A Touch Of Grief With Your Moonshot
Listen to the audio companion podcast for this blog post here.
I love to help people achieve their dreams. 🎉 My clients have written novels, launched companies, directed their first movie, got promoted, finished and sold screenplays and pilots, became successful entrepreneurs, directed a Broadway musical, made career pivots and so much more. Through our work together, I have witnessed huge breakthroughs and victories and … I have also witnessed so much grief.
The hard truth is that achieving your dream and grief go hand in hand.
The dream typically starts with a pitter-patter in your heart and a nibble of curiosity in your brain. It may have begun and been nourished as a child. It may be something that came to you later in life.
Your dream might feel crystal clear or fuzzy. It may drive you to leap out of bed in the morning, or you might hold it close to your heart until you feel ready to share it with a close confidante or the world.
You may feel emboldened and scared. You may feel certain and full of doubt. You may be excited and wary. Conflicting emotions are normal.
A dance begins to unfold filled with love, passion, devotion. You gain momentum and stretch your wings. You receive encouragement, maybe even investments of money, time, advocacy, mentorship.
And then inevitably your dream gets nicked or bruised, and it hurts. You walk it off and keep moving forward.
Until some well-meaning soul says something like, “Well that’s gonna take a lot of time, maybe you should go after lower-hanging fruit.” It takes the wind out of your sails.
You have an internal debate about the validity of what the well-meaning soul said, perhaps get a pep talk from a friend or mentor, or work it out through therapy. You soldier on with trepidation or you get ignited to prove “them” wrong.
And then yikes (!) there’s a big dip or you crash and burn. There’s anger, frustration, bewilderment, heartbreak.
You wonder if you should quit or maybe you’re broken.
The loss hits some people like a tidal wave, for others it’s a torturous drip drip drip. The recognition of lost time, money, creativity, community, hope.
Grief gurgles inside of you and you’re reluctant to mourn in public.
For many of my clients, the grief feels heavy in their body. It’s hard to breathe, and their limbs feel numb. Focus is impossible and confusion reigns supreme. “How did I get from there to here?”
For some of my clients, they immerse themselves in other projects or ideas. The distraction is welcomed and yet, there’s an underlying sluggishness to their efforts and work.
It seems inevitable that somewhere along the way of pursuing dreams, folx get stuck. Some stay in this place and are filled with regret and self-recriminations. Some hang out there for a while but are able to eventually find agency and meaning from their loss.
Agency is discovering a sense of control over events and outcomes. When a dream hits a stumbling block or dies, we lose our sense of agency.
As humans, we are meaning making machines. When a dream hits a stumbling block or dies, we create meaning. That meaning can be helpful or hurtful.
When I was a kid, I watched a massive amount of television. I loved watching Carol Burnett, MASH, Columbo, The Rockford Files, Scooby Doo. An eclectic mix! The dream seed got planted – how can I be a part of that?
So I took acting lessons at Goodman Theatre when I was in high school and that was awesome! Until my dad said I couldn’t major in theatre in college. Stumbling block #1. I did an end-run and majored in Radio-Television-Film thinking it was the same thing. Uh, no, it was not acting, it was production. But I fell in love with the organization, strategy, actually making things happen. The dream started to crystalize.
Long story short, I eventually moved to LA, took a huge pay cut (stumbling block #2) and worked my way up the ladder. Many speed bumps and wins throughout that time:
🎉 hired as an assistant
👎 fired as an assistant
🎉 first development gig
👎 butted heads with the new CEO
🎉 got my first network gig
👎 boss is fired and I have no advocate
🎉 miraculously get promoted
👎 get fired
🎉 get hired
👎 get laid off (company lost its funding)
🎉 get hired
👎 get laid off (company reverses programming strategy)
🎉 get funding for my company ….
All this to say, along the way I had many times when I asked myself: Is all this grief worth the dream? And by that point, what was the dream anyway? It started with “I want to be a part of that,” pointing to a television.
The grief was worth it to because it led to the dream evolving until it crystalized into helping people tell and make stories.
Throw in a couple more rounds of loss and the dream evolved again: I love helping people across their finish lines -- and it doesn’t matter whether it’s in film or television.
The meaning that I created along the way with each of these victories and losses looked something like this:
🎉 Yay! This is so easy!
👎 Management sucks
🎉 Relationships pay off
👎 They don’t think I’m good enough
🎉 Relationships pay off
👎 Corporations are mercurial
🎉 I’m so lucky!
👎 I suck and everyone hates me
🎉 Relationships pay off
👎 I’m an idiot
🎉 Do I have any relationships left?
👎 I’m no longer the shiny object
When I reached a point of self-hatred I started working with a coach for the first time. She showed me I could be re-write the meanings I had created into statements of truth:
😻 I am learning
😻 I am curious
😻 I am resilient
When the idea of “agency” was raised, I thought my coach wanted me to get a new agent. Oy. When does the naivete end? 🤷
Eventually the agency (a sense of control) I found from my grief was training as a coach and starting a business.
So coming full circle, the hard truth is that achieving your dream and grief go hand in hand. Give yourself permission to grieve. It’s an act of love and honor, and will give you the perspective to figure out if you should keep going or pivot to a new moonshot.
Where are you at with your moonshot?
🙌🏾 I love to support ambitious, driven people who are feeling stuck and want to regain momentum so they can hit their next big goal. Want to explore working together? Check out my website and reach out directly here.
If you’re looking for a support group to help you navigate dis-enfranchised grief, consider joining PERMISSION. It’s a confidential, intimate, sacred space in which we share our experiences, learn new tools and create community. Zoom and in-person options are available. Learn more and sign up here. Space is limited due to the nature of the group, and participants will be required to sign a confidentiality agreement.
If you’re resonating with what you’re reading, please consider subscribing. What’s that mean?
🙌🏾 Updates on offerings, free stuff, recommendations, referrals.
🙌🏾 You’ll receive regular emails (with lots of heart and a bit of humor) that share a tool or insight from my coaching practice.
🙌🏾 Typically the email will have a question at the end to provoke thought that supports you in your growth.