A lovely comment from Julie in last week’s post about sneaking into visibility reminded me about a bunch of questions I’ve been meaning to answer.
Like “What if I don’t have a thing?” And “What if I don’t know what my thing is?” And “Do I even want a thing?” And:
“How do I know which thing is my thing? There are sooooo many — how do I choose?”
This whole theme is actually one of the big scary anxiety meltdown-triggers that worry my people the most, so it is high time for some Helpful Explain-ey-ness.
First: where we get tangled.
When I say “thing”, I’m generally using it as shorthand for anything you want to share with the world.
It’s just easier to refer to your thing than “your art or your music or your Etsy shop or your poetry or the fact that you do coaching sessions or your blog about things you think about while riding the train.”
A lot of my people also think of “thing” as more of a “soul purpose” type of deal, which leads to the existential crises of ohmygod I don’t know what my thing is.
When I say that you don’t need to know what your thing is, I mean: you don’t need to be able to say “I’m a blah blah blah who helps blah blah blah do blah blah blah“.
And — more importantly — when I say you don’t need a thing, it’s because you already have a thing.
Now let’s get to what that thing actually is.
You already have a thing.
In a deeper, broader sense, your thing is made up of four elements. Everyone has these.
Your thing = [+ qualities] [+ experience] [+ needs] [+ message]
And all of these are already inside of you.
Thing Ingredient #1: Qualities.
Qualities are the distilled essence of what you have to give.
For example, if you hang out in my insanely endless archives, you’ll notice that a lot of what I talk about has to do with safety and sanctuary.
My monsters are trying to keep me safe. So are my walls. And my blocks.
And whether I’m talking about vulnerability or complaining about my week while making up ridiculous names for fake bands, I’m secretly hoping it will help you feel a little more safe being yourself.
Other qualities that are part of my thing: support, quiet, playfulness and love.
It’s not important to know what these qualities are. They’ll emerge over time.*
* Though if you want help with this, I like the Finding Your Jewel exercise in Mark‘s book.
Thing Ingredient #2: Experience.
Experience refers to everything you know. Everything you’ve ever seen and done and internalized.
It’s your wisdom, and it’s also your pain.
That experience of pain that gives you the ability to meet people where they are. And it gives them the ability to trust you and connect with you.
When I think about my experience, it includes (among other things):
- things exploding and the terror
- the depression and the tripping over things
- the unbearable outsider syndrome and living as a foreigner in three countries
- becoming a yoga teacher and a Shivanaut
- all the people who believed in me and all the times I didn’t have anyone to do that.
We do not stop being one thing and then become something else.
At various times in my life I have been a bartender and a grappa taster and a factory worker and a choreographer and a tree-climber and a cow-milker and a secretary and a cog and a waitress and consultant and a meditation teacher.
I have fixed tractors and attended conferences and fried eggs and cried in bathrooms.
And I use the skills I learned in these spaces every single day. It’s all part of me. And therefore, it’s all part of my thing.
Thing Ingredient #3: Needs.
Needs are the things that help you feel safe and supported being yourself. What sustain you.
The need to be heard, acknowledged, appreciated.
Comfort. Support. Love. Sovereignty.
The things you need to feel connected to yourself are also part of your thing. And making them a priority is hugely important.
Hint! Your needs are the same as the qualities you have to give (here the focus = absorbing them internally as well as giving them out).
Thing Ingredient #4: Message.*
This one often especially trips people up.
Because it’s easy to think ohmygod I don’t have a message and how could I possibly know what it is if I had one gaaaaaaaah?!
But you do.
Here’s what “message” means:
Everything you really care about.
And I mean everything.
If you can’t stand it when people drink beer out of cans, that’s part of your thing. Even if your thing was mostly about sewing dresses for dolls. It’s now also about how bottled beer is the only way to go.
If you think you don’t have stuff to say, listen to yourself when someone says something that you know is wrong. You care.
That’s part of your message. Add that to the Book of You because it’s important.
* Message is something I took from the brilliant Barbara Sher, and I appreciate both the word and concept because I didn’t have a good thing to call this part other than “passion” (blech).
