Don't Forget! 🪑Get your Ass in the Chair Monday 4/28🪑

Are you ready to carry my shoe?

We loved seeing so many new faces at our free-for-all Ass in Chair Collective meetup last Monday!

And we learned that minor tech debacles, traveling, and holiday weekends can’t keep us from our creative work when we have each other to lean on! Nice, right?

We’ve got another great session planned for 4/28, this coming Monday. It’s for Paid Subscribers only, so if you’re excited to join us, but you haven’t subscribed yet you know what to do:

Subham Sharan on Unsplash

Wait, what’s up with the shoe thing?

I read Gretchen Rubin’s The Four Tendencies several years ago, and while I think it’s made up, it does have some useful ideas about how to get yourself to DO THE THING by understanding your tendency.

Here’s something that has stuck with me from the book:

Obligers are the most prevalent tendency, and these are folks that struggle with internal expectations (the things they want to do for themselves, like, for instance, creative work!) but excel at meeting external expectations (going to work and finishing that project that you are on a deadline for). Basically, Obligers can DO THE THING when others are counting on them, but they struggle to get motivated on their own, when no one else expects results.

Rubin has a great example of two Obligers who wanted to go to the gym more regularly, but struggled to get there on their own. So they went together…AND, at the end of their workout, they would trade one shoe, ensuring that the next time they had a gym date they both HAD to show up, because the other person would need their shoe back!

I love this example of gaming your own internal system to make your life better, and honestly? This is what the Ass in Chair Collective is all about!

Are you ready to carry my shoe? ‘Cause we’ll carry yours!

Our very own Emily has used this trickery herself: when she was struggling to write her own work with a demanding teaching job, she began doing the prompts she gave her students in class. Because she already had to be there to teach, that time was already blocked off and the obligation baked right in! She was successful when she combined [showing up for her students] + [modeling good creativity behaviors] …while also filling notebook after notebook at a time when writing was hard.

Smart, right?

The next Ass in Chair Collective meetup is Monday, April 28th, and we will be there with a bag of shoes! Bring your energy and your willingness to show up and try for your creative work— especially if it’s hard for you to do on your own.

Subscribe to The Long Pause and/or Be Where You Are so you can register on the other side of the paywall:

And if you’re only up for the Free sessions at the moment, we totally get it— here are links for May and June: