Welcome to the Zen Habits podcast, where we dive into how to work with uncertainty, resistance, and fear around our meaningful work. This is for anyone who wants to create an impact in the world and cares deeply enough to do the work. I'm your host, Leo Babauta, creator of the Zen Habits blog.

In this episode, I'm going to talk about something I call the Fearless Ritual. This is for anyone who wants to create or really do anything that requires focus and meaningful work. So, Fearless Ritual and then I'm also going to be sharing, as part of Fearless Ritual, a Four-Step Creator Process that I really believe in, that I'm testing out right now, and that I think is going to be part of a bigger offering that I'm going to create—either a book or a course or something like that.

But let's talk about it here. So, a Fearless Ritual and a four-step creator process. They're really part of the same thing, but let me lay this out for you. What is a Fearless Ritual, and why do we need it?

A Fearless Ritual is a ritual that you might have every day, or let's say five days a week. It's a ritual for focus and facing uncertainty and resistance. It's perfect for those who have a creative project, but maybe you don't have a creative project, and it's more like, "I'm creating something that means something to me—a business or some kind of offering in the world."

It's some kind of meaningful project that you're trying to move forward, and that you might have some resistance around. Some uncertainty, some discomfort, something that makes you keep putting it off.

A Fearless Ritual is creating a ritual that's every day, or five days a week, or it could be three times a week or once a week, but I would recommend about five days a week, actually, I think that is perfect. And it's for a certain amount of time—let's say half an hour, 10 minutes, an hour, something in that range.

And you have the intention of taking on something that has resistance, uncertainty, avoidance, some discomfort. So, you're actually going to practice with something and train yourself. And the fearlessness is not that you don't have fear, but that you're fearlessly, courageously willing to turn towards the fear and resistance and to stay there with it.

And this training is going to allow us to get better and better at facing discomfort and uncertainty, working with our resistance and fears. And so, if you do this ritual, it will have a couple of big effects. One is it's going to move your project forward. If you're doing this every day, your creative project is going to move forward as a given—it will happen. Maybe not in the way that you're expecting, but something is going to be moving.

So, that's the first thing. And the second thing is that you will start to get better at facing resistance. You're going to have better awareness of that resistance, you're going to be able to practice mindfully being with the uncertainty underneath the resistance, and then moving forward and working through it.

You're going to be practicing stepping into the unknown over and over again. And if you did those five days a week for a month, your ability to face resistance will greatly change. And if you do that for two months, three months, all of a sudden you are going to have much more trust in yourself, confidence, and ability to face any kind of uncertainty and discomfort.

Now, I'm not saying you'll never have any struggles again, but I'm saying you will actually be expanding your capacity through this training. So, that's what a Fearless Ritual is. It's not just a daily ritual like a habit; it's actually a training in uncertainty, training in resistance. It's going to unlock superpowers, really, for you.

So, let me talk a little bit more about Fearless Ritual, and then I'm going to talk about the four-step creator process that could be a part of the Fearless Ritual if you're creating anything in the world. So, Fearless Ritual—how do we set this up?

First of all, we want to set up a specific time. Let's say 5 p.m. or 8 a.m. It doesn't have to be those times. Pick a time. Specific length. Let's say 10 minutes to start with. 15 minutes, something like that, 20 minutes. Whatever feels easy and doable but like something you'll actually show up for.

For some people, it might be 30 minutes. And if you're like, "That's freaking too easy, give me an hour." Okay, great. Don't do it longer than an hour to start with unless you've been doing it for a certain amount of time. If you set it for an hour and you fail to do it every single day for a week. I mean, if you didn't do five times in the week, reduce it down to half an hour.

If you set it for half an hour and you didn't do five times, you only did three or four times or, you know, two or one or zero times—anything less than five for a week, reduce it to 15 minutes. If it's 15 minutes and you're having a hard time showing up for that every day, reduce it down to five.

This is an auto-regulating system, which is that if we are showing up for every day, great, we could increase it if we want to. And if we're not showing up for every day, then reduce it. Reduce the time, cut it in half, something like that. You know, it doesn't have to be exactly half, but somewhere in that range. And that will allow us to show up for us. We're trying to find the right amount of resistance.

So, set up for a certain amount of time at a certain time of the day. Next, set up a reminder so you don't forget. Don't skip that one. Then, have some accountability. Commit to others that you're going to do this every day. And then at the end of it, tell them that you will check in with them. So, there's accountability, there's a commitment.