The short version.
- Qualities = what you have to give
- Experience = what you know
- Needs = what supports you
- Message = what you care about.
All four of these combine to become “your thing”.
You can choose to do something with it or not. It’s still your thing.
And it’s more than that.
These four elements combine to form your essential you-ness.
That unique collection of thoughts, feelings, ideas, wonderings that is yours.
Imagine a kind of essence-of-you. Like a scent or potion that infuses everything you do.
Though you might not be sharing them with your people yet, these things are already part of you.
Your you-ness is not a thing that needs finding.
It just needs things like safety and acknowledgment and all the rest of the good stuff that we talk about here.
Conclusion and reassurances!
I apologize if anything I’ve ever said has lead you to think that I think that you need to have a defined thing. You don’t have to choose a thing.
Because you already have a thing. And it encompasses vastnesses.
We only think we need to pick a thing because people are always saying stuff like “what’s your thing?” And because the biggifiers say we need to be able to tell people what we do.
Most of my people currently agonizing over what their thing is don’t realize that I don’t know exactly what my thing is either.
That’s why I prefer think of it in terms of qualities + experience + needs + message.
Because honestly? I have not the slightest idea what I do for a living, and I still make really good money doing it. So being able to define your thing really cannot be as important as we all seem to want it to be.
And comment zen for today…
We all have our stuff. We’re all working on our stuff.
We don’t give advice, but we are supportive and appreciative of the fact that talking about our stuff can be really hard and painful.
Kisses to the commenter mice and the Beloved Lurkers and everyone.
And an unrelated postscript!
There’s still time to visit the Fun Brewing: Phase 2 page to donate love and good wishes (which also gets you a recording of Copywriting Magic) and support the Playground!
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Holy crapinsack,
How is it that you just wrote a post on what I was just thinking about while I was writing a post?
Well, because right?
: )
thank you
.-= Elana´s last post … Run fat girl run =-.
Havi, this is brilliant, wise, and so very helpful.
This is going up on my wall:
“* Qualities = what you have to give
* Experience = what you know
* Needs = what supports you
* Message = what you care about.”
Love, Hiro
.-= Hiro Boga´s last post … Fee-ee-lings =-.
The title sent my mind to the naughty place. It’ll be a while before I can read the post without giggling 🙂
Oh, I was precisely thinking about this not that long ago, trying to remember what you had told us in January about the four components of our thing. This is much better than the quickie notes I had taken! It will be useful to be able to refer to this post. Thank you for spelling it out here, and also for bringing me back there – I was again sitting at that table listening to you explaining this. 🙂
.-= Josiane´s last post … Movement =-.
I know what I have, but what if nobody else needs or wants it? I believe this can’t be the case, that life wouldn’t put me through all of that just for one person. That would make no sense. I’m just in a funky lost place today.
.-= Deb´s last post … Baby steps: have faith in someone else’s faith =-.
Okay, I think you already answered me in Ask Havi #24.
.-= Deb´s last post … Baby steps: have faith in someone else’s faith =-.
I have to tell you my dream from the other night. And no I don’t usually dream about people from the internet. lol
I dreamed I was in a helluva a lot of trouble in a pirate ship battle, swash buckling and all. I was about to get killed when you, dressed like Jack Sparrow but with a better hat and much prettier, swung in on a rope and saved me. You said: “The rest of us are here because we want to be. We volunteered for our mission. But you didn’t. You were tricked and forced into it. So I’m giving you an out (by saving my ass at that moment) and a boon.” You did something and I was suddenly safely where I was supposed to be. I looked back and you were in a little trouble but I saw a way to help so I cut this rope and a gorgeous Helm Wheel came flying back to your ship where it belonged. You lifted your sword handle to your head and bowed, just Jack Sparrow would’ve, then swung back out to the high seas where you belonged.
