Working Through Intellectual Loss

When effort, skill & execution don’t bring the results you thought they should

Photo by Amin Moshrefi on Unsplash

“The attempt to escape from pain, is what creates more pain.” ― Gabor Maté

Loss, grief and recovery are often spoken of in recent times. The accuracy of more instruction and prompting to look beyond death as the only type of loss worth grieving has been paramount to the healing and reparation of souls over the past few years. In my observation, the experience of loss happens across a myriad of lifestyles, a variety of locations, and most certainly, in the world of work. We are growing in our collective knowledge that an adult’s feelings of loss when a parent of theirs’ remarries, in situations warranting loss of income, and even in successful weight loss journeys, people can identify their grief. Individually, changes in emotions and the dependency on certain types of coping mechanisms begin to shift. In light of recent events occurring in my nook of the world, I want to acknowledge what happens when creatives, solo-preneurs and multi-hyphenates experience intellectual loss.

…but we also can find ourselves “taking an L” in micro-doses.

For clarification, I am not using the phrase intellectual loss to describe when someone plagiarizes your work, or adopts and presents your idea as their original thoughts. That type of IP theft is ramping up more and more as people strive to build content rapidly across platforms and utilize products that take written work and convert it to video. However, what I am trying to target is the short term endeavor or project that doesn’t materialize the way you thought it would and the accompanying feelings of loss one can encounter. Sure, large projects that you have poured your money, heart and soul into for months and years carry a significant amount of despondency, but we may also find ourselves “taking an L” in micro-doses. How were the stats on the 25th time you checked your newly published article? Did your latest ad start ticking yet? How many hits to your landing page did you get? Those add up.

Before you get back on the proverbial horse