What Happens When You Give It a Try

Guitar As A First Step

Well, that's me playing guitar. This month I decided to play a little guitar right here on the podcast. I felt it was a good way to give myself permission to try something new, to actually practice what I preach. What about you? What's something you keep almost doing?

Permission To Begin

I'm Judy Oskam, and this is Stories of Change Helping You Navigate What's Next. I'm wrapping up the first week of 30 Days of What's Next. Our theme was permission to begin. And one thing I keep hearing this week was how much it helps to have somebody to start with. I asked Mandy Rowden, the founder of Girl Guitar, what she would say to someone who's been longing to do something creative.

Quieting The Old Creative Critics

She talked about the voices we carry around in our head. Maybe somebody told you years ago that you couldn't sing or you couldn't dance or you couldn't do this project or that project. Funny how they get to say it once, and then we do the work of repeating it for them. Then Mandy talked about whose voice you might want to hear instead.

Just give yourself permission. Somebody in your past probably told you that your voice sucks, your a-hole brother, or some old choir teacher, or um somebody, you know, you had a marching band director who told you you have no rhythm and you've internalized these things and you think that this is just not for you. And um some version of telling those old voices to go kick rocks and get out of your head because you get to make your decisions, that's huge. Give yourself permission to be creative. And secondly, I really encourage finding a buddy or a community, or you know, um it's it's it's hard as adults to stay just internally motivated. Um, I understand that completely. But if you have a friend that you set up a monthly get together to run your writing past or um painting or something, or yeah, whatever it is, um that can be huge. That can be really game-changing for people. And if you were to go so far as find a club for it or a version of girl guitar or whatever, the sense of community is so, so, so huge. That ties back into um, you know, claiming our identity as creatives and artists and and whatnot.

Find A Buddy And Get Specific

And so um well, I think it is about identity, but also think about the difference between I should play guitar more, to I'm going over to my friend's house Thursday and I'm bringing my guitar. Now that's really specific. There's a time, there's a place, and when you get there, maybe your friend could even say it sounds a little better. Sometimes it takes somebody else to notice that you're getting somewhere, and that sense of community is important.

Treat It Like A Real Experiment

Well, I've been following Jennifer Neverete for years now. She started National Podcast Post Month, and she told me some people come back to the challenge almost every year. I can see why. As a podcaster, you get your reps in and you really get to make some great contacts. But you can also understand that it's like a great experiment. And here's how Jennifer describes it about taking some of the pressure off and thinking about it as a true experiment.

For those of us who are seasoned and are experts in our field, we have this um thought that what are people gonna think? Or there's a structure there already.

So yeah, right.

They already know I do this, and if I do this, and it what if it doesn't work out? Yeah, it's an experiment, right? We're putting our lab coat on. We don't know what's gonna happen. And I think by framing it as an experiment, not just to yourself, but to the world at large, it takes the pressure off of us to feel like we have to be perfect. We can't make mistakes, we can't falter. No, you absolutely can because we're in a lab. We've got no idea what's gonna happen. What you thought was gonna happen on day one, by day 20, you're like, well, that wasn't what happened at all. But I'm pleasantly surprised. Or, you know, this was not exactly what I thought. You there's no failure, it's lessons learned. You're wiser for it, you're richer for it, and and it winds up being something that you wind up gaining from, regardless of the fact that maybe your your your you know, your theory of what was gonna happen doesn't happen the way you thought it was, but then you go to the end, you're like, well, that wasn't terrible. It wasn't what I thought, but here's what I gained out of it. So I think it's that we have this external pressure and and internal pressure of that we need to be on the mark and we can't falter or we can't, you know, do something that's not perfect. And the reality is, how are you going to grow? I mean, if you think about a seed in the ground, it's a beautiful, perfect seed, but in order for it to grow and bear fruit, it's got to break out of its shell. It's got to break through the ground, it's got to do all of these things in order to actually fulfill its mission, right? To, you know, what is it gonna do? You know, what are we gonna do with this one precious life? Well, I say give it a oh, build in public, experiment. Oh, build okay with it.

I like that. Yeah, like that. Yeah, build in public. I keep coming back to that lab coat. I like the idea of a room full of people wearing a lab coat. When everybody's trying something, it's a little easier to say, hey, listen to this, I'm still figuring it out. And that's how I'm thinking about my guitar too. I can record a little, I can hear how it sounds on the show, and then try something different next time. And talking with Mandy and Jennifer gave me two ways to think about what I'm doing. I get to play and I get to experiment.

New Energy Outside Your Comfort Zone

And then there's Jamin Ochoa. I first interviewed Jamin while we were studying abroad in Scotland. He talked about becoming more confident and independent. When I saw him on campus more than a year later, I wanted to know what stayed with him.

But I think something that's really changed my life is that my profession right now is that I'm a student, right? That's kind of everything I'm doing. All my effort is going towards that. And I think I didn't realize that in the profession, whenever you feel stagnant, the best thing to do is to step out of your comfort zone and to try new things. And I think the study abroad has helped me realize that because I'm a senior, we all know the senior slump, the senior artist that comes with it all. And I think what I realized the best thing for me to do is just to try something new, to give me that new life, the new energy back. Um, but yeah, I would say that's the big change that's happened is that I just kind of understood more about myself. Um I'm still independent, I'm still more confident, but I also think I'm more introspective in a lot of different ways.

I'm glad I got to ask Jamin that question more than a year of the song after he studied abroad. I got to hear how he was using that confidence back on familiar ground. And now I get to share his answer with you. That's one of my favorite things about these conversations. Somebody shares their information and what helped them, and then it gives you an idea of something you can try in your own

Invite Someone Along This Week

life. So think back to that thing that you keep almost doing. Is there one person you could invite along? You could send them a text. Hey, I've been wanting to try this. Would you go along with me? Give it a try. What have you got to lose? Well, coming up next, we'll talk about the courage to change. Once you try something and it starts to matter, are you willing to change to make room for it? You can hear my full conversations with Mandy, Jennifer, and Jamin at storiesofchangepodcast.com. I'm Judy Oskam, and thanks for spending part of your week with me.