Note: You will probably want to read the last post on tweaking before you read this post!
What’s a yammer?
A yammer is any old voice that speaks up when something, anything, gets a little challenging. Or when a new twist enters a situation.
You know your yammers well. They’re the voices that come yammering along, hooking you with their love of drama and anxiety.
So, here’s something to remember:
The tweak is the antidote to the yammer.
A yammer says, “Oh, it’ll never work!”
The tweak says, “Hey, let’s try this one more time!”
The yammer says, “Why does this happen to me?”
The tweak says, “Okay, what would happen if I did this instead?”
In fact, a “tweak,” by its very name, removes the drama from any situation.
So, from now on, imagine that old V-8 commercial. Only instead of saying, “Wow! I could’ve had a V-8!” you’ll say, “Wow. I can just tweak!”
Here are the some common yammers and the tweaks that heal them…
#1 – Taking life personally
This is the yammer that says things like, “Well, see? This must not be in the cards for me.” Or, “I’m just not cut out to reach my goals.” Or “Something must be wrong with me.”
In the VA situation I wrote about in the last post, I could feel this very yammer coming around the bend. (“What did I do wrong? Why is she doing this to me?”)
The tweak replies like this:
“Let’s not waste any more time on her. Sometimes people just flake out. There are so many other people out there who would love to work with you! Let’s try calling a few!”
(“Wow! I can just tweak!”)
#2 – Outrage
“You pre-paid for her hours? Well, she owes you money! Go after her!”
Or, “Do you know what that jerk did to me? Things were going fine until he…”
Recognize these yammers?
Outrage is a yammer that can keep your wheels spinning for years.
I’m not saying that you won’t have occasional misgivings about certain events. I’m not saying that occasional venting isn’t okay, or that you shouldn’t stand up for yourself when the situation calls for it.
But I’d rather take all that energy and tweak the situation instead.
A tweak looks at outrage and says, “How much is your time worth? If you spend three hours trying to get back at someone because you’re outraged, isn’t that three hours you could spend being creative – and perhaps creating something new? And making even more money because of the new thing you created?”
#3 – Failure shame
This yammer is always on the look out for reasons to feel embarrassed or ashamed. In fact, I think that most people who fear failure don’t fear the actual failure. They fear the yammer. The yammer is what convinces them that there’s even such a thing as failure!
A tweak, on the other hand, knows that the slightest tweak can make a failure into a success. A tweak is a different way of looking at something that went wrong – and then re-purposing it in a different package. Or taking the lesson and making something out of it.
“Wow! There is no failure! Just new ways to tweak!”
#4 – Event-Mindedness
“Event-minded” yammers are everywhere.
That’s because by the time we hear a “success story,” the process (and the tweaks) are no longer a part of the story.
By the time a fitness guru reports it, the story IS the 85 pounds lost. By the time a marketer blogs about it, the story IS the $4million created. By the time New York Times writes about it, the story IS 5 million copies sold.
Everyone loves an event. But if you’re not careful, event-mindedness can fuel the yammers.
For instance, people have asked me what I’ll do if Be My Record Label doesn’t “work.” (Read: If it doesn’t become a marketing story, or raise at least the budget of the CD.) That’s event-mindedness.
Right now, I listen to the tweak voices.
I keep tweaking and playing with it and coming up with new ideas here and there. Part of what inspires me is to show people how much of creating anything is trying new stuff – lots of which doesn’t work!
After all, the person who lost 85 pounds had many days where she felt stuck and had to re-inspire herself. The product that created $4 million had to be marketed and new ideas had to happen over and over again. The best-selling book had to be written sentence by sentence – and then get ripped apart by editors – and re-written again.
Every successful person tweaks more than she yammers!
#5 – Belief in lack
This is the core yammer of all yammers. This yammer’s mantra is, “There’s not enough.”
Tweaking, on the other hand, is all about abundance.
