How to Stop Performing and Show Up as You Are

It’s a practice, not a goal (isn’t that true of everything?).

When we’re showing up in the public spaces of the online world as creators and/or entrepreneurs, it’s easy to believe we need to perform. Public spaces are performative spaces (this is true of IRL spaces too!). A lot of people are playing parts; many treat it like a game. And that’s fine: it’s one way to be and you can find success that way. But for those of us who have an aversion to being performative (INFPs in particular hate it, and INFJs find it equally challenging but for different reasons), that kind of interaction leads to misery and burnout.

Unfortunately, we rarely feel that we are good enough just as we are. We operate on the assumption that performance of some kind is required for us to be accepted/acceptable.

It sucks to always feel like you have to be more or better to deserve your place at the table, doesn’t it?

What if it were as easy and simple as just showing up? Let’s say you’re invited to a potluck dinner. What if all you had to do was show up in whatever way naturally occurred? Straight from the gym, sweaty and tired. With some chicken McNuggets you only bought because you happened to drive by a McDonald’s and thought, why not, it’s convenient.

What if you sat at the table with everyone else and didn’t say a word all night because you’re tired and nothing worth saying came to mind? What if you got up halfway through, made your apologies, and left because you’d reached your sensory input limit?

What if all that was totally fine, and you didn’t have to worry at all about what people would think, whether they would still like you and invite you back?

Maybe you have friends like this, whose only desire is to have you there at the table, in whatever way you are able to show up. But when it comes to participating in a wider community, especially when we’re putting our work out into the world as creatives, things can feel very inhospitable. It’s easy to get caught up in beliefs about how we need to show up.

We need to be peppy, flashy, and outgoing.

We need to be attractive.

Our work needs to be on point, of excellent quality, engaging.

We need to speak to the zeitgeist (just speaking our truth isn’t enough).

All of these are really the same thing. They’re statements about how we need to be more and better to deserve our place at the table. We need to perform for our dinner. Last-minute chicken McNuggets aren’t going to cut it. Having a quiet night when we just don’t want to have to talk won’t get us a repeat invite.

I’m not going to lie. Those of us who are reserved, shy, introverted, and socially anxious are disadvantaged in some ways. But we have one major advantage, which is ironically the very thing that is also our disadvantage: our inclination toward authentic interaction. If we could just find a way to let go of all the pressure we put on ourselves to perform, to be in certain ways, we could relax into just being ourselves no matter how that manifests.

But how? Like most aspects of the creative life, this is a practice, not a goal. We may never get to a point where we are completely indifferent to how people react to us, but we can practice every day and get better over time. It does get easier, but only if you practice.

Here’s how I do it. It’s not anything fancy, not some brilliant hack. It’s just some basic steps. Step one is finding situations where simply showing up is enough, because this shows you what it feels like. Places where you are not called on to perform anything, and you are able to get a glimmer of what it would feel like to not be pressuring yourself all the time to be something else. You may find this in a relationship, a friend group, or an online community.

Step two is reminding yourself over and over (and over and over) that it doesn’t matter if you’re “doing it wrong.” Remind yourself of this as much as needed in places where you don’t feel as accepted, where that pressure to be more arises within you. Remind yourself that what you naturally have to offer is enough.

Step three is embracing doing it wrong. Turn that wrong into your right. After all, who’s to say it’s either wrong or right? Who has that authority? No one. Or put another way, you have as much authority as anyone else to decide what’s right (for you). Believe me when I say that it is exactly those areas where you feel you’re doing it wrong that people need to hear about!

So what if you don’t know what you naturally have to offer? What if you’ve been performing for so long, you’re a blank when it comes to who you really are? This is step four, and figuring it out is an emergent property of the practice. It will happen gradually as you learn to release the pressure you have been putting on yourself. You may be pleasantly surprised at what you discover.

Divergent Thinkers Have an On Switch

Misfits exist for a reason.

I’ve spent much of my life feeling like I’m doing it wrong. It’s like other people know something I don’t: they get it, and whatever “it” is eludes me. Growing up, I noticed my brain seemed to work differently than it was supposed to. The first time I took a standardized test I failed, because the questions didn’t make sense. I couldn’t pick an answer from the multiple choices because in my head I was thinking of all the contingencies, hidden variables, and alternative possibilities inherent in the question. What was supposed to be a problem of logic appeared anything but to me. I didn’t realize at the time that this was simply a symptom of my highly imaginative, non-rational (intuitive) way of seeing the world. My logic isn’t based on rational cognition.

