Say you want something to happen really bad.
You’ve put in a lot of work to try to make it happen. Then the time comes to see if it worked. Will the thing you’re trying to make happen happen as a result of the work?
And it doesn’t seem to be happening. Or not as much as you wanted.
Then you feel a bunch of knotty stress in your gut. Did your work fail? Did you fail?
Of course this is all silly. It’s too early to make such sweeping conclusions. You know the stress is only clouding your vision. You know you can keep working and adjusting. You know the feedback you’re getting about the thing not happening is exactly what you need to improve the odds that you can make the thing happen.
But you still feel the stress.
Is the problem that you just wanted the thing too bad? Is it that you put in too much work and not enough thought? Is it the world’s fault for not being different? Is it your fault for not seeing that the world is not different?
No. None of these are problems. They may or may not be true, but none of them are avoidable, and none of them would alter the best course anyway.
The problem is not that what you worked for and what happened are different. The problem is that you’re afraid of that difference.
Panic and fear when a plan isn’t turning out right might make you think you care too much. You’re too in love with the desired outcome. Maybe, because you’re so close to it and the goal is so personal, when it’s not looking right it’s just too hard to objectively assess the feedback. Maybe you need to care less in order to fearlessly take feedback.
No, that’s not it.
You need to care more.
You need to care about your work so much, so damn much, that you can fearlessly receive feedback and assess what’s not working. It takes more love, not less, to stare problems in the face and not feel beaten. It takes more love to laugh at a failure than to cry.
You have to love the actual success of your efforts more than you love the feeling of succeeding. You have to love the desired outcome more than you love people thinking you caused it. You have to love your work more than you love your reputation.
If you do, you can find even signs of failure as delightfully interesting and useful as a mad scientist who creates an unexpected lab fire.
At least I think so. I’m still aspiring to a level of love for my work that conquers all stress over negative feedback.