Not Better, Just Different

Embracing Change Without the Pressure

Hi Bud,

Have you seen A Complete Unknown yet? It’s excellent and worthy of a trip to the theaters if, like us, it has been quite a long time. One line caught my attention. It was part of an offhand exchange between Bob Dylan (Timothée Chalamet) and his romantic interest, Slyvie Russo (Elle Fanning), as they chat in a diner after seeing a movie starring Bette Davis.

Elle Fanning as Sylvie Russo in A Complete Unknown (2024). Searchlight Pictures

Sylvie describes why she likes Bette Davis, something along the lines of her being a badass: “She found herself and became better.”

Bob, with a correcting tone, says, “She didn’t become better. She just became different.”

A Big Long Hug

The pressure at this time of year to become “better” is relentless. As an early adopter of the self-help and improvement mentality, I remember reading The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens before I was technically a teenager. I’m sure I’ve formulated some self-improvement ideas around New Year’s every year since.

But the feeling behind those schemes and my motivations changed a while ago. My efforts and goals became rooted in a “why not?” desire to challenge or take care of myself instead of the underlying discontent and concern that I wasn’t good enough or lovable. While I can’t pinpoint when it changed, I know earnest engagement in therapy and metaphorically giving the sad 11-year-old me seeking guidance in 7 Habits a big long hug played a role in the shift.

Freedom to Be Different

Dylan, of course, is a role model in giving yourself the freedom to be different than you once were. When I was first dating my husband, Jesh, a major Dylan fan, he told me about this one website that had the best guitar tabs to Dylan’s songs and his fear about that website one day disappearing. So, for a gift, I printed out every song and, in the process, got a deep tour of Dylan’s catalog.

Album by album, I printed some songs I knew and many I didn’t. I went through the folk days, Highway 61, Blonde on Blonde, and then what’s this? A born-again Christian phase? I’ve been there too, Bob! A disjointed 80s style? Same! Albeit briefly, but the 80s lingered into the 90s where I lived in Iowa.

One of three binders of Dylan chords.

Then I got to his new stuff, Modern Times and Together Through Life. That was a lot of what he’d play when seeing him live. Jesh has seen him nine times. Me five. Without fail, as if in a parody, people sitting next to us will be shocked and confused when he plays songs from his newer albums and will yell for him to play “Blowin’ in the Wind.” Sixty years later, and that’s still the same.

Dylan looming large in our living room and lives.

Reframes of Resolutions

A couple of people I know have had great reframes on changing and New Year’s resolutions.

• Nicole Cruz, a leadership coach and writer in the same writing group, encourages you to think about what you want to experience rather than achieve this year.

• Eric Webb
  , who writes the Substack,
  Turning Out
  , is instead focusing on a few mantras and letting music marinate it into his bones.

Revolve to Be Worse

And I’ve got one more for you, inspired by some of my favorite business thinkers, Frances Frei and Anne Morriss, and comedian Naomi Ekpergin, for the first time I have resolutions on what I want to get worse at.

I learned from Frances Frei and Anne Morriss that you don’t have a strategy until you know clearly what you’ll be excellent at and what you “dare to be bad at.”¹ Applying this to my life last year was honestly a breakthrough. I promise a future post on creating a strategy for my life and what that looks like for 2025.

In addition to deciding what you’ll be bad at, Naomi Ekpergin recently reminded me how helpful it is to generally lower the bar. She has a Post-it on her computer that says, “Shoot for mediocre.”² Even in the things that I want to get better at this year, mainly running and writing, success is often just showing up. It’s easy jogging and logging into the writing hour.

Reflecting on what specifically I should get worse at, I found inspiration in Seth Godin’s The Practice. Godin invites readers to check your email less, do fewer favors, and focus on creating what you can uniquely offer.³ The pull of checking email or running an errand have been go-to ways to procrastinate on writing my book. So, I’m resolving to be worse at email and less responsive to random requests.

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Separating Striving from Self-Worth

These are choices because I want to pursue excellence and get better at other things - I want to close 2025 as a faster runner and a better writer. I’ve talked to many people with similar do-gooder and achiever wiring, and there’s a conflict. They want to break free from the cultural conditioning of striving because they see the fingerprints of capitalism and culture they don’t really agree with in their self-improvement efforts. They also want to be successful, and they feel good when they do cool shit.

For me (for me, for me, for me, that refrain applies heavily here), I’m clear my self-worth has nothing to do with those things. I won’t love myself less if I end up slower or my writing sucks, and no one that loves me cares. It took me a while to realize that, thankfully, everyone I love just wants me to be happy.

No Shoulds Allowed

A birthday card I received from a friend this year summed this all up wonderfully.

He said, “Don’t ever change unless you want to.”

I give the same sentiment to you - you don’t need to change to be a worthy, lovable, and valuable human on this planet. But I’ve also learned and will assert that a good life is built on layers of change - personal growth and creating and making change with others. There are no “shoulds” to it, only if you want to.

What are you thinking at the start of this year? Anything you want to be better, worse, or simply different at? This Substack, Buds, is where I’ll share my experience and be here to support your growth and impact.

Until next time,

Veena

1. Frei, Frances, and Anne Morriss. Unleashed: The Unapologetic Leader's Guide to Empowering Everyone Around You. Boston: Harvard Business Review Press, 2020.

2. A recent Couple Therapy Podcast, but I couldn’t figure out which episode!

3. Godin, Seth. The Practice: Shipping Creative Work. New York: Portfolio/Penguin, 2020.