Capture Your Shitty First Draft
I first heard of the concept of the Shitty First Draft (SFD) from Brené Brown. She suggests our SFD is the initial story we tell ourselves, especially when facing a challenge of some kind. It contains our fears, insecurities, and worst-case scenarios, which can create quite a mess if we take them at face value and project them onto ourselves and/or the people around us. Rather than letting our SFD run the show, the trick is to slow down and capture our first impression on paper. Then, we can begin to untangle our thoughts and feelings and decide what, if anything, actually needs our attention.
Shitty First Drafts can show up in response to lots of things …
Your spouse talking over you
A family member doing that one thing again
Your teenager giving you an eye-roll
A coworker sending you a passive-aggressive email
Someone cutting you off in traffic
Misplacing your car keys because of course you would
For many of us, a litany of mind garbage tends to be right under the surface, complete with hurt feelings, defensiveness, judgmental thoughts and promises to ourselves about how we should respond to these various injustices.
The main problem is that our Shitty First Draft is rarely accurate or helpful. That is why when we feel ourselves reeling internally, that is when we need to stop and get our perspective down on paper. In general, I think it can be helpful to write it out before you talk it out. Slowing down enough to write out our various frustrations can provide enough clarity to decide how we want to move forward.
Here are a few questions to help you slow down and work through a SFD.
What is the story in my head right now?
What is true?
What is mine to own?
Is there anything that needs my attention?
How can I respond in line with my values?
In addition to these questions, grabbing your partner or a trusted friend and asking them if you can process with them can help untangle things even further. Here’s a pro tip - when you ask them, tell them you want to process a story in your own head. This will prevent you from accidentally launching into your story in a way that would put your partner or friend on the defensive. Giving them a heads-up that this is your story and that you want help making sense of it will let them know how to best show up for you.
Here’s to capturing our Shitty First Drafts.
Happy to be in your corner,
Tom Page, LCPC
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