This must be the Boon – the blessing – because this rocked me hard. Totally helped me sort out a little tangle I have been struggling with for ages. Have a thing, name it, market it, have a plan…BAH! I was feeling more and more like a failure the harder I tried to figure out the Thing bit. But with a little help from a dear friend of mine I began changing my perspective to looking at what’s in me that wants to come out rather than what’s ‘out there’ that I need to invent? And that simplified things a lot.
Now to read this…yay! Because even though I decided to give up on what I was trying to do at Mother Earth Whispers, I was suddenly open to my thing being something that was hiding in the shadows of my ‘self’ with my monsters. And now I’m actually making some head way with everything… including not feeling like an Epic Failure for not having been able to get anything going on M.E.W. In fact, I feel better. (yes, still some guilt, some doubt like did I try hard enough, did I screw up, am I screwing up now AGAIN…argh!) But I still feel less freaked out and more creative now than I did when I was trying to do/be what everyone keeps telling me what I’m supposed to be doing.
So thanks!
I feel bad/guilty that I don’t have anything physical to donate to the Playground except good wishes and dreams and love and happiness. As a result, I can’t bring myself to download your gift for good wishes. Thank you though.
You’re awesome and this blog goes in my Havi Folder!
Havi. Goodness. I don’t even know how it’s possible (given the fullness of your archives and number of posts per week.) But the generosity and clarity of your of your writing continues to astound me. You really are a blessing, dear. I’m so grateful.
<3 Mahala
.-= Mahala Mazerov´s last post … Testing the Benefits of Meditation… in the Emergency Room =-.
This post is beautiful, Havi.
I constantly get caught up in thinking I ‘should’ know what my thing is and be able to communicate it clearly. Meanwhile, I get totally freaked out (to the point of feeling nauseous) whenever anyone asks me what I do.
I wonder, would it be possible to just excise that question altogether? I’m imagining some sort of psychic surgery where ‘what do you do?’ is permanently removed from whatever part of the brain/culture it originates. Hmmm….
.-= Larisa´s last post … Four Things I’ve Learned from Richard =-.
i loved loved loved this post. when i first started reading the fluent self, i wracked (racked? wrecked?) my brain thinking, oh, god, what if teaching isn’t my thing….what if i’m doing (chas v’shalom) the WRONG thing?
and then i got shiva’d up, and i was walking to pick up some food, and on the walk back i realized:
teaching may NOT be my thing.
and that’s OK.
what is my thing: creatively finding ways for people to create deeper and more meaningful connections between themSelves, their lives, and the written word. being a bridge between you and your personal growth. finding ways to help students safely and confidently question their assumptions about the world they find themselves in.
all of which i do on a regular basis.
which is cool.
and that’s a GOOD thing.
Hi Havi,
Thank you.
Your descriptionizing of “things” is amazing. Wonderful Insights and connections presented in such a friendly and personal way.
Thank you.
I guess my thing is small steps, and I see you are a master.(I’m in a little bit of awe.)
Thank you.
Continue having fun and making it fun. That is surely one of your things,
Jim
.-= Jim´s last post … Great Steps To Productivity =-.
Hint! Your needs are the same as the qualities you have to give (here the focus = absorbing them internally as well as giving them out).
Holy shit.
Don’t get me wrong, Havi; I love this whole entire post, find it extremely comforting, inspiring, and helpful and will be re-reading it often — but that, right there, was the buried nugget of treasure that I needed to find today. I think I used to know it, but it’s good to be reminded. Thank you.
P.S. I am planning to make my Phase 2 contribution on Friday (possibly doing a Chicken Dance at the same time), and I can hardly wait!
.-= Kathleen Avins´s last post … Disabling the autopilot =-.
Such a beautiful explanation of our “thing.” I will share with my readers who are oh, so stuck on how to be themselves and tap into their gifts to help people live better lives. Thanks,Havi.
.-= Susan´s last post … Behind the Curtain: New Directions for my Practice =-.
Wowee! Loved that one! Explained what I’ve been doing all my life. I was doing my thing(s)and each thing I did added to my experience, bringing me to where I am know, which is a place where I can layer all those things and experiences together so that they can support the thing that is my focus now. Wow!