When you grow up feeling like you’re doing it wrong, like you may even be a bit stupid because you just can’t figure things out the way you’re supposed to, you start to wonder what your use is. What possible role can you play in society when you can’t understand the rules of the game? Maybe you allow your difference to be pathologized: there’s something wrong with you, clearly. It’s not developmental, exactly, but it could be psychological and emotional. Therapy and meds may help you be a normal person who can have a normal life. You look at the people around you living out their normal lives seemingly happily, or happily enough, and of course you think that’s what you should want.

Or maybe you consign yourself to your fate. For whatever reason you just weren’t born for this world or this time, it sucks and it’s unfair, but you have to accept your alienation because what choice do you have? This is who you are. Therapy and meds don’t make much of a difference because your difference is more fundamental than emotions or psychology, or even a chemical imbalance. It’s about who you are. But still, there’s that question. What is your use? Why are you like this, what purpose does it serve? Because you know you’re not alone. There are others out there like you, and there has to be a reason this type of person exists, some evolutionary advantage to being out of step, of not seeing things the way others do.

I think there is. Divergent thinking may not be valued during times when maintaining a status quo is seen as paramount (which is most of the time), and it may even be feared and rejected during those times, but when the status quo is experiencing a great upheaval, divergent thinking is exactly what we need. Times of turmoil, when old ways no longer function well or are being outright challenged, are times that need people who can see opportunity in chaos, who even thrive in such circumstances.

Something interesting happened to me when the Pandemic of 2020 hit. It was like I had an on switch inside of me that got flipped. Even though I experienced the worry and sadness I saw leveling those around me – and I was cognizant that I occupied a relatively privileged position of being able to avoid many direct and personal effects of the Pandemic – that year was the most creatively rich and fulfilling of my life thus far. It was as if the confusion and disquiet of crisis awoke in me some kind of constructive response that I’m still not sure I fully understand. I had a distinct feeling of “this is my time.” I can’t explain it, but there it is. I’ve spoken to others who had a similar reaction, so I know I’m not the only one.

I think this is the reason divergent thinkers exist. We play an important role in society at all times, but in particular it’s those liminal periods of uncertainty and ambiguity where we can shine. Where other people may react with fear and grief, we sense the possibilities and may even feel excited by them. And this is one of those times in history. Maybe the Pandemic didn’t hit your switch, but something else might. One thing that holds misfits back from recognizing our potential is that while we are usually aware of how we don’t see things the same way as others, we aren’t as aware of how we do see things. Often we can feel guilty about our true thoughts and feelings because they aren’t the "correct” ones.

You’re not doing it wrong. In fact, you may be doing it right. Wake up to your potential by learning the value of seeing things differently. And you may find that you’re not that different from the many other misfits out there, looking for their people!

How Group Shaming Makes Change Particularly Difficult for HSPs

How to recognize and deal with the phantom judges in our heads.

Shame is one of the most powerful tools communities use to maintain cohesiveness. The other is the feeling of belonging. These are two sides of the same coin, and that’s why you often see them paired in group dynamics. The stronger the explicit rules of belonging, the stronger the shaming when you violate them. Take a cult, for example. You don’t just leave a cult, you’re excommunicated.

Belonging is a very pleasurable emotion. In involves feeling safe, loved, accepted. Group shaming is a deeply painful emotion, because it strikes at the core of our very being: we feel rejected, bad, alone. These emotions are hardwired into us, because sticking with the group elevates our chances of survival. When we stray from group norms, we may be shamed, but more importantly, we expect to be shamed. We know what’s coming.

It’s this expectation of shaming that makes it so difficult to effect changes for ourselves that lead us down a different path. Any time we challenge the status quo we are making ourselves vulnerable to criticism, which in my opinion can be and often is wielded as a shaming technique (as opposed to constructive critique, advice, or feedback, though these can also hide a secret heart of shaming, particularly if they are unsolicited). Other people may or may not criticize us for our new choices, but the judges in our heads sure will. These judges are our internal Greek chorus of conformity. They exist to make sure we don’t stray too far from the group. They have our best interests in mind, evolutionarily speaking. But emotionally speaking? Not so much. They make us feel like shit when the stakes aren’t basic survival. Which mostly they aren’t. But our brains don’t know that.

