Process: A Portrait

Prelude

I remember the color of the sky that day.

Dusk painted rich orange and lavender streaks across the blue canvas, the light saturating the world in overwhelming beauty.

I had a performance of Chopin’s First Piano Concerto in 3 days. 

After another frustrating 4 hour practice session followed by a painful 2 hour lesson in which my teacher berated my lack of progress, I’d headed to the park across the street from the studio to wait for my mother.

Wrapping my arms around my stomach, I looked up at that expanse. of untouchable sky and felt terribly small and alone.

I wasn’t ready. I couldn’t do it. 

I’d started learning the concerto on my 14th birthday. Countless hours of practice and lessons over several months usually meant I’d be more than ready for a performance. 

But the work still felt new – uncomfortable and unwieldy like a heavy, dull block of clay that had yet to take shape. 

Despite having a clear artistic vision, my ideas weren’t translating into sound. 

I couldn’t seem to grasp its essence. The music behind Chopin’s notes eluded my embrace, slipping through my fingers like water. 

The piece refused to become mine. It remained alien, a behemoth I couldn’t take in. 

Dusk’s long light reached for me, bringing with it the unsettling realization that I would fail on stage in 3 days.

Dire scenarios took shape: the concert hall filled with the murmur of dismissive comments; the tepid applause born of pity rather than appreciation; the disappointed expressions of teachers, parents, managers, agents, and friends; the end of my musical career.

As a teenager, I had grown more insecure with my appearance, uncomfortable with the changes in my body and the judgment it would bring. 

My anxiety grew. What if they wanted someone prettier, smarter, better…what if I failed the expectations of all those nameless, faceless people in every way?

I remember the sky that day, its beauty illuminating the rising terror within me.

A terror born of a hyper-focus on results.

In a world that prizes convenience and speed and a culture bombarded with messages equating external accomplishments to happiness, we’ve cultivated a dangerous narrative in which our innate value as human beings is predicated on how quickly we achieve certain societal benchmarks.

Education and media condition us to pursue results by deeming what is acceptable in every facet of our life: how we should look, how much money we should make, where we should live, who we should be in relationships with, how happiness is defined, and what life is supposed to look like at every age.

Human beings have an innate desire to belong and be accepted within a community. This subconscious pressure to seek approval from others fuels the drive to attain established standards of success while simultaneously disconnecting us from our own singular sense of self.

The more we disconnect, the more we seek validation externally to fill the emptiness… and the cycle repeats.

In our quest to achieve, we lose our individual humanity.

This fixation on result has numerous behavioral consequences: perfectionism (fear of judgment), procrastination (fear of failure), and resistance to concepts that challenge existing frameworks (fear of the unknown). 

Narrow tunnel vision and dogmatic, single-minded approaches are the very antithesis of progress which requires open-mindedness, curiosity, experimentation, compassion, and acceptance.

When we bind ourselves to the confines dictated by others, we make ourselves small.

Growth is amorphous, a non-linear expansion with no clear end point. It is continual, an aspect as fundamental to life as breathing.

The human brain gravitates towards simplicity to reduce cognitive load. Consequently, humans have a tendency for shallow categorizations and binary thinking with concepts such as succeed or fail, win or lose, right or wrong, us or them. 

Since there are only two alternatives, the brain essentially comforts us with familiar paradigms by reducing the fear of uncertainty.

Black or white thinking and either/or framing not only oversimplify complexity, but deeply lack nuance and the context necessary for tackling problems, learning new ideas, and preventing extreme viewpoints. 

Abstract concepts like process require intentionality and the effort to engage higher levels of reasoning which comprehend that multiple things can be true at the same time. 

Frustration and satisfaction can co-exist alongside progress and resistance. 

Shifting to a process-oriented framework actualizes two major components critical for enriching both business and personal development.

1. Process is sustainability

Creating a sustainable life and business (including life/work balance) requires a long-term approach, a mindset that doesn’t result in overwhelm or burn out. It means nudging the needle an inch forward, one day at a time.

Marketing is process. Building a business is process.

It is the pursuit of a vision through a flexible, nimble strategy realized over time with consistency. A marathon, not a sprint. 

2. Process demands authenticity

Chasing results with short term tactics provides an easy way to run, hide, and avoid facing difficult internal narratives. But external motivation only goes so far.

Transformative growth happens when we confront ourselves. Exploring, questioning, and experimenting reconnects us to who we are and allows us to gain greater clarity on what matters. 

Consistency is impossible when we perform and pretend to be someone we’re not. Playing a role over an extended period of time is exhausting and unfeasible. 

Creation necessitates self-honesty.

I remember the color of the sky that day, orange and lavender hues dancing across a sea of blue.

It wove through the shadows of my dreams at night, elusive and fleeting, a beauty endlessly out of reach.

Emotionally and mentally exhausted, I sat at the piano the following morning and resigned myself to another fight, a battle with Chopin I was no longer sure I could win. 

Maybe anxiety had drained my mind and body to the point where everything external faded.

Maybe insight had somehow taken root and flourished overnight.

Maybe I simply got out of my own way.

But that morning…it was different.

When I touched the piano, it was there. 

Every moment of yearning, of grief and tenderness and passion, of dreams and loss – everything I wanted to say – broke through the dam in a torrent of raw emotion.

I no longer had to fight the instrument or Chopin; instead, we melded in unison to create a story told through sound. 

It had finally become mine.

That experience would be my first distinct memory of artistic process, but it certainly would not be the last.

When I started running for exercise, my body resisted, limbs awkwardly flailing in a disjointed, miserable rhythm. For 3 months, I ran three to four times a week, wondering why I subjected myself to the pain and doubting when the dopamine rush would ever kick in. 

And then one day… it did. 

Running became a glorious high, my legs, arms, lungs, and heart pumping in perfect harmony as I flew across the pavement.

It became mine.

Every novel I wrote followed a relentless and frequently agonizing journey of clawing jumbled fragments out of my brain onto the page. 

Until one day, the story would suddenly appear, cohesive and alive, characters and themes and emotional resonance flowing off the page as if by magic.

It became mine.

I’m almost certain a scientific term exists for this moment of convergence, the synergy that takes place in our brains as disparate elements come together into a whole.

To me, it is simply the “click”.

It is the moment when everything inexplicably fits together and the thousands of puzzle pieces suddenly snap into place.

Over the course of my artistic career, I learned to patiently await the arrival of the “click”. The more I challenged myself, the longer the wait.

Sometimes it seemed it would never come. Other times, it arrived earlier or later than I wanted.

But it always came.

Trusting the process – that is, the consistent work of building – rather than obsessing over result seems deceptively simple, but like all matters of growth, it rarely is.

Perhaps this is what faith is – the willingness to sit with and accept the limitations of our humanity because the breadth of our journey is limitless.

The greatest impediment to creativity is your impatience, the almost inevitable desire to hurry up the process, express something, and make a splash.

— Robert Greene (@RobertGreene) July 10, 2023

Process is uncomfortable; oftentimes, painful. The space where growth, profound insights, and undiscovered possibilities reside serves as a mirror reflecting our own shadows of self-doubt and self-judgment.

The deeper the dive within, the greater the leap into the unknown, the closer the click will be, that moment of beautiful alignment in which the process belongs wholly and completely to us.

The moment that brings a freedom as richly expansive as the spring sky at dusk.

The only journey is the one within.

Rainer Maria Rilke

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