Tweaking teaches you that life is never stuck or static or stale. Tweaking says, “There are plenty of people who can support my work.” “There are plenty of new ideas and ways of doing this.” “There are so many people who would buy this.” “There are lots of resources!”
Every time you tweak, rather than collapse into a heap of yammers, you learn that life is abundant and that there’s always another choice to make. Sometimes it’s good to take a nap first and clear your head of the yammer. Or even take a break for a day or two.
But soon, you’ll get used to saying “Wow! I can always tweak!”
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{ 28 comments… read them below or add one }
Christine:
I can’t believe how timely your post is for me. A couple years ago, I started a job that was very difficult to learn. My confidence took a dive because I felt like I wasn’t learning quick enough. I’m still at my job and feeling much more confident (and better) about things. Today, I ran into a challenge on one of my projects and I started yammering (very close to the #1 yammer examples you gave). Your post reminds me that I need to tweak my thinking. Thanks again for a great post!
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I think there is a song title in all this talk about tweak-yammer-yammer-tweak. Love the post. I’m constantly tweaking my ‘inner yammer’ and it does take work, because sometimes that yammer wears different disguises. When you feel like saying “Why me?” learn to say “Why not me?” and turn that yammer around and show it the door. If I could only prevent the yammer from even coming around in the first place, I’d bottle it and sell it.
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Dear Christine,
I just love how you play with language! You have been mightily blessed, my dear, by the Goddess of Dancing Words. It’s good to be reminded to let those hardworking tweaks do their job and to not give any energy to those lazy but noisy yammers.
( Every time you wrote yammers I kept getting this visual of HAMMERS pounding me on the head, over and over again. OUCH!!!)
It also reminds me of something that the Buddhist teacher Steven Levine once said which is that any situation, no matter how difficult, is always workable. I tend to forget that when the yammers have dragged me into dramaland, with their messages of no, and can’t and that’s impossible and you’re doomed. There are certainly times when those yammers can be darned convincing!
Thanks for the reminder that you can always tweak your way to a more positive outcome and thanks for another great post!
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tim – it’s interesting to hear you point out the confidence that comes from learning how to do your job. i compare that to stepping on stage now – in contrast with my first few years. it’s all about tweaking and yammers! and the shifts all come with experience and doing it over and over. (and it sounds like you’ll do just fine with a few thought tweaks!)
pat k. – song title… “if i had a yammer.” ? (sorry – it’s early and i’m in an airport.)
thanks chris! I love steven levine’s work – thanks for the reminder of his wisdom. “you’re doomed” is a pretty funny yammer, isn’t it? in elementary school, my best friend and I used to say “We’re doomed!” whenever we got in any kind of trouble. it’s such a funny thing to say!
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I loved this post because I can relate to it. Your message is bang on. Just as an aside…I have to wonder what the motivation is behind someone who would ask you if your ‘be my record label’ doesn’t work? It’s people who pose those questions that make me feel the underlying motivation isn’t really all that friendly. Today, I tweak.
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Not only do you need to be aware of the yammers in your head but the “Yamsters” that are real live people pushing negativity.
Its all about attitude, isn’t it? My husband and I had an investment we had hoped would make us a little money. It didn’t and the yammers and Yamsters started up. We listened a bit then decided that we liked the tweak’s attitude instead. Ultimately, that experience ended up saving us alot more money than we would have made with the investment and improved our lives. We realized that we learned so much through the experience.
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Christine, I was thinking more along the lines of Meridith Wilson’s “Pick a little” song those ladies do in the Music Man. Only instead of …
…”Pick a little, talk a little, pick a little, talk a little, cheep cheep cheep, talk a lot, pick a little more”
it would be…
…”tweat a little, talk a little, tweak a little, talk a little, yam-yam-yammer now, tweak a lot, tweak a little more,,.tweak tweak tweak….
No idea why I chose that crazy tune….but there it is. (Now it will be stuck in my head all day!)
