motivation – gianna soderstrom

Saturday mornings are made for coffee and if you are wise in the ways of really making it a weekend, you take your coffee out walking with an old friend in a beautiful neighborhood. Or at least, this is what I did last Saturday. I met Sarah at a coffee place on the familiar corner of a wide, slow street. It’s called Good Neighbors, and is there anything more to say than that?

We took our coffee to go, walking through the cool morning and talking as fast and enthusiastic as you can only do when you’re all caught up on news and move on to conversation. We talked about everything. The summer camp at which we became friends and still work for, which sort of latte each of us ordered, the freshness of the lilac hedges we walked past. Tattoos came up somehow, and in no logical sequence, tattoos led to my writing. Reluctant as I am to talk about my writing, everything seemed to tumble out in confidence of a supportive listener. The big dreams, the ones about this memoir and that book of essays, the questions about building an audience – maybe I’d held on to those secret thoughts for so long they spoke up of their own accord. I talked, laughed ruefully, wondered and dreamed a bit, and finally shrugged.

“Who knows though. I’m not really sure what I’m doing.”

“Gianna,” Sarah turned without stopping and looked at me, face all lit up like spring, “this can happen.”

This can happen.

I hung on those words for a minute, and she poured out enough ideas and strategies to build my dreams sky-high, iron-framed and concrete-founded.

This can happen.

It’s been five days of turning over every single suggestion she named and writing down question after question, marketing, hashtags, giveaways, monthly emails – and despite how logical and actionable every single thing has turned out to be, I still can’t believe the three words she said first. This can happen.

It’s carried me all week now – all tired long week of parenting in a safer-at-home order, bruising my shins on the steps, wading through days of uninspired writing, closing my journal or my laptop or my mouth with a snap because I feel like sometimes I’ve run out of any words to say at all. But I remember that tiny sentence that opened a whole world of hope, and I think it to myself again: This can happen.

Sometimes that’s all the seed of hope we need to keep a dream alive – one person who knows how to put shoes on a dream and make it start walking. Somebody stares at the sky with you, and sees your same dream, the one you thought was just a fleeting shape in the clouds, and calls it real. One person who can look you in the eye and say, “Yes. Here’s how.”

I hadn’t planned on taking our conversation from the tattoos I want to the books I plan to write, but there we were, and there was magic in the unplanned sharing of dreams, because now those dreams have a confidence in them that isn’t just mine. They’re backed by somebody I trust – and sure, I’ll still have those days when I can’t see what value there is in any of my work, or I wonder why anybody would want to sign up for a future monthly email from me. But I have Sarah’s enthusiasm to fall back on too, now. I have somebody who cares about these things becoming real, somebody who won’t be shaken or disappointed when I write a bad sentence or a bad paragraph, or when nobody takes notice of an Instagram caption I crafted with heart and vulnerability.

So darling, whatever that dream is, I want you to hear it from me: this can happen. You may not have all the details figured out and maybe I can’t tell you exactly how to train for the marathon or survive basic training or learn to lead-climb tricky rock walls, but don’t let that hold you back: this can happen. You can do this. You’re not alone. Find somebody to talk to, somebody who knows which step to take. But don’t forget that I’m here cheering for you. Your dream matters. Your goal can become a reality. Your ideas are important.

Darling, this can happen. Remember it. Say it to yourself often. And if you know somebody who needs to hear it too – send them these words. Heck, say it to them yourself. This can happen. I’m not alone; you’re not alone; nobody is alone. Big things can happen when we begin to tip the balance from wondering to acting, to encouraging and hoping and planning. Let’s take time this week to be Sarahs – to pass out hope like coffee on a Saturday morning and remind each other the ways that big things can really, truly grow into being, one tangible, tiny step at a time.

Today is the day the fears come. You’ve known they would – don’t we all? – but you kept doing the thing until they came because you weren’t so afraid in those moments. Maybe the thing was rock climbing or writing or dancing or working on making new friends. Doesn’t matter much; you get a good enough pep-talk and you can keep going off of that for a while because you feel so seen and so perfectly understood that you can move forward knowing somebody is at your back, cheering for you.

And then one day you feel alone again. (Maybe that is where most fear is based: we think failure means rejection and rejection, loneliness and so we vow never to fail, even if we must never try.) You felt alone again today. You imagined how it might be if you didn’t perform as well on your next attempt and you wrapped it in failure and you wrapped the failure in rejection and you looked at this like you were holding it in the palm of your hand, and then you threw it as far away from yourself as you could. Nobody, nobody wants to be lonely.

This, then, is the day that matters most. You will not do your best today. I understand that. I accept that, dear heart. I still care about you. So many people who will probably never know your best work and your worst work and even your mediocre work still care about you; will always care about you. Your skill is not going to be the measure of your loneliness. This day matters because it’s the day you fought back against the fear. It’s the day you rejected the fear of loneliness out of hand. Today is the day you stood up with your knees knocking and you didn’t sit back down again until you’d done that thing, because you’re brave and because you’re learning that this thing right here doesn’t define who you are or even how most people see you.

There is something to be said for rest days or cheat days or days off but we’re not going to say it here, because we’re not talking about rest and sabbaths and the need to breathe. We’re talking about the need to stop hyperventilating, the need to wipe the tears, the need to blow our noses and take a deep breath and put in one more day, however short, at the habit that’s being built. I said you won’t do your best work today but maybe that was wrong. Maybe you will. Maybe we should realize that some of our absolute best work isn’t the prettiest or the fastest or the longest or the best-played – it was the hardest, to which we still sat down and gave our best.

I want you to think so much about the work you’re going to do today that you forget to leave space for the fear. If you can’t sit down and do it right now, do the next best thing: start planning it. Plan to sit down after you’ve cleared the dinner dishes; plan to lace up your running shoes when you slip off your heels. Create the vision in your mind and make it as appealing as possible. The cool air brushing past you as you run. The familiar, comforting tap of the keys when you’re practicing piano. The slow way the yoga mat stretches gradually under your fingers, until your palms are damp and sweaty and sliding. Picture this work and picture your place in it. Picture your running route. Imagine the words you’re going to write. Eventually you’ll leave no room for procrastination. You’ll be fighting less fear because you’ll be armed with joy.

And sure; maybe that sounds a bit grandiose. It doesn’t work on every hard day. Some days stay hard right up through the moment you close the laptop and wonder vaguely how you learned to write such crap. I have done this. I still do this. It will always suck and it will never be easy. Skipping it will always seem like the best option on those days but it isn’t. I need you to believe me: when you think nobody is cheering you on, that is when I’m here cheering you on. I’m writing this for you to remember when you feel like you can’t possibly have anything good to produce or practice today. This day, darling? This impossible day right here? This is your best day. Don’t lose it.

Tag: motivation

this can happen

not your best work