Be Cringe About Wanting
Be Cringe: Month 2, and a look-back at the first month of the experience
Be Cringe is a year-long experience centered on showing up more authentically — even when it feels embarrassing. Each month, I share a theme, reflect on how I’m working with it in my own life, and invite subscribers to explore it alongside me. Welcome to Month 2: Be Cringe About Wanting. Below, I’ll share insights from our first month, Be Cringe About Showing Up, as well as how our second month will unfold.
You can read about Be Cringe, and learn how to join us, here.
Introducing 'Be Cringe'
Picture this: there’s something you really want to do — sing karaoke at a bar with friends, start a YouTube channel, cook for your neighbors. You’re really excited about it, you have momentum, but something lurking in the corners stops you.
Wanting something sounds easy. By just wanting something, it should be enough to set all else in motion, that plants a seed, that gets us going. Wanting is likely the reason you’re curious about joining in on this experience — after all, we know what we want to do, many of us just find it too embarrassing to actually do it.
In practice, I find it’s not that simple. Wanting does set all of this in motion, but we didn’t start there. We started with showing up.
Month 1 Recap: Be Cringe about Showing Up
Showing up allows us to evaluate what we’re already doing, and lets us see that momentum build quickly. Showing up doesn’t require a checklist or too much thought — it lets us jump into the action without getting caught up in our own brains.
Before I started this month, I naively thought that showing up would be all these little actions I planned. I thought I could pencil in all the ways I would show up, do it, and check off the box.
What I learned is that in reality, the opportunities to show up actually presented themselves as small, in-the-moment decisions, and that following the urge to do something mattered more than executing a plan.
For example, I said I wanted to share my Substack more publicly as an act of showing up, but when I looked under the hood that felt bigger than showing up. Showing up was continuing to write, when I could, amidst a particularly busy month.
But it also came up in another surprising way. I have been obsessed with the ‘This is my impression of an owl…’ trend. I’m late, I know. While watching Chicago PD, I had an idea for one. But I don’t make reels, I told myself.
But I could, I retorted back.
So, I made the Reel. And I made my instagram public to do so.
I didn’t really have an endgame here — this isn’t some grand plan to get exposure or whatever. I just wanted to participate in a silly trend, and so I decided to show up and did it.
And when I got another idea a few hours later, I did it again.
I’m not diving head-first into short-form video. This isn’t setting some big content strategy in motion, but it allowed me to show up in a way I (honestly) find really embarrassing.
Showing up was exactly what I needed to kick this off. It helped me discern in the moment what I wanted to do vs not, and gave me permission to follow through with what I wanted.
But it’s also clear that wanting itself feels cringey sometimes. And that’s why for Month 2, we’re going to be cringe about wanting.
Monthly recaps are always available to all readers, so free subscribers will be able to learn more about month two of Be Cringe, Be Cringe About Wanting, when I share my next recap (on the first Monday of March).
If you’re curious now and want to join us, we’d love to have you.
And if you’re already a paid subscriber, keep reading!
Month 2: Be Cringe About Wanting
Showing up creates space, and for me, that space reveals desires and wants — even if they are uninvited.
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