Thanks for that.
thank you, thank you, thank you. This has been my exact question, and worrying over it has almost stopped me in my tracks of getting ANYTHING done. Certainly not getting any new, creative, thing-ifying work.
Once again you’ve filled a spot that I hadn’t realized was quite that empty.
drinking beer out of cans!!!! how can people do that???!!!
I love you. But you know that
.-= JoVE´s last post … Conference presentations: speed dating for academics =-.
Just coming out of lurking to say:
That was exactly what I needed to hear. Thank you, Havi!
Just when I think you couldn’t get more awesome, Havi, you reveal an ability to fix tractors. <3
I spend a lot of time agonizing over how I don’t know what my thing is. So hearing that I don’t have to have one? So, so liberating. Thank you.
.-= Amber´s last post … My Baby, My Child =-.
Havi, thank you! 🙂 That was fabulous! <3
Wulfie – I love what you said: "I was suddenly open to my thing being something that was hiding in the shadows of my ’self’ with my monsters." I peeked into my monster closet when I read that and thought I saw a glimmer of something being shoved behind someone's back. I'm going to have to go in and have a look! 😉
Julie
ps. Havi, I LOVE LOVE LOVE the Procrastination Dissolve-O-Matic! Thank you for writing it! <3
Oh, I’m having no luck leaving love and good wishes in the shopping cart, so here they are:
Love and Good Wishes Galore! I am envisioning calm seas, trade ships full of goodies, and smooth nailing! <3 Julie
Oh! Havi, thank you SO much for this post. I’m one of the many agonising over not having a “thing” or not knowing what my “thing” is, and feeling a bit ashamed and like a numpty for it.
😀
I have a Thing!
<3
This:
“When I say that you don’t need to know what your thing is, I mean: you don’t need to be able to say “I’m a blah blah blah who helps blah blah blah do blah blah blah“. ”
THANK YOU!
I roll my eyes so hard whenever people say that formula, and at the same time I still get snagged up because I can’t fill in the blanks. Gah!
Thanks also for offering a better alternative to “passion”. Blech indeed.
Secret cryptic message to all the commentor mice: there’s only one left!
@Wulfie, I just wanted to say I really enjoyed reading about your dream. That was beautiful! I don’t presume to speak for Havi, of course, but I think you’re making a mistake when you consider your good wishes and dreams and love and happiness as not real contributions. Good wishes and dreams and love are real and worthy gifts. They are real bricks you can build with.
Knowing no more about you than what I’ve slowly osmosed through hanging out in the comments here, I know you, Wulfie, are good people. And I wish you well. And I wish you patience. And I wish you trust. And I believe in you.
You see? That is real.
Excellent Havi, excellent! I was going to say something about Passion, but then as I read deeper into “Message,” I get what you mean. That’s the real kicker, I think, that you care. And everyone cares about something, even the beer out of the cans.
What trips of many, I think, is that they think the Message they have doesn’t really matter to anyone else, so they then start listening to the enemy negative voice in their head saying “you and your message don’t matter.”
Who cares if others, even “many others” don’t necessarily care about your thing? Some other do, and as you share about your passi…er, message, maybe others who don’t care, or who have never really thought about it (hmmm, beer out of a can is gross…well, I never really thought about that), might start to care.
Go for it and live large!
.-= Carl Creasman´s last post … Turn the Page =-.
Thank you, Havi, and thank you commenters… Nice to know I am not alone in this, either 🙂
<3
Ingrid
@Willie Hewes: I had felt the same way after reading Wulfie’s post (i.e. “but I think you’re making a mistake when you consider your good wishes and dreams and love and happiness as not real contributions. Good wishes and dreams and love are real and worthy gifts”) and I agree with you completely. Well said! I think it’s an easy thing to forget.
@Wulfie: I really enjoyed you sharing your dream (I have crazy, long, complicated dreams too – that sometimes feature famous people!). I’m sure your good wishes are worth more than their weight in gold 😉 and I can’t speak for Havi either but, personally, given the choice between some money and someone actively wishing me well and sending me love and happiness, well, I’d take the later any day!
