Sh*tty First Drafts
Do you know about sh*tty first drafts? It can be a helpful concept in your relationships.
Transcript
The concept of shitty first drafts was coined. I think by Brene Brown, the idea is that when something is coming up for you, a difficult feeling, a problem you're seeing, a reaction you're having to a person or situation that your initial take on the situation is probably not going to be the best version. That's because a lot of time it's coming from the reactive part of us. The part of us that's wired for survival and snap judgments and doesn't have time for things like nuance and compassion. Now, I wanna say the place where our first draft is coming from is exquisitely intelligent. So please don't hear from me that a first draft isn't important. Our survival instincts keep us alive in dangerous or untenable situations. But when we're dealing with relationships where collaboration is better than domination, grace is better than righteousness. Forgiveness is better than stubbornness. Gentleness is better than harshness. We have to keep that part of ourselves in check. The concept of shitty first drafts has been really important to me because I used to prioritize sharing my unprocessed unvarnished thoughts and would elicit them from people I love on the regular. I think on some level I knew they were shitty first drafts, but I wanted to hash out a better draft with the people that I loved. And I would also get frustrated when those people wanted to wait before talking to me about something because they wanted to spend more time thinking about it first. I felt like that meant that they didn't trust me with their "real thoughts". I used to feel like refining what you had to say, instead of talking it all through was inauthentic and even controlling. What I've since arrived at is that a lot of times the first half big words that come out of me are not necessarily even how I really think and feel and that by expecting and demanding that someone I love have to work through that with me, that's putting a lot on them.
I discovered that if I spend some time refining and processing before bringing something up to one of my people, I can often save everyone a lot of time in emotional labor, I will have to do less backtracking, less clarifying, and less soothing. When something I say doesn't come out right and instead is triggering or hurtful. The truth is once something is said, you can't unsay it. Words have a way of taking on a life of their own. After they've been spoken or written. I can see that neither my nor someone else's first draft is more authentic than the more refined version. Any more than an unrehearsed dance routine is more real than the one that has been rehearsed and perfected. The knee-jerk reaction can sometimes be valuable to know about and understand, but wanting to spare your person, your shitty initial thoughts, and instead spend more time crafting your message doesn't have to be inherently manipulative or fake. Embargoing what you want to say until you have your key points, a little more lined up can be more respectful of your people's time and energy. But also there is a time and place for processing uncooked thoughts with someone you love, it can be intimate and loving to collaborate on refining, a feeling or thought with someone wrestling and rumbling on it together. This is especially true. If you need help getting out of your shitty first draft. With this podcast, I've subjected multiple people to rougher versions of ideas that I've had, and having their input and feedback has been hugely really helpful for me in getting clearer on what I want to say. The key thing is to be conscious and upfront about what you're offering, which is a shitty first draft. You need to acknowledge that you're asking your partner to withhold judgment, be willing to make space for saying things that don't turn out to be quite true, or noodle on ideas to get others that need refining that's all work.
And the person you're talking to needs to be up for that. What I do nowadays is I ask for informed consent before launching into my shitty first draft. I say, Hey, I'm having something come up for me. I haven't had a lot of time to process it. And so it's kind of messy and unpolished right now. Are you open to letting me work it out with you? You wanna make room for the no, but I've almost never gotten a no, but I think the very asking of it helps get your person's buy-in and acknowledges the work you're asking them to do. It also sets the appropriate container for the conversation that's coming. It helps get the person you love in the right mindset to receive your messy shitty first draft. If you don't wanna hash out your first draft with the person, who's a key player in the story you're wrestling with.
You can instead journal about it, talk it out with yourself when you're alone, like when you're driving in the car or in the shower, or you can ask another person to let you externally process with them again, I would say ask them too because they might not be up for hearing your shitty first draft, but it can be useful to process it with someone else who can then hold a lot of space because it's not about them. After you've worked through it a little bit, then you can bring it back to your person. And if you really want full transparency, you can even tell them that you had a first draft, and here's what it was. And then you can share that you worked past it and how you got to this more refined version. I find just being aware of first drafts as a thing can go a long way in working through my shit. I hope you find this concept valuable too.
