Stop procrastinating, start gaining momentum: 3 truths to help you get started and keep going.
What brings you to this blog?
Maybe you’re a confused college student who’s interested in making a career out of art but you’re terrified of making the wrong choice.
Maybe you’ve graduated and you’re working the 9 to 5. You want to do your own awesome projects on the side but you’re just so tired after a full day of work.
Maybe you’re just getting started, trying your hardest to learn art. You’re feeling frustrated with your lack of progress and you’re not as consistent in your practice as you know you need to be.
Maybe you’ve got ideas you’re excited about, but you feel you’re not good enough to do them justice.
Before anything else I’ll say this:
It’s good that you’re trying to figure this out now. I’m glad you’re here.
I’m no stranger to these frustrations and with any luck you’ll find my materials helpful.
The Skill of Sticking To What You Start
Sticking to things you start is a skill, and like any skill, it can be practiced and you can get better at it.
It’s also one of the most useful skills you can learn. Success comes only to those who stay with something and nurture it consistently until they see results.
Not sticking to what you start is like planting a seed in the desert and then never coming back to water it. Sure, there’s a small chance it will just instantly catch on and start growing like crazy on its own, but chances are it’s long dead before it even had a shadow of a chance.
We all know people who haven’t yet mastered this skill. Their lives are chaotic. They do things like dump a ton of money and effort into their own business and then scrap it all and jump ship less than a year later, for whatever reason. It’s tough to live this way, but fortunately it is possible to practice and learn to stick to the things you start.
My goal is to increase your confidence that you can commit to the things you care about and follow through until you start to see progress.
I used to have the same problem. Fortunately, my situation was never so bad that I lost a ton of money or ended up destroying my livelihood. I did waste a lot of time that could have been spent bettering myself and making cool stuff though.
I’ve spent the last few years teaching myself the skill of sticking with it, and it’s changed my life. I’ll share with you 3 of my biggest insights to get you started.
1. “Follow your passion” is bad advice…
…at least in the way it’s often interpreted. The implication is often that you need to be madly in love with what you’re doing and always feel passionate for it to be worthwhile.
“If you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life.” I call BS on this one. Start anything with this mentality and it will be easy to give up. You may mistakenly decide it’s not your passion just because it’s kinda hard.
That’s simply not a helpful mindset. Building a reality out of your dreams is freaking hard work, and it is still going to feel like work a lot of the time no matter how much you love it. The best, most fulfilling things in life are the ones that take a lot of work.
Expect that. Embrace the challenge. It will refine you as a person and as an artist.
2. We don’t need no stinkin’ motivation
Motivation and passion go hand in hand. They’re both pretty fickle and come and go as they please. A lot of people spend more time chasing after motivation to get things done than they spend actually doing the work.
It’s like a dog chasing its tail… only less funny.
Don’t fall into this trap, fruitlessly attempting to control how motivated you are. Treat your creative work as you would a high dive. You may not feel like it beforehand when you’re looking over the edge, but after you’ve taken that leap off you might just get hooked.If you stand there and analyze the situation you likely won’t make the plunge. Just jump in before you have time to think about it too hard.
Motivation tends to find me after I’ve already showed up to do the work. I may not feel motivated to work, but I sit down to do it anyway just as a matter of routine. While I’m already working, motivation often shows up and I end up really digging in and losing track of time. This very rarely happens for me without first showing up to do the work (whether I feel like doing it or not.)
3. Fear is the reason you’re struggling.
No, it’s not that you’re lazy. It’s not that you don’t have good ideas, or that something’s terribly wrong with you.
You’re not defective.
You’re just afraid to take meaningful action because fear naturally paralyzes. You may be afraid of failure, judgement, change, inadequacy, or disappointment. Whatever it is you fear most, if you can address these fears and adopt a new mindset, you’ll start to make more progress.
This is done by identifying unhelpful mindsets, detecting them as they pop into your head, and gently redirecting them to more constructive thoughts.
What This Blog is For
My goal is to help you embrace the hard work of creativity, find motivation through habit, and transform your mindset so that your creative nature can break free.
If we can make that happen, Your creativity will start to morph your life into something incredible.
So stick around and let’s get it going. Let’s climb mountains.
Check out my new FREE 5-day workshop if you’re ready to take a big step in the right direction.