Change is difficult for a lot of reasons, but these internal judgy voices are a major reason. They’re the voices that say, “What will everyone think?” And, “What if people think I’m wrong/bad?” “What if people decide they don’t like me?” They’re the voices that start up every time I publish a blog post about one of my opinions. What if people disagree (and tell me I’m stupid, wrong, and bad)? When I do an interview about my ideas on anti-productivity, these are the voices that tell me the collective rage of my productivity-obsessed culture is going to come at me and blow me straight to hell. That may sound like hyperbole, but psychologically speaking that’s what being group shamed feels like, because often group norms are tied to morality. Doing the right things means you’re a good person. Doing the wrong things means you’re bad. Shaming is a form of emotional ostricism. Its purpose is to give you a taste of the hell of permanent shunning.

If you are an HSP, it’s likely your internal shame-throwers are particularly vocal. Part of the reason is because HSPs are often shamed for being the way they are. While HSPs comprise a relatively large minority (estimates are 15% to 20% of the population), it is a form of neurodiversity that is not widely recognized or understood. That is changing, but most HSPs have had the experience of being shamed or at least misunderstood for their high sensitivity, strong emotional reactions, and difficulties managing anxiety in “normal” environments like school and work. Being an HSP is painful not just because of the condition itself. It’s also because we are so misunderstood, and often do not even understand ourselves because of the lack of informed studies about how the HSP brain operates.

HSPs are also particularly vulnerable to these internal judgers because we are highly sensitive to any kind of feedback, good or bad—this has to do with how their brains function at a neurochemical level and can’t be therapied away. This is why tough love generally backfires on HSPs. Please, for the love of everything, do not use tough love on an HSP. Their brains will code you as a danger, and this will impact an HSP’s ability to trust you. I’ve lost friendships because my brain was not able to move past the scarring experience of tough love, as much as I wanted to move past it! Competitiveness and aggression are likewise damaging to HSPs. Gentleness and kindness are what work for HSPs. Extreme gentleness and kindness (or what seems extreme from a “normal” perspective). HSPs will blossom and flourish in a gentle and kind environment where we feel safe. If the environment does not feel safe, we will shut down.

Being aware of how our internal judges seek to keep us on the path of conformity is the first step in changing our lives through daily choices. Your internal judges are not you. They are the collective voice of your cultural conditioning. If you disagree with them, that’s fine! You will feel uncomfortable doing so, especially at first. It’s enough just to start to pay attention to when you disagree. Start thinking about why. What do you think? How do you feel? Respect your own thoughts and feelings. They’re real, they’re legitimate. You’ll be surprised how life can start to feel better just through the simple act of paying attention to what you think and feel. Eventually you’ll learn to recognize the judgy voices for what they are: phantoms. They may always be there, because cultural conditioning runs deep, but calling them out for what they are will give you power that you’ll be able to use to make decisions more in line with what you really want.

Do Intuition and Creativity Use the Same Cognitive Processes?

Enhance creative capabilities by learning how to stop applying the rules of rational cognition to your process.

This blog post is now a podcast episode!

As an INFP and/or INFJ (I’m not sure which I am!), I’ve become used to using the terms intuitive and creative to describe myself. I always saw these two skills as inherently different from each other. As I’ve learned more about the workings of creativity, however, I’ve come to understand that the reason intuitive and creative abilities are often co-occurring is because they function in strikingly similar ways. In fact, creativity may be simply a variation of intuitive cognition. If this is true, we are repressing our creativity when we insist on rational approaches. If you are struggling to tap into your creativity, questioning your socialization into rational, analytical styles of thinking is a good place to start.

Both intuition and creativity rely on similar cognitive functions: pattern recognition and analogical thinking.* Intuition is an understanding you arrive at when your brain subconsciously compares many different past experiences and knowledge, pulls out relevant pieces of information, and synthesizes it all into a new understanding. This manifests as the “a-ha” moment intuitives often talk about. Creativity is the ability – often at least party unconscious – of being able to compare disparate pieces of past experiences and knowledge and put them together in unexpected ways to produce a novel understanding, solution, or product. You can see how the processes are similar, though their purpose and the conscious experience of them may differ.

