30. How to Get Out of a Hole

The first law of holes says, if you find yourself in a hole, stop digging. The second law of holes is to notice that when you stop digging, you're still in a hole. 

These rules about holes were first popularized in 1911, in the Washington Post. And of course, there's been lots of variations. We're talking today about how to stop digging and what to do when you're ready to get out.  

It is episode 30! Thank you for hanging in with me!

Transcript

The first law of Holes says, if you find yourself in a hole, stop digging. The second law of holes is commonly known as when you stop digging, you're still in a hole. Welcome to the modern creative woman exploring the art and science of creativity. I'm your hostess and creativity expert, Doctor Amy Backos. Let's get started. 

These rules about holes were first popularized in 1911, in the Washington Post. And of course, there's been lots of variations. We're talking today about how to stop digging and what to do when you're ready to get out.  

Welcome, and thank you so much for joining me here at The Modern Creative Woman. Tomorrow is Winter solstice, and that is something that we always celebrated growing up. My mom would wiggle her eyebrows and say, you know, it's the longest night of the year, and she always made a really delicious seasonal meal. We could invite friends and we would talk about anticipating the return of spring. It felt always very positive, forward thinking, and I loved trusting that the light would always return. A woman in my anti-racism group asked us the other day to think about our wishes for the coming spring, using solstice as our guide point, and I loved it. 

Which brings me to the 21 Day Gratitude Challenge. Gratitude is such an important part of marking seasons and celebrating time. So if you want to work on peace in the world, it really does start internally with cultivating your own inner peace. And the gratitude journal is free. You don't have to sign up for anything. You didn't even have to give me your email. You just download your free copy of the 21 Day Gratitude Challenge, and it's full of spaces for you to reflect. Make art. When you download it, you have the option to sign up to The Creative Woman, my digital monthly magazine, and comes out free once a month. So I really hope you'll have a look at the Gratitude Challenge workbook. Maybe share it with some friends. This might be a great activity to work on over your holidays. Maybe share it with some kids in your life and we can really continue to cultivate our inner peace. You can find it in the show notes or in modern Creative woman comm. 

Other things going on here at Modern Creative Woman headquarters of Aurora Duvall from Girlboss Paris and I are hosting another creativity class this morning. We had so much fun during the last one, and we're doing it again. And you can check out the replay from the last class. It's already up on the modern Creative woman. Com Backslash Treasure Hunt in Paris. Or you can find the link in the show notes. So if you are tired of struggling with your own creative block, your frustration. Perhaps in relationships, maybe you need to really take a deep dive and get back in touch with yourself. This coaching package starts now, goes all the way through June and accumulates in an amazing, luxurious trip in Paris. If you would like to know a little bit more about it, you can find the link in the show notes. And of course you can schedule a 20 minute conversation with me. I would be delighted to chat with you, answer whatever questions you have, and see what happens this week on the podcast and inside the Modern Creative Home and Membership, we've been talking about how to make contact with the present moment and how that directly links to cultivating our purpose in life. 

Today I'll review a little bit about how psychology describes presents, how it fits in with our therapy, and I'll talk to you about why a return to your own personal, modern, creative why is essential when you find yourself sitting, as I mentioned earlier, in a hole inside the modern creative Woman, we talk about purpose and your purpose is made up of two things. It includes both your personal values. What's important to you? Uniquely personal doesn't have to be grand. It just has to be about you and for you. And the other part of purpose is that action steps that you take in alignment with your values. And it's really through this purpose that you engage with your life. You choose what's most important to you, and you make committed actions to demonstrate your values to yourself and to others. So let's start with values. This is your decision about what's most important to you. It's about the way you want to live your life. Now. Some of your values may line up with, or they may deviate from your family expectations or what society says you should be doing. But they're very personal, as I mentioned, and they are considered something and relevant to every aspect of your life. 

Let me give you a couple examples. You might have a value of health where you prioritize. Your mental health. Your physical health. Your emotional health. You may have values about your intimate partner relationship or education or your family, but in each of these, it's how you want to be. It's different than what you're looking for, say, in a romantic partnership or in a job. It's what you want to contribute, how you want to behave. You can think of it as your personal code of ethics. If you value sports and you play sports, you might consider having a good attitude about sports. Being considerate of other players, of working for a team. 