I wish you well! and happiness!
This is wonderful. Thank you, Havi. Each time I come to this online space, I feel safe. I realize more and more that the blogs I like most tend to be those of people I find here. Increasingly, my Twitter feed consists of your Right People. It’s remarkable to have a space (even an online one!) where I know I’ll find safety, where I can learn to befriend myself instead of strongarming myself into submission (which clearly doesn’t work anyway). Big hugs to you and all the other wonderful people who hang out here.
.-= Kylie´s last post … things are different now than they were then =-.
Hi, everybody!
Blissful excitement! I feel such spaciousness and permission that my nebulous thing is exactly what it should be.
And it was so much fun to write my answers to the magic formula and then see, that IS what I am doing! How reassuring and just neat-o.
I love how we are all in the same boat, too (like, every time someone asks me “what do you do for a living?”, my shins start to sweat.
xo Laurie
.-= Laurie´s last post … The key to, basically, everything. =-.
Ooh, this is good Havi.
Really, really good.
I love the idea of the four ingredients. That seems way more doable (and way more fun, really) than a set thing.
And I heart muchly the way you bring it back to the you-ness. And how that doesn’t need to be found.
There’s something about that just makes me want to sigh a great big happy sigh.
Delicious!
.-= Fabeku Fatunmise´s last post … You Are Not Broken =-.
This really, really rocked and I’m going to think about it even more tomorrow. (Because tonight is for relaxing with friends at the psychotic beer fest, where I will duly avoid and simply observe the psychotic part… welcome to Bavaria)
Thanks a whole heap!
Well, hello, existential crisis! So nice of you to finally come out into the open. Let’s make a deal: I’ll fill in the blanks of Havi’s secret formula (so we can agree on what I’m all about), and you can stop with the panic attacks and the oh-no-I’ll-never-amount-to-anything-because-I-don’t-have-a-THING thing. Deal?
“Even if your thing was mostly about sewing dresses for dolls. It’s now also about how bottled beer is the only way to go.”
Havi, I absolutely adore you! Part of my existential crisis has been about my seemingly disparate interests and abilities. But now I’m empowered to say, “And? So? That’s who I am. Dammit!” And then I’m going to flash a devious smile and go eat pie.
.-= Sherron´s last post … The Mysterious Case of the Disemboweled “Puppy” =-.
@Lindsay and Willie,
Hey thanks. I’ll think about it some more. I guess it’s just that Havi does so much good here always for free. I mean really, have you ever seen such a constant delivery of WoW!? And it’s priceless…yet free. Know what I mean?
Thanks again.
I know a lot of people who could use this. Including me. I think I have my Thing – delighting people and giving them a sense of wonder (not a “sensawunda”, SF fans). I think I’ve even figured out how to apply my Thing. But this is a useful touchstone to keep in mind – have I strayed in how I’m interpreting this? Is what I’m doing still my Thing?
Thank you.
.-= Chris Anthony´s last post … Recommendation: Dave Navarro, the Launch Coach =-.
Oh, man; I need to write this down. I was feeling slightly addled the other day because I discovered that the thing that I thought was my thing apparently isn’t really my thing; it was a thing that I could follow until I wasn’t afraid to admit what my real thing was. (Even I can’t follow this .. see why I need to write down my own four ingredients and refer to that instead?)
.-= Elizabeth´s last post … filling the creative well =-.
@Elizabeth,
I understood every word of that.
See, I had thing that I thought was my thing, for years. But every time I tried to do something with it, something would go wrong. So I kept rearranging the thing but it still went wrong. I drove me nuts. Then I discovered that thing wasn’t my thing…part of it, but not my real THING. But who wants to be a giver-upper? Or feel like a failure? Or like you wasted days/weeks/months/years trying to be something that you aren’t? Or admit you were wrong? Those are scary things!
You’re thing isn’t that hard…that just doesn’t make sense to me. If a thing is really your thing, then even when it’s hard, there’s still joy and goodness coming from it and within you. Heck, there doesn’t even have to be money involved in your real thing cause you’d do it anyways just cause you dig it so much!
