Slowing down, taking time for yourself and establishing new habits that will last a lifetime.
Theme - Marking Progress
Applying the Four Levels of Awareness model to clearing and letting go.
1. Unconscious Incompetence - complete turmoil, uncertainty, chaos.
2. Conscious Incompetence - no resources or strategies to manage what comes up.
3. Conscious Competence - competency but it takes conscious effort to cultivate it.
4. Unconscious Competence – effortless awareness, spacious detachment and mastery.
Most of humans jump around between levels 2, 3, and on occasions dip into 4.
What have you learned most about yourself?
That as far as technology is concerned, I am getting old. Maybe my little grey cells consider they have done of expanding into the new-fangled things of life that makes up today and have given-up. Whatever it is I know that it all seems to be moving at a pace far too great for me to keep up with.
No sooner have I started to master something than it is being replaced with something completely different and it is even worse with all the apps on my phone. I think I need my own personal guide, someone to show me, physically walk me through what I am supposed to be doing and then be available to answer the myriad of questions every step throws up.
What are some of your biggest strengths with regards to letting go?
As far a technology goes it is acknowledging that I don’t understand and, either finding different ways of getting the same result or finding someone that can help.
As far as life, well that is a lot more complicated.
I am not one to brood on the problems of the past or to take things too much to heart. If there is nothing that I can do about something I am content to consign it to a box marked ‘uncompleted’ within my mind and I’m very good at keeping it squirreled away and not let it interfere with my life. However, there will always be things that cannot be fitted into any kind of box and if they can then they tend to have a horrible habit of sneaking out into my consciousness when I least expect it. The associations with music, images, and smells are usually what catch me out and send my senses reeling regardless of how long ago something happened, and regardless of it being a happy or sad memory.
Luckily, I am now at a stage in my life where more happy stuff comes through, even when it is tainted with sorrow. However, I learnt today that a memorial website that I’d put a tribute on has closed. It has deleted all accounts and all the information, candles and additional tokens of remembrance have therefore been lost forever. It is twenty years ago that my partner was murdered, and I have maintained his online memorial all that time, so for this to now be gone should feel like a devastating blow and a few years ago it would have been but it is strange how sometimes things happen at a time that is somehow ‘right’ and this is how I feel about this. It is high time I let go of the sad and only remember the good.
Len Hughes (1952-1998) RIP
What continues to be your biggest challenge?
Battling with the literary marketing game. I just don’t get it, as yet and even though I am aware of some of the things I could do – I just do not know how to even start, let alone make them effective. There is a lot of emphasis on buying the skills needed or paying someone else to do it but, and here is the rub if I could afford to do that, I would have paid someone to manage the whole thing (editing, cover design, publishing and promoting). The whole ethos of being an Indie-publisher is that you are in control of every aspect which only really works if you know what you are doing and know the things to do that will be the most productive and get results.
This is my problem. I have mastered (? Hopefully) most things, the book is out there, betta readers have fine tooth combed it to iron out my mistakes and I have learnt to do cover design via a free online tutorial course but, the intricacies of marketing and promotion escapes me. I read everything I can, I take to people, I follow instructions for landing platforms, give-aways, hooks, email listings and building-up a fan following … but technology and knowhow lets me down. I just don’t ‘get’ the specifics of what I should be doing. I know that I will eventually have to invest in a course to teach me all this but it’s ‘Catch 22’ … until I make some money, I can’t afford it and I’m not making money because I am not getting the marketing side right. (Frustrating or what?)
To sum-up where I see myself on the Four Levels of Awareness model:
Unconscious incompetence would describe the part of me that is still:
Battling with the literary marketing game. I just don’t get it as yet and even though I am aware of some of the things I could do – I just do not know how to ever start, let alone make them effective.
I know I'm at the level of conscious incompetence when:
Things start to make sense to me without really having to put much effort into getting it right.
The side of me that shows up as consciously competent in my life is:
Many crafts, especially knitting as I often just make toys without a pattern just by either looking at a picture or seeing them completed in my mind.
Where I most excel, and I consider myself masterful would be in:
Crafts … all kinds of them including creative writing.
So, on the whole I think I am doing okay, but regardless of how good or bad I feel I am within the various levels of the model …
The one thing I can do to expand my awareness is:
Keep learning, especially about the things that would be of help but still have me confused.
Everyday is a school day … so someone unknown would have us believe and maybe they are right 😊
Let’s face it nothing is ever going to stay the same forever.