Intuitive/creative ability is actually a kind of intelligence, though in our society we don’t really recognize it as such because we have a very limited view of intelligence. We categorize it as a facility with logical, deliberate, and conscious thinking. In this rational perspective of intelligence, the latter is particularly important: you must be able to explain how you came to a certain conclusion through a step-by-step, linear process of reasoning and/or evidence confirmation. Intuitive/creative intelligence does not allow for such explication, as it is unstructured and nonconscious, nor does it adhere to the rules of logic. It is therefore categorized as something other than intelligence.

Intuitive/creative intelligence is native to human beings just as is our capacity for rational thought, so in that sense we all have intuitive and creative abilities. But because we are taught that it is a “lower” form of cognition, untrustworthy, and irrational, we grow up discounting it as a valid way of experiencing and understanding the world. This can have profound effects on our ability to be creative. We can enhance our creativity by not applying the rules of rational cognition to our intuitive/creative cognition process. But how? Let’s look at a few of the big no-nos of the rational approach, and why they work directly against intuitive/creative thinking.

Centering yourself in the knowledge formation process.

The major tenet of the scientific approach, which represents our highest form of the rational process, is that you must remove yourself from your research. Your job is to be an unbiased conduit of knowledge formation and communication; to discover objective truths. The whole point of scientific study is to create universal knowledge that is verifiable through a replicable process, i.e. scientific experiment. Intuitive/creative cognition does not do this. It results in knowledge that is neither explicable (because you arrive at it largely through unconscious thought) nor verifiable or replicable. It is based on your personal experiences of being yourself in the world. You must center yourself when using intuitive/creative cognition – and the knowledge you create is valuable because of your personal bias.   

Using feeling as a method of knowledge confirmation.

It goes without saying that rational approaches to knowledge formation do not use personal feeling as a method of verification. A scientist does not decide which results are accurate based on their feelings. There is no “I think this is true because it feels right” in science! But in the intuitive/creative cognitive process, feeling is the measure that is used to identify what is true – true for you. What challenges us more than any other thing about using the intuitive/creative approach is that it results in knowledge that may only be true for us, and not match what is true for others. Our societal preference for the rational approach tells us we should distrust such knowledge because we are not able to validate it externally.

Trusting knowledge that cannot be verified.

In rational models, there is a correct (i.e. objectively correct) answer; in intuitive/creative models, there is no such thing. Exactness or accuracy are not evaluations that are relevant to intuitive/creative knowledge, but our conditioning in the rational approach causes us to use those evaluations anyway. This leads to second-guessing ourselves and what we know, and it can also lead to us losing confidence in our creative output. Think of it this way. How ridiculous would it be to think that getting an almost right answer to a math problem is totally fine if, say, you’re designing a space shuttle? Reverse that: it’s equally ridiculous to try to apply such rational precision to intuitive/creative thinking. We cannot judge a work of art, for example, by how accurately it represents reality or whether it was created in the “correct” way. Release your intuitive/creative cognition from such shackles! There is no “right” answer in any objective sense. Intuitive/creative intelligence is about trusting yourself.

We are trained to distrust and discount information and knowledge that come to us through a non-rational, i.e. intuitive, cognitive process. But if intuition and creativity are similar types of cognition, we are also inadvertently repressing our creativity when we try to apply the rules of rational thinking to our own understanding and experience.

*This essay is partly informed by a paper entitled Intuition and Creativity (Ul-Haq, 2015; open access). It cites a lot of the research on this and related subjects and is a good place to start if you want to delve in deeper.

I Want to Join the Fight for Social Justice, But I’m an Extreme Introvert with Mental Health Issues!

How can I contribute in a meaningful way?

A curse of introverts, especially those of us who are intuitive feelers (INFPs and INFJs), is that while we tend to care deeply about social and political issues, we are also behind-the-scene types, if not actively avoidant of large group activities. We want to do our part, but being on the front lines – for example in emotive protests – quickly and painfully overwhelms us. And mental health issues can make participation all but impossible. The attention garnered by active forms of dissent can make those of us inclined toward background roles and a quieter approach wonder if we are doing enough. It can even make us wonder if we are contributing anything significant at all.

This is on my mind a lot recently, because I want to see significant and enduring social justice occur for oppressed peoples. I’m a white, cishet woman who comes from a privileged background, so it’s incumbent upon me to educate myself and do the work to make change. As an intuitive feeler and an HSP, my emotional response to the injustices I see occurring is deeply painful. And yet I struggle to actively participate in frontline activities in any sustained way because of my introversion and severe anxiety issues. I also have to limit my consumption of news and social media. The result of this is a lot of guilt.