So yeah, I get you. Totally. And the fear…ug. But these 4 ingredients? Yeah, totally rocks its. Freeing and opening and suddenly the creative juices flow and the heart opens and melts all the hardness and wheeeee. I have never squeeed before but just lately – in between bits of HARD – I’ve come very close..like with this post! lol
You go girl!
What a wonderfully fabulous way to look at this thing that we all so desperately want to have… I know I’ve spent most of my life bemoaning the fact that I don’t have seem to have a single defining “passion”, a “calling” to dedicate my life to. Other people obviously have it, so why can’t I?!
Except, maybe my thing is that I don’t have just one thing. My mom would probably laugh if she read that, I think she’s always known I couldn’t ever possibly have JUST ONE if my life depended on it…
This is something I’ve struggled with and fought myself over for years. I think (maybe) I’m finally coming to terms with the fact that I’ll always have many things… but looking at it this way definitely helps 😉
@Wulfie (and anyone else questioning the value of their “intangible” contribution) It’s an interesting thing, the power that well wishes and good thoughts has. As the well-wisher, we may feel that what we are doing is rather pointless (and therefore of no value). However, many many studies have shown that praying for someone who’s ill can actually increase their recovery rate, whether they know about the prayers or not. And since prayers are basically just good thoughts and well wishes sent out to the heavens, I think it’s safe to draw some correlations here 🙂
If nothing else, simply knowing that people care enough to send well wishes and good thoughts will help give Havi the strength she needs to get through this stressful time… ’cause even if it IS a positive, exciting, amazing change, it’s still change. And change creates stress, which is stressful! 😉
@Heidi – right? If I had to choose just one thing I would curl up and die. Many things just means you’ve had an interesting life. And (I tend to think) the many things tend to be more related than we think they are. 🙂
@Wulfie – I adore you! And I adore your dream. Boon! And all the outpourings of love here are helping me so much in getting over my internal “you have to do it all yourself” rules. So it really is a gift of grace knowing how many people are cheering the Playground on.
@Sherron – whooo! You go flash that devious pie-eating smile. It’s HOT. And that is exactly the right attitude. I love it.
@Laurie – shin sweat! Me too. Except with me it’s stuttering and tripping over chairs.
@willie + lindsay YEAH!
@julie – when you said “a glimmer of something being shoved behind someone’s back” I got an entire story there. Just beautiful. Thank you.
@jessie – chas v’shalom indeed. Chalila. Hooray for shiva-ing it up and for No Wrong Things.
@Larisa – yes yes yes! I have been advocating for YEARS that we stop asking the “what do you do for a living” question, along with “what do you do for fun” and “why do you have a duck”. Excellent.
Whoa! Sudden insight: if I open my door to one Thing, that does not mean I have to close my doors to all the other Things! My Thing(s) can be multi-faceted! Phew!
.-= Kathleen Avins´s last post … Disabling the autopilot =-.
Wow I just played around with this, without trying to get myself to fit into a box in my head, and awesomeness. It’s like an infusion of bounce.
Oh, thank you SO SO much for this. It is SUCH a relief. When I read it I just felt this huge weight lift off of my mind. I think I’m going to hang this up in my office where I can see it every day.
🙂 Jenny
.-= Cranky Fibro Girl´s last post … If you register your site for free at =-.
@everyone!
This was like the best post EVER! The comment mice all rock. There should be a Comment Mice Convention at the Playground! lol
I did send my best wishes and didn’t die or anything.
And I’m feeling betterer enough to be playing with my Thing the way I, myself, envision it as dark and shadowy with spooky lights and music and much laughter and playing. My site Mother Earth Whispers will vanish but instead of feeling like a failure, I’m taking it as a lesson, especially since I learned LOTS. So I’ll be back…but don’t be afraid of the shadows cause it’ll just be me. 😀
Thanks Havi, Commenter Mice, and Beloved Lurkers for sharing yourselves here. It rocks.