All of these aspects are about what you bring to the situation. For example, you might value your community and want to be kind to your neighbors. And if you come across someone being unkind in your neighborhood, your values help you respond with kindness, even if they're being less than kind and you're tempted to become unkind or frustrated yourself. Your values allow you to behave in the way that's important to you, regardless of what anyone else is doing. It's not about them. So the two ways to add value are do more value based actions in your day, or you don't have to do anything different. Just start looking at what you're doing in your life and evaluate it from the perspective of your values. Why do you go to the grocery store? Probably so you can eat healthy food, have nutrition, feed your kids. Maybe you take care of your parents or your children. Why do you write? Why is that? All of these, in your kind of self-reflection, allow you to see where your values are showing up day after day. Why do you stop at a red light? Again, it's value. Value of safety.

The second part of your purpose is what acceptance and commitment therapy calls committed actions. That's how you demonstrate your values. Your actions directly reflect what's important to you. If you look at your calendar, you can see where you been focusing your values. But you notice that the committed action is a behavior. It's not a thought or a belief. You might think health is important, but if you take no actions to take care of your health, then it's not really a value. It's just a wish or a thought. But if you live your values, then they're going to show up in your behavior. You can think about people you admire who are focusing on what's important to them. Maybe they're really going for it, or they feel confident. That's about living their values, taking action steps towards their values. 

Another example is around your health. So if your behavior shows the value, you may choose junk food over and over and over. And that demonstrates that that kind of physical health is not important to you. Every time you make a healthy choice or you exercise or you work on managing your mind, going to therapy, practicing bodily care, investing time, money, energy into your health, those are actions that show that health is important to you. Remember, if you're only thinking about it or talking about it, it's not a committed action and you're not showing your values. So let me give you a couple examples of where you might look for your value based behavior. Every time you brush your teeth, go for a walk. Visit the doctor, take your vitamins, eat a piece of fruit. Spend time with friends. All of these are taking actions towards your physical and emotional and mental health. I want to give you some examples of non value based behaviors. Anytime we're avoiding the feeling of a discomfort that is avoiding our values. 

Here's a couple examples. I know a lot of women who overthink. They want to think about it some more before they decide. They want to consider what the possibilities are before they make a decision. Many students that I worked with over the years focus on getting more information. They are over researching and they're not writing, so they are coming from a place of thinking. They need to know more before they can work on their thesis or their dissertation. What they need is to write so they can know what they're thinking, and then they can do some more research. Other behaviors that are leading away from our values, including ineffective actions, make being busy without accomplishing your values. I could be really busy with my day and not right. But writing is really important to me, so I prioritize it every single day. If I were just going to writing conferences and writing retreats and talking with writers and reading books, some of that helps my writing. But it's not writing. So those are supporting behaviors, but they're not value actions. 

A couple more examples. Anytime we're avoiding our feelings or talking with someone, or we're avoiding honesty with ourselves, that might happen through overindulging, over shopping, over eating, overdoing it, over extending ourselves, getting way too busy anytime that we are choosing our own comfort and predictability over personal growth, we are taking non value based actions. Here's four reasons why we need to take committed actions. It's so important to us for meaning and purpose. When we take value based actions, and when we look around and figure out the value of our current behavior, it helps us feel like we have purpose and meaning and it helps us get out of bed. Second, it gets to be way more fun. Value based actions can really increase our fun. We might find more like minded women with whom we can share our interests. A value might be just curiosity. You want to know more about knitting to go into a knitting store. Maybe you want to know more about the history of your city. So you take a walking tour. These kinds of actions that come out of curiosity often lead to people's purpose in life, and it's perfectly fine to not know what your purpose is, and it's perfectly fine to have a purpose that is not big or that not about changing the world. A lot of people confuse value based actions with I'm supposed to change the world or do something big where they feel guilty if their job isn't changing the world. And that's not at all what I'm talking about. I'm really wanting you to focus on choosing what's important for you in that moment. 

However ,you decide is up to you, and many people who have changed the world didn't necessarily start out with that grand vision. They started out noticing being curious, talking to people, learning more. The third reason we need committed action is it reduces our suffering. Now we all have pain in life, in the past and in the future we'll have things that hurt. But when we move with meaning and purpose towards what's important to us, our values can give us comfort. When we move away from our values, it adds to our suffering. We can feel guilty, shameful. We can have that existential dread that the existentialists write about. It can feel like we've lost track of time, but moving towards our values helps us reduce our suffering. And finally, we can have better mental health. Meaning and purpose is tied with feeling good, and so improving our mental health is essential to both you personally and to everyone around you. When you are well rested, you have quality mental health. You're taking care of yourself that impacts everyone around you. It's a living example for the people you work with, your family, your kids. 