I want to be clear that my personal feelings of guilt and inadequacy are not important in the context of working for social justice. When I show up, I push all this aside because it’s not about me, plain and simple. But in my own time this is something I grapple with, and I know I’m not the only one. This post is for people who are similarly struggling. Here are some of my thoughts on how to work through complex and difficult feelings about social justice work when you feel unable to participate in meaningful ways.

We need to stop saying silence is complicity  

Silence in the face of injustice can be complicity. We should not stay silent in our private spheres, and people and organizations with a public presence have a responsibility to take a stand. But silence has its place, particularly now, and particularly on the part of people who have privilege of any kind. The first and most important thing we can do is to shut up and listen. Without responding. Our opinions are not needed. We should be listening to the recounting of the lived experiences of those who need justice, and we should especially be listening to what they say about what they need and how we can help.

Guess what introverts are really, really good at? Listening. And thinking deeply about what we have heard. Why does this matter? Because just listening is not enough. We need to practice active listening. This means continuously working to examine our own biases and doing our own research to supplement what we’ve heard. It especially means sitting with discomfort, because discomfort is the growing pains of the soul. If you can do this, you are already ahead of most people, including many of those who jump at the opportunity to go out on the front lines. Demonstrating and protesting, while it certainly can be a catalyst of change, cannot equal sustained and deep work in the realm of discomfort on the part of every individual. That which we seek to change in society is rooted within ourselves, and the biggest and most important work you can do is in your own heart and mind.

You are allowed to be slow in your response

Introverts require more time than extroverts to formulate responses. We also generally prefer quality over quantity – we’d rather think carefully about our response to make sure it’s relevant and targeted than blurt out just anything. This is why participation grades in school are a nightmare for us. Our approach to taking action is similar.

This can feel really bad when the need for justice is urgent – which it always is, right? But it’s important to remember that change inevitably takes time (unfortunately), and that it really is sustained action that makes the difference. Very rarely do overnight revolutions occur. Most of the time, social change happens when a critical mass of people push for it, and political change happens when social pressure results in the political will to legislate. Demonstrations and protests certainly matter, because they are a very public way of showing how much support an issue has. However, most of the work for change occurs behind the scenes and in support roles. 

Guess what introverts love? Working behind the scenes and in support roles. Especially for those of us with privilege, our place should be in support roles. Taking the lead, unless it is asked of us, is called co-opting the issue, and it’s wrongheaded. As an introvert, you probably won’t have a problem with taking a back seat!

Be skeptical of performative activism

A performative action is one that is done for the sake of appearing a certain way to others. When you are doing something performative for personal reasons – because it’s an easy way to show up or so other people will think well of you – this isn’t true activism. It’s like window shopping. That said, doing something for the visibility of it has its place: this is what demonstrations and protests are. But it’s important to not mistake this type of highly emotive and visible activism for revolutionary action. The unfortunate truth is that often people’s work for change stops when the demonstration does. Again, it’s not that this kind of activism isn’t important – but it’s not the only important way to contribute, nor is it the most important way. 

I’m not going to list ways to contribute from behind the scenes, because you can easily google that. I will say that I find that using my money to help fund activist organizations, bail funds, or to support minority-owned businesses is often my chosen type of contribution. And I keep listening, learning, and examining my own biases. Paying attention is itself a kind of activism, particularly when it means you are sitting in discomfort quite a lot. Remind yourself that your discomfort is small compared to those who bear the brunt of injustices. Also remind yourself that you are allowed to take a break from it if you need to (while remembering that the people who need justice often do not have this privilege).

Being an extreme introvert and having mental health issues does not have to mean you can’t do meaningful work on behalf of social justice. If you’re like me, you probably already knew this, but have lacked confidence about your ability to contribute. I remind myself every day that change starts with the personal work I do on myself. If today that’s the only thing I do, it’s still valuable, and tomorrow maybe I can do more.  

How Do You Change Your Life When You Don't Know What You Want?

You don’t need to know where you’re going to get there.

One of the most frustrating feelings I’ve ever experienced is wanting my life to be different but having no idea what a different life would look like. My life had all those things lined up that you’re supposed to have, like career and family. From the outside it probably looked great. But I was deeply unhappy. I could barely drag myself through the days, doing the bare minimum to get by, stuck in an endless loop of self-recrimination and paralysis. Something was very wrong with my life, but I had no vision of what I might want instead. This is a common experience for intuitive feelers like INFPs and INFJs. The things we’ve been taught to want are often unfulfilling, but there aren’t many good alternative models for how life could be different. And because we tend to all be unique in our own ways, it’s doubtful that any model would ever suffice. We have to make our own way.

