*Plunking away at the piano keys, nothing seems to come about. The music is awful. The piece goes nowhere.*

“What if I just stink?”

Sometimes, showing up is the hardest part. Other times, though, when we’ve “successfully” arrived at our work, nothing seems to happen.

Worry, boredom, and exhaustion build as every body part finds a way to bounce, twitch, and fidget. The desire is there, but actions don’t seem to follow.

All that seems left is the fight to keep ourselves in place until… something happens? maybe?

The Hidden Trap of Forcing Focus

Certainly, there are any number of reasons for falling into such troublesome states.

Maybe we keep forcing ourselves because a part of us feels that this damned infernal awful piece of work doesn’t “deserve” our best selves. Or maybe we don’t want to fully invest ourselves for fear that we’d reveal our selves to somehow be “not enough”.

But, one critical matter involves how we suppress our own strengths.

When “forcing focus,” we face a troublesome choice, if it’s conscious at all:
1. Cut off and ignore our natural mental associations because *we have to do this thing and do it well*, or
2. Wander off

The trouble is in the split.

In not allowing ourselves to be fully present, along with our daydreams and mental wanderings, we disconnect an important part of ourselves. We lose our creative power.

The Creative Power of Wandering

But what if we reframed this? What if we allowed ourselves to wander while gently guiding those wanderings toward our work?

Those seemingly unrelated ideas, odd connections, and seemingly bumbling attempts, can sometimes bloom into new ideas and insights.

In nurturing our wanderings along gentle guidance, we can allow “failures” to foster successes, for first drafts to become fertilizer, and to finally engage.

As I sit at the piano keys, *allowing my mind wander*, suspending judgement of good or bad, sometimes, I stop standing in my own way.

An Invitation to Experiment

Consider the following experiment. The next time you are sitting with work, struggling to make it move forward, allow yourself to be there, to wander. At some point, catch a wandering thought, feeling, or emotion, almost as you would a fish. Consider, “how might this idea relate to my chosen focus?”

Maybe nothing will come to mind. Maybe something. Either way, I wonder if you find yourself to be more present.

– Kourosh