We failed to meet our writing goal…
In November 2020, we made our first Two Dummies post. The post ended with:
P.S. We aim to publish at least one idea or interesting tidbit per week. If we miss a week, we’ll donate $10 to a non-profit supporting education.
Well… we failed. And that’s ok.
We didn’t publish nearly as many articles as we originally planned. Now, we’d like to reflect, hold ourselves accountable, and practice self-compassion.
And, since it’s Thanksgiving, we’d like to express our gratitude and thanks to everyone who’s read, reacted, shared, or commented on our posts — it has meant — and continues to mean — the world to us. Thank you.
Two Dummies started during the nadir of the pandemic. In the before times, Garett and I had roles that were very social, very collaborative, and fed off the energy of being in-person. When we started working remotely full-time, a lot of what made our roles so enjoyable was taken away. One of the biggest hits we took was our curiosity. We started existing in a world that was trying to figure out how to remain productive. Our leaders scrambled to identify how we could sustain our business and it became an all-hands-on-deck affair. The space we used to make for curiosity rapidly deteriorated and collapsed.
Two Dummies was born out of a desire to rediscover our curiosity, talk through ideas and concepts, and share those thoughts with the world. We created the goal of one post per week as a target to drive our accountability and not flame out spectacularly. We wanted a goal to help us build discipline.
Does anyone remember that we created a goal? Probably not. Will anyone view us differently if we don’t donate? Probably not. But that doesn’t matter. We’re both people of our word and value integrity. We couldn’t bear to have a promise unfulfilled and unaddressed.
To fulfill our original promise, we are going to be donating over $350 for our 35 missed weeks to a couple different organizations that promote and support education in various capacities.
If you know us, you’ve probably gleaned that each of us can be really hard on ourselves and be our own toughest critic. We’re learning that we need to have self-compassion. Writing for the Harvard Business Review, Rebecca Knight provides an excellent overview of self-compassion in this excerpt of her article, “How to Handle the Pressure of Being a Manager Right Now”:
…the most essential leadership decision you can make during a crisis is to choose self-compassion. “This doesn’t mean being super soft on yourself, making excuses, or being complacent,” he says. Rather, it means “orienting toward yourself” in a gentler, more sympathetic way. Ask yourself, “How would an old friend or a mentor who wishes the best for me reassure me and support me?” This empathic approach “creates a lens of kindness and goodwill that you can apply to everything you do,” he says. Too many managers criticize themselves for every little mistake and every “suboptimal decision” made. But self-bullying is damaging to your mental and physical health — and it doesn’t benefit the people around you either. “It’s hard to move forward when you’re beating up on yourself,” he says. (Knight, 2021)
We’ve learned a lot along the way and we’re focusing on building a healthy relationship with writing and creating. And even though we haven’t posted an article every week, Garett self-published two children’s books (My Favorite Color and My Favorite Shape) and Seb constructed eight 15x15 crossword puzzles. We both enjoy creating and this writing project has helped reignite our relationships with other creative outlets.
We’re going to keep writing for Two Dummies, just not at the original pace we planned. We’re going to write when we feel inspired and continue pursuing other passion projects in the interstices.
Curiously Yours — Garett and Seb
Sources
Knight, R. (2021, February 1). How to handle the pressure of being a manager right now. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2020/04/how-to-handle-the-pressure-of-being-a-manager-right-now.