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Slightly on a tangent here, but I don’t live in the US and I don’t quite get that “I could have had a v8″ moment idea – can someone explain it to me?
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Funny you mentioned “If I had a Hammer” because that song popped in my head when I read Pat K’s response about a song. I’m not gonna yammer in the morning, evening or all over this land! Thanks for the reminder and the song will help me remember!
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Christine, what a wonderful way to re-frame situations! I think the yammer tells us with each result-that-is-not-exactly-what-weexpected, “total failure!” Your suggestions can run like a GPS system: time to try something else, or just “tweak.”
BTW, on the subject of musical renditions of yammering and tweaking, there’s a beach music song with “tweet tweet” as the refrain, maybe you can rewrite it as “tweak tweak”. And then again, maybe that’s not a good idea.
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Christine, I love the Yammer!
My mom used to tell us that when a negative thought popped into our heads that we should immediatly say “Cancel, cancel” and cancel it out before it reached our inner brain.( We really did walk around as kids saying it out loud… now as a grown up I say it to myself to ward off the funny looks…)
So now I can add in “Cancel, cancel yammer, yammer. Tweak, Tweak instead.”
Let’s see what my head can do with that.
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You have taught me lots about this and adding the word yammer to help define it is great. Like that paper i had to write. It took me years b/c i kept telling myself I wasn’t smart enough to write ‘that way’. I had that yammer so long in my life that it was in my brain’s hard drive. The moment I tweaked that during eseminar (after much work
), I finished the paper in a week, published it etc. So when that yammer pops up in my brain I’ll think of it like the tweak being the anitvirus. The yammers will still pop up, but will no longer crash the hard drive. This is such a refreshing way to look at this, thanks!!!
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@chickpea – V8 (not to be confused with a V-8 engine) is a tomato-based vegetable juice that has the punch line “I could’ve had a V8.” In the commercials the person has just finished a cappuccino or donut or something else unhealthy, and then they smack themselves in the forehead and utter the punch line…
The company purports to supply a full day’s veggies in one serving; but it tastes terrible. Hope that clarifies.
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Grr, now I’m going to hear “Pick a little” for the rest of the day. Oh the agony.
I was re-reading your “creating” post last night. I think it’s weird how it all goes together. It still isn’t smooth or settled once and for all but there are the intents to refer back to. I think the yammers get more of a foothold in the grab-mode and the loudest yamsters (love that word) are all over the grab and why grabbing is the way to go and creating is for “losers.” And I realize what I just wrote will make no sense to anyone else but I have to be cryptic for the moment.
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My grandfather, who is dying, was always saying to my gma and caretaker ladies “Stop your yammering!” And it’s true–a lot of their talk WAS yammering. I’ll have to let them know they can just TWEAK.
I always loved the words yammering and tweak and I like the way you applied them. I’m going to tweak my usage of them!
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Deb — add eight to ten drops of Tabasco to a glass of V8. Improves the taste immensely. Others advocate an ounce or so of vodka in addition to the Tabasco…
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As a follow-up to Wendi’s “Cancel,” Dr. Randy Pausch’s wife, Jai, said that one of the counselors they were seeing said to say, “Not helpful.” I love this and your examples, Christine. I think I need to practice more so the helpful phrases come to me faster. There’s yammer, and then there’s YAMMER. Sometimes, if I don’t catch the yammer, it gets to be the YAMMER.
I’m not sure if this is related, or not, but, sometimes fear does this to me, too. I donated my TV earlier this summer, and that has reduced the negativity in my life. I still watch TV at the gym, and catch news online. But, it’s amazing how much less negativity bombards me.
Best to you all…
p
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Pati – i think that’s really cool that you gave your TV away. I’ve hardly watched TV for about 9 months now – I never thought about donating it – thanks for the idea!
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Yammer must stem from the German verb ‘jammern’ which means whining. In Dutch ‘Jammer’ means ‘too bad’. And I think that’s the essence of a yammer. While yammering you miss out on all the possible good stuff, you waste time.