Next, you want to have something to do when you first start. Let's say you play some music, you set up a timer. Maybe you sit and meditate or do some breaths. Maybe you dance around and have fun with it. Maybe you write out a little prayer or poem or intention. Some kind of part of the ritual that starts the ritual.

I've had someone who used to light a candle to start his focus session. So, you light a candle, and now that signals the start. So, some kind of thing that signals the start of a ritual. You also want to have something that signals the end of the ritual. A little moment of gratitude, a few breaths, sharing it with others, checking in and saying, "Hey, I did my thing."

And so, some kind of closing part of the ritual has a start and an end that are intentional, and anything else that feels really nice—having a little statue of the Buddha nearby, or having your God look at you right there and saying a prayer to them. It doesn't really matter.

Thinking about your kids. Something that's really nice—music is often very nice, some kind of nice surroundings, incense. This is a ritual, and you create the structure of the ritual to start and end that are intentional and then some kind of surrounding that makes this a nice experience.

What we want to do with a ritual is elevate what we're doing here above the ordinary. This is not just another task to get through. If you do it that way, it will be a failure. You're just going to be doing another thing to add to your plate. What we want to do is have a certain amount of time—again, it could be 15 minutes—that is elevated, that is sacred, held sacred as if the most sacred thing you've ever done, like your vows in your marriage or your vow to protect your kids. It's that sacred.

If you elevate it to that level of sacredness, it will shift something for you. You'll be meeting your resistance with a sense of full devotion. And that's what we're looking for here. If you notice yourself just trying to get through it, which is very common, notice that and then say, "Ooh, I actually want to elevate this to a level of sacredness. What do I need to do? How do I need to shift? Do I need to slow down? Do I need to create some more breaths? Do I need to talk to someone about it?."

And then, what do we do in the middle of the Fearless Ritual? Well, that's the part where we focus on the thing that really is going to have the most impact on this meaningful project or in our mission. And if we're creating as part of our Fearless Ritual, if our project is around creative like "I'm sketching, I'm painting, I'm making music, I'm crafting, I'm weaving, I'm writing, I'm recording." If creating as a part of it, then I want to introduce what I suggest doing in that middle part of the Fearless Ritual, which is the Four-Step Creator Process.

So, let me talk about that. The four-step process is number one, some stillness and reflection. That's number one. Number two is make, sit down, and create. That's the part where we sing, where we play music, where we draw, where we write, where we record. So that might be the heart of it for a lot of people.

And then, number three, we would share that every single ritual, every single day when we're doing the ritual, we're going to share what we just created with someone else. It could be one person, best friend, accountability buddy, a coach. It could be a small group of people, another accountability group, a community, a team. You know, a group of people doing a challenge together.

And if you want to do this with me and others, we have a team that is focused on this right now in the uncertainty challenge in Fearless Living Academy. Come in, join my team. We're doing this process together, and we share what we're creating every day.

So, that's share as the third step. And then fourth step is to receive. Receive from some feedback. Maybe the other person doesn't give you any feedback. That's okay. But sometimes they will. And they're like, "Ah, I really like this," or, "Oh man, it made my heart sing." Or, "Oh, I think you should change this." Or, "Oh, when you did this, it kind of made me feel bad about this."

This is all really good stuff. And you want to receive. So, you share, which is an act of generosity and courage, and then you receive, which is their act of generosity and courage is sharing stuff with you. And it's an act of courage on your side to be able to receive that. And this is the part that's really hard, is sharing and receiving feedback.

So, what we want to do, first of all, is to be in each step one at a time. We don't want to get ahead of ourselves and think about, "Oh, are people going to like this when I'm creating it?" No, if you're in step two, which is 'make', stay there in the make part. Let yourself play, be creative, explore, you know, just be messy.

You don't have to worry about what someone is going to say because that's later. That's in step three. You don't have to worry about sharing it right now. I'm just making it. As I record this podcast. I'm not sharing with anybody. This is just me talking to a screen and having fun with it. So, when you're in step two: 'make', you're only in step two, don't get ahead of yourself, really slow down with that part of the process.

Once you're done with it, then worry about step three, which is, "I'm just going to share it." And you just work the muscle of putting it out there, sharing it, sharing it. But what you might notice is people resist sharing it because they're worried about step four, which is to receive feedback.

But we're not in step four; we're in step three at this point. When I'm done, I'm just going to go and post it. Post it on Instagram, or TikTok, or Facebook, Twitter, Mastodon, doesn't matter. Or you know, in a forum where you are committed to sharing every day or WhatsApp group or email or text messages, whatever it is.

