March 31, 2015 – What has us step up and commit?

A photo I took, over the top of a fence on my tiptoes!

Listen to this post:

Today marks six months of writing a post to my online journal every, single Tuesday.  Through the holidays and the busy times and the weeks I thought I had nothing to say, I’ve found something and I’ve written and posted.  Yay to me!

I celebrate this mini-milestone because I’ve spent the vast majority of this life thinking I am not a writer.  (I shared with you my history with writing and why I write in a post late last year.)  I also celebrate this because I’ve been telling myself a story that I’m not a stick-to-it person.  I love to start things, but the discipline of seeing them through has not been something that comes naturally for me.  I have no problem committing to marriage or a job working for someone else, but when the only consequence is that I let myself down, it has been a whole other story.

I would have thought there would be no great fallout if I just petered out on posting every Tuesday.  Well, that is except self-induced shame at having an abandoned blog.  Encountering such blogs – where the last post was years ago – and that story about my lack of discipline – have kept me from even starting.  Until now.

Yesterday I read a recent Seth Godon post – it’s short – here it is:

We spend way too much time teaching people technique. Teaching people to be good at flute, or C++ or soccer. 

It’s a waste because the fact is, most people can learn to be good at something, if they only choose to be, if they choose to make the leap and put in the effort and deal with the failure and the frustration and the grind.

But most people don’t want to commit until after they’ve discovered that they can be good at something. So they say, “teach me, while I stand here on one foot, teach me while I gossip with my friends via text, teach me while I wander off to other things. And, sure, if the teaching sticks, then I’ll commit.”

We’d be a lot more successful if organized schooling was all about creating an atmosphere where we can sell commitment (and where people will buy it). A committed student with access to resources is almost unstoppable.

Great teachers teach commitment.

This idea of “teaching commitment” keeps sifting up to the top of my mind since I read this.  What does it actually mean to teach commitment? And is it related to this idea of “accountability” that I said last week I’d explore today?  Honestly, I still have no compelling way to talk about accountability.  And, if I’m not feeling it, I’m not going there!

Last night I saw a cartoon and link to a post on Facebook about how little freedom and autonomy today’s kids have. It was worth a quick read and seemed related.  But, as much as I absolutely resonate with this idea of “free range kids,” having not faced the challenges and pressures of making these parental decisions myself, I’m staying away from publicly offering any opinion on the subject!

This brings me back to this whole idea of commitment.  I’ve written to you consistently because I made a commitment to do so. In a session with my coach Lissa Boles last September, she challenged me to start writing and posting – regularly.  Something in me knew that doing this would be good for me.   So, with my fear in tow, on October 1^st I wrote about our very old oak tree and its brush with being cut down.

As an art teacher, I am called upon to teach technique – how watercolor works – how to handle the paint, water and paper to get the desired effect.  It’s probably the most obvious and expected reason to seek out a painting teacher.  But reading what Seth Godon wrote has me want to be a great teacher – I want to teach commitment. And I’m not sure I know how.

This morning, poking around looking for what to write about, I found some stream-of-consciousness “freewriting” I did last August.  Here’s an excerpt:

It’s what we want. To be able to make beautiful work, or compelling work, that excites us and lights us up.  It may start as an escape, a break from the other parts of life, especially when these other parts are challenging.  Painting saved my life. Took me from my grief of not being a mother and has given my life focus and commitment and satisfaction. It’s amazing how different I am, how much of myself I have access to and freedom with. How much space I take up, how much more alive I am. 

This is all possible for everyone who wants to.  Desire is huge, it’s the fuel.  It doesn’t have to be big, fiery and visible. It just has to be enough. “I want…”, “I would love to…”, “if only I could…”  Just a small, timid peep is enough. It comes from somewhere deep in each of us.  And what’s needed is an environment where it can be brought out.  I know watercolor. I can teach the skills, I’m good at it.  I’m good at showing how it works. But ultimately the skill has to come in the doing of it.

Desire is the starting place, it’s the seed. But the “doing of it” – painting regularly, the painting-that-changes-our-lives – takes this commitment. Seth used the word “atmosphere” I used the word “environment”.  Environment is key.  There are so many stories I hear of teachers who have damaged the art-maker in people.  I’ve lived a few of these stories too.  These are environments that have us turning away from any commitment.   So what environment fosters that commitment,  what “sells” it?

Sometime in the last year I heard this come out of my mouth:  “I’m made to be a teacher.  It’s my experience that the particular way I’m designed, where I am the most “me,” is in accompanying others in their creative unfolding.  I’m a good watercolorist, and there are lots of  watercolorists who make beautiful and skilled work.  I keep painting because – well, there are paintings in me, *and* because, in order to stay vital and alive as a teacher, I must stay in my own process. I must ride my own edge.”

Though my painting has its ebbs and flows, the work that comes through me is evolving and I’m all in, I’m committed to it.  Does this matter those who come paint with me? I wonder how this impacts the teaching environment I create.  I so wonder.  Relatedly, I’ve recently come to the realization that I am most alive as a teacher when teaching those who are truely committed.  It’s just not the same if painting is a pleasant past-time.  Committment feeds off of committment.

I don’t have a tidy ribbon to tie at the end of this post today.  The questions I’ve asked here are quite alive in me.  If you have thoughts about creative environment and your commitment to painting – or to anything really, I’d love to hear them. Please share.

Love,

Cara