It’s not an easy path we walk, and it often looks dark ahead. But there are some things we can do to help us move forward and that may open up some surprising doors we didn’t even know were there.

Experiment with doing things the wrong way

We are all socialized to think certain life choices are the “right” ones. Even those of us who have rejected conventional mores have internalized certain beliefs about the things we should pursue in life. A big one for me was career success – I always thought I needed to get a good job that made use of my education and talents. And this isn’t wrong. But it’s also not right. 

You know what is wrong? Not making use of my education and talents to get an amazing job. So you know what I did? That. I did not get an amazing job. I did not make good use of my education and talents. I know – it’s cringy, right? And I wouldn’t have made this choice if my mental health issues hadn’t precluded me for a long time from doing much of anything other than a freelance gig here and there. But in the end that turned out to be a good thing, because it taught me that sometimes the wrong way is the right way. I realized that my education – which I am deeply grateful for, and recognize for the privilege that it is – is valuable because of the experience of it, not the specific credentials it confers. Understanding this opened up so many possibilities for me that I wouldn’t have otherwise thought of.  

Consciously making choices that go against what we’ve been socialized to think is good or right is one of the hardest things to do. You don’t have to do it in a big way. In fact, at the beginning it’s helpful just to do a deep dive into examining what parts of your life exist only because you are doing what you are “supposed” to do. The best way to do this is to confront your fear of judgement. Ask yourself the question: am I doing this because I want to, or because if I don’t, people may criticize me?

Put away those big dreams

Some people do achieve big dreams – but not as many as you’d think. We’re inundated with bootstrapping stories about celebrities, sports stars, and social media millionaires, so you can forgive yourself for thinking that the formula is “big dream + belief in self + hard work = success.” But it’s not, at least not for most of us. Beautiful dreams are nice, but mostly they’re just dreams. One day you wake up and realize your life is just…normal, and you’re, well, you’re just average. Sure, you’re special, but in the way that everyone is special. Which is to say, not really that special. This can be a hard reality to accept for INFPs and INFJs, because while we may not be “special,” we are different, and we inherently believe our destinies are different as well. And they often are.

Here’s the thing: destiny isn’t something you decide on ahead of time. It’s an emergent property of how you live your life and the small choices you make along the way. So think small. Think today. You don’t need to know what big possibilities are on the horizon – you just need to know what you want to do now, and trust that it will turn into possibilities in the future. Find something that piques your curiosity and explore it. Always wanted to know about raising backyard chickens? Start researching. The trick is to get your mind busy on something that inspires it. Soon enough new ideas and inspirations will pop into it – and they may have nothing to do with chickens! Or who knows, in a few years you may find yourself buying a small homestead out in the country and starting up a chick-hatching business. (Chickens are my latest obsession….)

Very rarely does someone’s life change because they made a big change out of the blue. Usually you build up with little alterations until you reach a tipping point, and then suddenly a big change occurs. It may seem to come out of nowhere, but in reality the ground was prepared over time.

Practice radical faith in the process

You’ve probably heard the phrase “trust the process” before. But trusting it isn’t enough. Trust is based on a hoped-for or predicted outcome. You trust the sun to rise tomorrow. You trust your friends or partner to (hopefully) be there for you when you are struggling. Trust is safe. Faith is an entirely different prospect. It’s based on confidence in the face of uncertainty and confusion regarding outcome. Faith is inherently radical, because it isn’t attached to specific outcomes. And this is radical in our results-oriented culture. You can’t go into work tomorrow and tell them your new philosophy is to only do things that feel good in a way that also feels good, end product be damned.

But you can live your life in a process-oriented way. We’ve talked about putting away big dreams – which are results-oriented – and focusing on doing small things that spark interest and excitement in you. The radical faith part is believing that you are headed somewhere, even if you feel like you’re treading water. Even if the path ahead is dark. In times when you feel a need to change your life but don’t know what you want, having faith in the process frees your mind from obsession over trying to figure out where you are headed. Eventually you’ll probably arrive at more clarity regarding what you want, but more likely one day you’ll look up to find that your life changed without you noticing how. It can happen faster than you think.