How coachable are you?
The more writers I meet, and the more patrons join us, the more I see how some writers are coachable, and other aren't. No amount of trying hard to teach them all I know results in any kind of progress, and only recently did I understand that it's not my fault.
There are people who are willing to change. And there are people who are not.
There are people who have been through hard times in their lives and who have matured enough to see that it's not the world that's been mean to them, and that blaming others won't do anything. It's them that the change needs to start with. These people often have made a commitment to learning how to be better and do better.
And then there are people who have might've been through hard times, or might've not, but who have not learned that whatever life gives them depends on how they take it, and that if they're willing to change themselves, they can change their life. Instead, they keep believing their change is out of their hands, and in that they're not mature. They're adult babies.
It gives me infinite pleasure to work with people who are coachable, that is, who are willing to change, who are wiling to listen, to do homework, to work hard, and to shove their ego into a dark, lonely corner for the benefit of learning.
It's nearly impossible to gain any pleasure from working with people who are uncoachable.
I'm learning how to recognize these people from the very beginning of our first conversation, to save them and me our precious time and to not engage. It's hard, and it's worth every minute of my effort.
So my question to you is: How coachable are you? Do you take change on, or do you bare your teeth and growl at it?
Perhaps this is what's holding you back—your resistance to change. Consider letting go and allowing it to happen. Consider change the gift of creativity. You can always count on it. It'll always be there. And it'll continue renewing you, all the way to your grave (couldn't help it to mention it—I know you love me anyway, right?).