Let's shift gears a little bit into how you can influence presence in your life. I have two examples. One is about acting with presence and the other is about biasing yourself towards action. So what I mean by acting with presence, the time it takes you to get present and oriented to the present moment will save you time later. You can really think of this as an investment in your future. I like to call it a gift to my future self. You can say thank you past self, for taking the time to go slow in the morning, to pause before I speak. All of those things take small amounts of time and they have huge payout throughout the day. I have five tips about this. Some of these I've talked about before. If you really want to feel good this week, do you each one and let me know what you think. First one is smile at yourself in the mirror before and after you brush your teeth. Next one, it comes from Mel Robbins high fived yourself in the mirror every morning. It was a strategy that she used to really overcome a severe bout of depression. 

Get some sun on your face every morning. It's one of those things that is so compelling in the research that I make sure I always go out for a few minutes every morning. If you're commuting to work. Count your breath at every red light or every stop sign. And then finally, just notice the context of every situation you're in. Consider that each person has a context that the environment is also a context. Inside the Modern Creative Woman membership. This month we talked about the emotional cycle of change. And it is pretty emotional to take on the task of personal growth or change in your work. Maybe it’s changing professions, getting promoted. 

There's a lot that comes up for people even during really, really happy changes like promotion, marriage, children. But let's start small. Say you want to work on your health and you decide you're going to go to yoga class once a week. All year long.  We start out with uninformed optimism. That's the first stage of change. We would hardly ever take on change if we really knew how much work it was. 1So we start out blissfully unaware of how difficult yoga is.  And then we move into a space of informed pessimism. And that's when we realize yoga is difficult. It's challenging. Maybe parking is challenging. Maybe the class is crowded. Maybe you really hurt the next day. And from this informed pessimism. We often move into what researchers call the Valley of despair. I call it a hole. When we're in the valley of despair, we can feel really crummy. We’ve lost our optimism about the task. We know how incredibly difficult it is. 

And this is where most people quit. Many people start with their optimism moved to pessimism into the Hall of Despair, and then they try something else. Well, it must be yoga. It's not. It's not for me. I'll try a different one. I'll try this other gym down the street. And they start over and repeat the cycle over and over again. What successful people know is that that valley of despair is not an excuse to abandon your goals. And pushing through it to stay consistent. Brings us informed optimism. 3s I remember being in a real valley of despair when I was working on my doctorate, and I thought, why am I doing this? This is so much work. I haven't seen a movie in three years and barely have a social life outside of being in class. It was so much work. And I couldn't remember why I wanted to be in school at all. And I just kept telling myself, I know I had a good idea when I started. I know I can't see it right now. But it was a good idea when I started, so I will continue. And I told myself that every day for about six months. And I believed it, that it was a good idea. After that informed optimism where you know how difficult something is, but you're optimistic, then you can do it. That's just one step away from success or for fulfillment. Imagine if you went to yoga class once a week for a whole year. That would be an incredible accomplishment. But imagine if you quit after a month, joined another gym, quit after three months. It would be a cycle of frustration dropping into a whole. And just continuing to dig by repeating the cycle. 

The second aspect of bringing your present moment awareness into your purpose. Is Tobias herself towards action. Robin Sharma says it's easier to change your thoughts through outward action than it is to change your actions by thinking about. Action is a way of knowing, and it's a vital way of knowing, and we often ignore it. We think we should think about it longer. Maybe mull it over. Take some ineffective action around it. But action is a part of every single success story. It is a part of every heroine's journey. So I have a few tips about how to bias yourself towards action. 

If you take one value based action each day, that's perhaps new or something that you do infrequently. Text a friend to let him know how much you appreciate them. Chat with a neighbor. Arrive early. Share something vulnerable with a friend. One value based action every day can have a huge impact on how you feel about yourself.  Here's an exercise I tried and loved. I will definitely do this again in 2024. I wrote down 30 Brave Things to Do in 30 days, and I made a list of everything that I could think of, and they wanted them to be fun and creative and they didn't. I didn't put skydiving on there. I'm not talking about doing like, brave things like that. But I did put down, you know, rent a scooter. So I rented a scooter, rode around San Francisco. I put down going to new neighborhood I hadn't been to go have coffee. It's just little activities that required me to stretch myself, and that practice of 30 things took me longer than 30 days, but that practice of crossing every single thing off my list was very important for me. 