I like tweaking. I tweak every day. I try to tweak when the sh:: hits the fan. Sometimes it’s not easy. But’ I’m getting there more and more.
Along with Wendy Kelli: we should teach our kids this early on and the world will become a better place. Hooray!
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I love this post too! #3, Failure Shame seems big in my life. I wonder if everyone feels this way. I almost think it’s a global way of thinking/reacting (what a sad epidemic!) What would the world be like if the first thoughts to cross everyone’s mind when trying something new was a burst of energy and exhilaration, a sense of pride rather than “what could go wrong? Will I fail?” and feelings of inadequacy or fear? And what will it take to turn our world into such a magnificent place?
Each one of us doing our own tweaking and sharing that wonderful positive insight with others.
BTW-love the songs, but yes, unfortunately I’ll have “pick a little” in my head all day!
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Thanks, Elaine. As a follow-up, not having the TV brought about unexpected experiences. First, I used to come home and turn on the TV “for company.” Also, I begin my day in the kitchen, preparing meals, etc., for the day — so I used to watch/listen to the morning programs while I prepped. Also, I was a TV kid. My sister bought the TV (I donated) for me when I was sick. She wanted me to relax (I worked a lot . . . and still do). (While there was some sentimental feelings, it was the older style TV and would have needed the converter — more stuff.) It was a huge presence in the room — very dark (literally) and figuratively (news — or what passed as news).
Also, my Mother passed away last year and I had a lot to do, finalizing all the paperwork and such. I had to take quite a bit of time off for various reasons . . . and really needed to get these projects done. This story could go on . . ., but here’s what happened without the TV:
My morning prep time was cut (because I wasn’t stopping to watch/listen). I had room for my music, brought my CDs out of storage, reviewed my albums . . . and played my favorites, finding things I used to love and still do, and I made a huge, huge dent in my projects. I really needed to get them done . . . and it feels so good to have done them. I found myself doing someing I dreamed about: At the end of the day, I read.
Now, summer time was probably an easy time not to have a TV (reruns, summer sunshine in lieu of winter snow/cold); and I may buy a “little” TV. One other note: I feared (yes, feared) not having a TV . . . that the quiet and aloneness would be too much. It was a welcome relief to know I could survive without it — so I’ll be just fine if I bring a little one back, because I know it’s by choice.
Too, I found Christine’s blog, beautiful music, good words, helpful thoughts, and you all.
p
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Great post – I am never disappointed with your comments!
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Best. Posts. Ever. (Tweaking and Yammering)
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Thanks for all of the great stories and inspiring moments! (Are there really two different mimi’s out there?)
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i just love this word and these descriptions–so true! and they’ve certainly all lived in my head. as i make some huge changes for me i hear a lot of yammers–many are way too familiar and it’s difficult to know sometimes which are true concerns and which are my old yammers getting in the way of forward motion.
nicely done….very helpful and written in a wonderful way.
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Yes–another Mimi!
I’ve already started saying “tweak!” to myself to jog myself into thinking about a problem a new way, with a better attitude. Awesome!
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Yup – my real name is Miranda though
aaaah it’s out there now – I cannot hide anymore…
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Pati and Elaine,
Although I have a TV in my house I rarely ever put it on, maybe for a movie when I’m feeling icky…No News, No weather, etc. I’ve learned to just “just keep swimming, swimming, swimming…etc” (Finding Nemo reference)
What I noticed in your comments and also in everyday life is that too much noise is a bad thing…It stops us from having to rest with our own thoughts, the good, the bad and the indifferent. So that sometimes it may become difficult to distinguish the yammers among all the noise and we get so used to hearing them that we may sometime begin to believe them…YIKES! So I may not change my tune but you could sing “just keep tweeking, tweeking, tweeking” Whatever the catchphrase Thinking outside the box, a glass half full, maybe more than we could ever hope, dream or imagine.
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