In Love With My Potential

I'm in love with my potential.

I'm strongly pulled towards the identity of being a composer, but when I audit my activity I spend much more time thinking and writing about composing than actually doing it.

It feels good to believe we are capable of something to be proud of, and I realise I've been very reluctant to take steps that would put that potential to the test. Once I present something I've written, my perceived potential collides with reality and the opportunity for its merits to be measured.

I signed up to 10K run a while back. I completed the form and paid the entrance fee imagining I could be someone who ran 10km even though I hadn't completed that distance for years. I began training a few months out, and at my first practise run my legs were tired and I was out of breath by the end of the first kilometre. My vision of myself was put to the test but I persisted, training a few times a week.

On the day of the event I completed the distance at my slow pace without incident. The sense of accomplishment was a good feeling. I felt like I'd earned the exhaustion I felt. In fact it was so satisfying to feel like I'd "accomplished running" that I didn't put my running shoes back on for weeks.

I hold my identity as a musician much tighter than that of being a runner. The more central the identity, the longer we'll protect the potential rather than test it. Moving from plan to action here feels like a much bigger risk, but one I'm ready to face.

I've been planning what it means to lace up my "composing shoes" and start getting some kilometres under my feet. To install a low stakes habit into my week that supports rather than challenges my vision of myself as a composer.

I do my writing at the piano keyboard. So step one is as simple as sitting down at the keyboard wearing my composing shoes at a prescribed time each day.

An imperfect session still counts. I learned to be okay with an imperfect run, even if I didn't reach my distance or time goal. Going for a run still qualified as a session that taught me something for future runs.

The purpose of writing like I am here is to document the process of doing, not the process of dreaming.

At the end of a run I'll often send a selfie of my red sweaty face to those people I've been willing to share my goal with. It helps to keep me accountable and I hope that it offers some motivation to them. If I can show up for a run, they have the same opportunity to show up for the thing that is important to them.

Ideally this writing serves a similar purpose - it's a record that I showed up, and if I can do it - so can you.