My next tip is valuing your own personal strength and growth. Over staying comfortable and the same old school.  I want to encourage you to look for the pain of an action. Instead of the pain of action. And I used to think this way a lot. Oh, it might be scary if I leave my job and start my own business. I might be unsuccessful. And I had to train myself to think, oh, it might be amazing. Yeah, I could work for myself. This could be really great. So we have to switch it up and look at the pros of making a change. And the cons of staying the same.

 And finally, I want to remind you that when you find yourself in a hole. Stop digging.  Is not an excuse to quit. You don't just go find another hole and dig another hole. You figure out how to get out of that hole by pushing through, getting the help you need. Finding a coach, a therapist, a mentor, a class. Some way for you to get out of the hole. Stopping digging is not enough. You have to also get out of the. So if you take a present moment. Each morning where you become fully conscious of and engaged with your current experience. You notice whatever's happening. Someone's banging around in the kitchen. That's just part of what you notice. If you hear the neighbors driving by. That's just part of what you notice. There's nothing wrong with whatever's happening. 

Present moment. Awareness is not about silence or having a perfect meditation, or holding your hands in a perfect position or. Making it look like a Pinterest picture. Present moment awareness is often. Where we get in touch with being annoyed or irritated. It's where we can feel the feelings that arise when our thoughts move through our. On a share, an art project that we did inside the modern creative woman, and you can see if it's a good fit for you. It's really about imaginary hindsight, and it's such a powerful tool. I use it in a lot of really nuanced ways with the women in my VIP program, who come for the day or the weekend to really focus on creative thinking. This is a big part of that. 1s Imaginary hindsight is looking forward, identifying what you want. If everything were the way you wanted it, what exactly would it look like? And figuring out what value you would be showing the world if it looked like that. So you can just imagine something that you would perhaps love to accomplish in line with that value. Maybe you pick six months from now something that you would love to accomplish. I want to remind you that we don't accomplish our values. We just move towards them over and over. We take steps towards our values. 

Our goals are the specific things that we want to accomplish, but they are not our values. Remember, our values are things like. Being healthy and strong and fit or value my being a kind, loving, loyal partner or responsible, caring, dedicated employee. Those are values. But then when we pick a goal that's in line with our values, you can really get so much motivation from that.  So if you're thinking about a value of creativity. Then you might have a goal of like a daily painting practice or complete one small painting each week. Perhaps you value learning and you just love learning and exploring what might be possible for you in your profession. So then you take some specific calls. It might be to conduct research and submit an article for publication. Whatever you choose for your goal, it gets you closer towards your value. Art for imaginary hindsight. Includes creating an image of how you would like to be living. That value, say, three months or six months. And when you spend a little time thinking about that and getting really granular in that vision. Then you can start to do some writing, which will really help solidify the abstract aspects of making art. So you can ask yourself, what is this value? Why is it important? What will have happened a year from now if I commit myself to this value. You can get really specific. What three committed actions did I take to get me there? 

As you're thinking about this, I would love to see your artwork. If you imagine how your life might be a year from now, six months from now, and work your way backwards. This is one of the projects we're definitely doing in Paris. That imaginary hindsight of where women want to see themselves six months from now and then coaching to get their. It really does require action. Experiment little everyday adjustments to how you think and what you do.  So I hope that you will start to see yourself as a woman who takes action on her values.  There's so many ways that you can move towards your values that don't require a big career change. It doesn't require you to alter or find some big goal or cause. Remember, your values are what's important to you. 

Have a wonderful rest of your week. And now that you know about presence, purpose, and how to stop digging holes and how to get out of a hole, what will you create? Want more? Subscribe to the Modern Creative Woman digital magazine. It is absolutely free and it comes out once a month. And I know you can get a lot out of the podcast in the digital magazine. So when you're ready to take it to the next level, you have options inside the membership. And if you're interested in a private consultation, just book a call with me. Even if you have some questions, book a call. My contact is in the show notes and you can always message me on Instagram at Doctor Amy Backus, you can find me in the modern creative element on Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest at Doctor Amy Bakos. And if you like what you're hearing on the Modern Creative Phone podcast, I want to give you the scoop on how you can support the podcast. You can become an ambassador and share the podcast link with three of your friends. You can be a community supporter by leaving a five star review. If you think it's worth the five stars, and you can become a Gold Star supporter for as little as $3 a month, all that is linked in the show notes. Remember to grab your free copy of the 21 Day Gratitude Challenge. Link is in the show notes, and you can certainly find it at Modern Creative women.com. Have a wonderful week and I cannot wait to talk with you in the next episode.