering when I will have done enough to feel I did enough. Accomplished enough. Grew enough. Tried enough…
I understand your reference to looking at who we were and where we want to be in the future…but can I make plug for the now.
This moment I am in is the only one I have, period. If I am always working, always trying harder, I am never able to see myself and truly feel where it is I am.
I liked Brett’s comments about re-connecting every week with his musings, well and the wine, I liked that too!
Someone commented about the financial consequences we may face in making decisions to honor our true self. That is valid. And yet, as Stephen Covey conveyed it won’t be the bucks we lament on our deathbed, it will be the chance for LIFE that we passed by. It didn’t pass us by, we made the choice.
Anyhooo, I ramble. Trying to say, THANK YOU JAMES and everyone else who shared on this rich topic.
Time for the wine…oh wait, only 3:11 here in Vancouver, okay, okay, I will hold off just a wee longer!
Harmony
Harmony’s last blog post..The ABC’s of Golden Zen
@Harmony Well said about the now. Mind if we begin without you then? It’s 5:16 here. : )
Nicole’s last blog post..Making the Most of It
Nicole,
Well, the noble side of me says…of course not! Please enjoy!
The side that still have clients with expectations cries…hmmmm
drat! That’s it DRAT
Harmony’s last blog post..The ABC’s of Golden Zen
@Harmony Three cheers for nobility! (raises her glass in toast)
Nicole’s last blog post..Making the Most of It
ENJOY YOUR “NOW”
Cheers,
Harmony
Harmony’s last blog post..The ABC’s of Golden Zen
Wow, I sure missed the rest of a great comment stream here.
James, Harry, this place *rocks*
@ Nicole: yes, the mind mapping is like visual brainstorming – this is a good description of it http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_map and I also have used a computer program once in a while to do it, available at http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
I will say, though, I prefer to use pen & paper to do this. Much easier and it just “feels” better. I think you are going the right way, if you try Steve’s method and then try Kelly’s method, and a few other things, you’ll have a lot of stuff figured out when you are done. And as James said, if you feel the need to change, you are already on the way. You’ll do well with this, I know it.
@ Kelly – thank you, and thank you for sharing your method too (the is / is not). I’ve never heard of that one before, and I think I’ll try it as well to see what it adds to the mix. I think you & I have chatted about Covey before – awesome stuff. I first did Steve Pavlina’s method, and then my employer sent me on a 3-day course for 7 Habits. It was there that I wrote my personal mission statement – that I review every day. And I have my list of goals, that I also review each day. It keeps me grounded.
@ Harmony – go for it, crack open the wine! Tonight is actually going to be one of my “reconnect” nights, after I go for a run. It is time for me to have a look at everything and see how it is going. I think it is going great, to be honest – but it is always good to keep everything in focus.
Wow, what a great idea storm today. If we could all get in the same room someday, we could change the world. But you know, with this virtual forum, we are doing that anyway.
PS – since everyone is comparing music, I’ll add my own weirdness to the mix. When I really want to think, a glass of wine or three and an out of the way (and now defunct) band called Kyuss does it for me. Early 90’s stoner rock from Palm Desert, very nice warm sound… one of the guys later went on to form Queens of the Stone Age. Either that, or some Pink Floyd…
Brett Legree’s last blog post..focus on writing – part 1 – back to the future.
Brett,
(It’s past nine
, but I’m back. You will know this, because you appear to be manning the fort alone… actually now that I look at the time stamp… you must be off in the real world. Hurrah for you. Anyway, it was a nice time.)
Love love love the Habits. The whole “roles and goals” concept straightens out the priorities and keeps you from overdoing or neglecting. Who needs a 4 Hour Work Week if I’m getting the things I love done and the people I love taken care of? That’s what it’s all about.
Plus, it gives me an excuse to ignore stupid stuff—”I’m sorry, that’s ‘4th quadrant.’ I can’t deal with the dry cleaning today.”
James,
Kelly’s last blog post..Happy 100th Birthday!
Kelly,
I’m glad that you had a good time out. I’m back now too, went for a run and now just winding down.
I agree – the Habits are such an important part of my life now, I don’t know what I did without them.
Tonight I’m just sharpening the saw. Taking care of business that helps me.
Talk with you soon – Brett
Brett Legree’s last blog post..focus on writing – part 1 – back to the future.
@Brett – Oh, I love Pink Floyd! One of my all-time favorite bands was heavily influenced by them: Dream Theater. Their most recent album was a major let-down, but other than that, I would recommend them.
RLD: Taekwondo Happiness’s last blog post..Whoops!
@ RLD: I like Dream Theater too, I haven’t heard their latest album but I love their earlier stuff – very talented people.
Brett Legree’s last blog post..focus on writing – part 1 – back to the future.
@Brett – I don’t find many Dream Theater fans! You are SO awesome
@RLD: I guess it just depends on where you hang out! A lot of my friends like DT.
Yes, they are great. I’m a rhythm section guy myself so John Myung & Mike Portnoy really impress. I’ve never seen them live, but this is sort of funny, I saw James LaBrie live in his old band Winter Rose before he joined DT. Some time in 1989 or 1990, in Hamilton…
Brett Legree’s last blog post..focus on writing – part 1 – back to the future.
James,
This post really speaks to me. Thanks so much. I’m at a crossroads of sorts in my own professional writing life, and this is a wonderful reminder of how important it is to adequately value ourselves and our talents.
Regards,
Jeanne
So *this* is where you guys have been hiding!
This is an appropriate post for what I recently went through in my writing career and overall life. I liked your response to the writer…to just stop. It is as simple as that, really. And also that hard.
Courtney’s last blog post..“Funny†Blog
@ Courtney – Good to see you too
I was sad to see your blog go after the flame war we survived!
And I agree. Stopping is a very hard thing to do – but you’ll never look back.