My 2023 Experiment with Guilt
Last year I decided to focus on my flute playing. More specifically, I had some underlying guilt about spending time on a “hobby” so I decided to give myself permission to practice without guilt for one year and see what would happen.
I’m delighted to report that I became a better flute player (and better musician overall) because of the increased practice. That fact won’t surprise my musician readers. What might surprise you, though, is that I was able to move through the guilt and now I don’t feel guilt as often when I practice.
That is not to say that I’ve resolved all of my issues with practicing music, but the issue with feeling guilty about it has been greatly diminished compared to before 2023. I learned that intentionally giving myself permission to do something with guardrails is a good way to begin the process of getting past an emotional barrier.
In this case, my guardrail was the one year timeframe. I promised myself that I only had to try this for one year. If, at the end of the year, nothing had changed, I’d thank myself for making the effort but not beat myself up over it. During 2023, I didn’t even think about the concept of my guilt except to notice when it popped up and to remind myself that I was giving myself one year of amnesty from this guilt.
Since 2023 is over, I’ll still need to address any guilt that comes up in 2024 when I practice my flute (or engage in any musical endeavor, for that matter), but overall, I consider my 2023 experiment to be a success.
I also learned something important about goals: Often (usually? always?) we don’t meet our goals not because of a lack of commitment to them, but because of underlying baggage that accompanies the goal. Part of the reason for the success of my experiment was that I had accurately identified my own baggage and knew where to focus my attention.
I have always loved making music, starting with the first time I can remember singing as a child. But somewhere along the way, I picked up the notion that pursuing music — even as a hobby — was a selfish thing to do.
I spent most of my life justifying my joy but never fully embracing the importance of spending time on the very thing that I knew would bring me the most joy in this lifetime. There was a huge disconnect between what I knew and what I pursued. I could see the problem but I didn’t know how to solve it. I spent several decades in substantial frustration over it.
I’m glad that I never gave up my dream of making music even though at times I thought I might. It was in those decades of struggle and soul searching that I eventually uncovered what was holding me back (it was more than one piece of baggage, I discovered). It took even more struggle and soul searching to uncover the ideas1 that would eventually help me to experience progress.
What goal have you struggled with that you know without a doubt is worth pursuing? Are you willing to keep trying? Can you do the emotional work necessary to uncover your own emotional “baggage” and the ideas that might help you to transcend that baggage?
Whatever your dream, I encourage you to give it one more try. Perhaps, like me, this will be the time that you notice significant progress. Perhaps you will stumble upon a way to give yourself grace, to see the difficult emotions that stand in your way, and to continue pursuing your dream. Perhaps 2024 will be the year that you begin walking that road toward your dream in earnest.
Yes, there was more than one! My experiment in 2023 was but one of the many, many things I tried over the years to get closer to my goal.