So, you share it, but you're not worried about the feedback or how it's going to land with them or what they're going to think. Because the sharing is just you sending something out. You're going to work the muscle of this thing. Sending out without worrying about the next step. I'm just sending it. I'm not thinking about what's going to happen. Sending it out. And we want to just practice that.

When we get to step four, we're going to receive the feedback. Now, this could be the hard part. Someone shares something with you, or maybe they share nothing, and that can mean something. This is the part where we have to just allow ourselves to hear the gold in whatever they're sharing.

Now, they might share a bunch of crap, but there's might be some gold in there. Maybe there's no gold at all, but what if we could really trust that there's some gold? Now, maybe no one shares anything, and I'm like, "Well, where's the gold in that?" Well, the gold might be in me being willing to allow people to be too busy to respond. They're just too busy right now.

Or the gold might be in me if, like, no one ever responds. Maybe what I'm sharing isn't actually evoking what I think it's evoking. That's actually gold, is getting that kind of feedback. Maybe there's something I need to change. Maybe I need to get on the phone with someone and ask them, like, "You haven't been sharing anything in response to what I'm sharing. Can you tell me more? Like, what is it not landing with you?" So, find the gold in whatever people are sharing.

14:22

That takes us back to step one in the process, which I've skipped over intentionally. So, in the beginning, in step one: 'sit in stillness and reflect', what we're doing is we're asking ourselves, "What do I want to create today? In this Fearless Ritual, what do I want to do when I get to step two, which is 'make'? What do I want to make?"

It's like, "Ah, I want to scribble. I want to, you know, sew." Don't stay too long on this one. We want to just like let ourselves like, "Ooh, it would be really cool to create something that was about spring and life and blossoms." Okay, great. That's all you need. You know, you just need a little bit of a transmission, and then go to step two. Don't stay in step one too long. Like, "Ah, what should I create? It needs to be perfect." No, just get some kind of little transmission, a little spark, and then go to step two.

If you've gone through the first cycle and let's say in step four, you received some feedback, when you go back to step one, we want to incorporate that feedback in the stillness and reflection, and ask ourselves, "What is the gold that I can take from that and incorporate in what I want to create today?"

So, if they said, "Oh, that was really cool, but it was too much green in the thing that you shared about spring." Okay, great. I take that in and be like, "Oh, do I want to incorporate that gold? Maybe I want to put more green in today." And see what that evokes in them. Maybe that's something that I want to play with.

Or maybe it's like, "No, let me put a little more blues and yellows into it. A little bit of tinge of orange. Maybe there's something there." And so, you don't have to incorporate people's feedback, but you do want to sit and say, "What is the gold that I would like to incorporate?" Or, "How do I want to respond to their response?" It's a little bit of a conversation or a dialogue or a dance. And that's step one.

In every cycle of step one, you're going to see, "What do I want to create, and how do I want to incorporate the feedback?" It might be that you don't incorporate any feedback. That's okay. You just still get to create on your own. But if you do want to incorporate feedback, that can be a really important part of the process, is reflecting on "How do I want to fold that in?" Then go back to step two.

Okay, so that's the four-step process. If you get into the process of creating like this, it will unlock a lot for you. You will slow down and be in each step individually as opposed to trying to think ahead and what people are going to think about this creation. You will be taking in feedback and getting better and better through the feedback, and you will actually relax with feedback over time with practice.

You will be sharing and developing the muscle of sharing, sending it out there without needing to worry about what their feedback is. You will be getting a lot more information and seeing what resonates with people. You'll be developing an audience. You'll be standing for the possibility that people can be messy and be public about their messiness. And create while they're still in process and let others have permission to be that as well.

And you might get people who want to pay you for stuff as you create. And they're like, "Oh, I really want this." And that could be kind of cool. There's a lot that can emerge from this process, but I really encourage you to practice this process, this four-step creator process—sit and reflect, make, share, receive. That can be a part of your Fearless Ritual.

Okay, my friends, let me know if you have any thoughts at podcast@zenhabits.net. Otherwise, I trust in you to be in your process. Okay, bye everybody.

If you haven't already, please subscribe to this podcast in your favorite podcast app. If you found this episode useful, please share this podcast with someone you know, who cares deeply. That would be really meaningful to me. And, if you'd like to dive deeper with me into this work, please check out the blog at zenhabits.net or get in touch at leo@zenhabits.net.

Thanks for listening, and I hope you'll join me every Wednesday for more episodes of the Zen Habits podcast.