Today is one of those days.
I usually have a whole list of posts ideas in Evernote and some short paragraphs as drafts in WordPress.
I opened every single one of them and nothing. It just didn’t click, the juices weren’t flowing, I can usually read the first few lines and right away my mind goes into ‘post mode.’
Lisa Gerber once wrote how she overcomes these creative blocks and ended wondering if
are we all pulling it off? Can anyone be certain about about things?
I think we are all all pulling it off and certainty is an illusion. The faster we realize that the perfect career path, or the best business plan only exist in our imagination, the faster we can settle down and face reality.
Reality is change and how we handle this change means we either end up with progress or failure.
Welcome to uncertainty
I can’t emphasize how much uncertainty and the illusion of stability and security are essential in our lives. My years working outdoors with my coaching business taught me that someone who can here one minute can easily be gone the next.
By the same token, just when I thought I would be growing one business in 2003, six years later I ended up selling one and moving to the South of France.
We all have a different tolerance level for risk and what seems risky to me might be absolutely normal to you.
Accepting the risks, the challenges and refusing to give in to the lizard brain is all that matters.
Recovering addict
When faced with the face of uncertainty brought upon by the lack of inspiration I easily find distractions. In the space of a few minutes I will go from ‘to-do list destroyer’ to procrastination king.
Procrastination is the lizard’s brain favorite activity, we entertain our mind with useless stuff, browsing blogs, cruising social media and don’t really accomplish anything.
Just like an addict who chooses drugs, or alcohol, procrastination is just another way to avoid reality.
Looking for shortcuts
The next step often involves searching for the easy way out. Get the results without doing the work. In this case I scrolled through my old posts and searched for something I could possibly recycle with a new angle, a different voice.
Then I got angry with myself, I set my standards higher and took action with several points.
The points are:
- Start working, one of my heros, Picasso is right, inspiration finds you working
- Look back at how I overcame the monster last time it reared it’s ugly head.
- Identify which environments, people or project seem to create these blocks
- Share my journey, what I learned and how I executed it.
How do you do it when you are stuck with a project?
Hi I'm a coach who believes life is an adventure, and entrepreneurs need to cultivate an adventure mindset to succeed.
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My solution is pretty boring to be honest.
I have my to-do list for the day, when it is finished my day is done. That list is prioritized so when I take up the next task on the list, I have no choice. I need to complete it or else I will be staring at my screen all day.
Daniel, that’s not boring this shows dedication and immense self discipline.
I still owe you a call
That’s one of my favorite quotations ever.
I’ve been seriously stuck in projects. My recipe is just to keep working and wait for inspiration to come back.
I wrote a post about it not so long ago. I also included this quote: “One of the things I learned the hard way was that it doesn’t pay to get discouraged. Keeping busy and making optimism a way of life can restore your faith on yourself” Lucille Ball
Cristina,
It doesn’t pay to get discouraged — very well said, yet we all go through own downs.
You simply have the best approach, keep working and inspiration WILL come back. We can’t wait for inspiration to come to start the work
Tough call, John. It seems like I feel stuck before I actually get stuck. The struggle with procrastination usually begins a week or so before deadline.
For example, you know my Distillery project. I’ve only got one new interview on deck. I’ve managed a new interview every week for two solid months. I’ve only got one more on-deck and the responses seem to be taking forever. I want to keep up the momentum, but what do I do when/if Monday rolls around and there’s no new Distillery post?
Inspiration, indeed, finds us working. We gotta lock it up, hunker down, and make something happen.
I think you should look at why you want to run the Distillery project? How important is it to DR1665?
Can your blog continue without it?
Good questions, John. Why do I want to pursue Distillery…? Hmmm…
1. It shows the people who’ve inspired me how much I truly appreciate them and their efforts.
2. It stands to help others.
3. I’m learning a lot in the process.
In a way, it’s reflective of my raison d’etre – true success means helping others succeed (by helping others succeed) – but how does that relate to the goals of my personal blog?
Not entirely sure. I don’t really have any goals for it, beyond a home base where I share thoughts and ideas.
I know. I need to come up with goals here, too. lulz