Week One therealljidol - I Need the Struggle to Feel Alive
"I can do all of the things." That's what I tell myself every night before I go to bed, what I hear when I first wake up the next morning, and my cheer throughout the day while I try my hardest to get work done. Try and fail, but try all the same. Because I know if I don't try, I'll never do anything. When you're your own boss, it's easy to say "Forget working." When you work in a field where your money is generated through something you create, it's especially easy to say "Forget working."
To combat my lack of feeling like working, I set goals for myself. I liken it to having a deadline for an assignment. A self-imposed deadline, but one I need to stick to and treat as if it were life and death or else I'll never get anything done. Sounds easy, yeah? One would think I'd know myself well enough to set a goal I could achieve, and then use my non-work hours appropriately to do all of the things that help me relax. It should, in theory, result in the ultimate of productivity!
When I set goals for myself, they end up being goals like: WRITE TEN THOUSAND WORDS IN A DAY!
Which I can do. In fact, I have done it a few times. But it never ends up being as glorious as I want it to. Most of the time, I psych myself out, get a quarter of my goal, and spend the rest of the day lamenting my failure. Then I tell myself: I'll just do it tomorrow! Then I don't. For some reason, I never actually learn from my mistakes. If I shoot for a goal that is too easy, I put it off and don't even bother to try. If I shoot for something that's at least reasonable, I do the bare minimum and plan to over compensate for it later. I can come up with all kinds of excuses for why I don't want to work on my book for the day. There's a game I need to beat, there's a book that needs reading, there's laundry. There's always laundry.
See, getting the words themselves is easy enough to do when I'm feeling connected with my work. I love the story, I'm excited to get it moving forward, and the words pour out of me until I'm empty. When I'm empty, that's when there are problems. That's when all of the words are stuck in the mud, I hate them all because they come out ugly and clunky, and I start looking for reasons to "call in sick" for the day. Since I'm my own boss, it's easy to give myself a pass with little consequences.
Then I am reminded of my dream, give myself a pep talk, and attempt to do it all again.
It's a vicious cycle. A horrible, vicious cycle, that eventually results in a book. Possibly a good book, but it could also be a bad one too. It'll be finished, though, and that's what matters. A finished book, I can work with.
Being an author, or any professional artist, is quite possibly the most illogical job on the planet. So much of it relies on inspiration and gut instinct, and so much of the work results in self-loathing. Finishing, though, oh finishing is one of the most beautiful highs a person can experience. I'm definitely addicted.
To combat my lack of feeling like working, I set goals for myself. I liken it to having a deadline for an assignment. A self-imposed deadline, but one I need to stick to and treat as if it were life and death or else I'll never get anything done. Sounds easy, yeah? One would think I'd know myself well enough to set a goal I could achieve, and then use my non-work hours appropriately to do all of the things that help me relax. It should, in theory, result in the ultimate of productivity!
When I set goals for myself, they end up being goals like: WRITE TEN THOUSAND WORDS IN A DAY!
Which I can do. In fact, I have done it a few times. But it never ends up being as glorious as I want it to. Most of the time, I psych myself out, get a quarter of my goal, and spend the rest of the day lamenting my failure. Then I tell myself: I'll just do it tomorrow! Then I don't. For some reason, I never actually learn from my mistakes. If I shoot for a goal that is too easy, I put it off and don't even bother to try. If I shoot for something that's at least reasonable, I do the bare minimum and plan to over compensate for it later. I can come up with all kinds of excuses for why I don't want to work on my book for the day. There's a game I need to beat, there's a book that needs reading, there's laundry. There's always laundry.
See, getting the words themselves is easy enough to do when I'm feeling connected with my work. I love the story, I'm excited to get it moving forward, and the words pour out of me until I'm empty. When I'm empty, that's when there are problems. That's when all of the words are stuck in the mud, I hate them all because they come out ugly and clunky, and I start looking for reasons to "call in sick" for the day. Since I'm my own boss, it's easy to give myself a pass with little consequences.
Then I am reminded of my dream, give myself a pep talk, and attempt to do it all again.
It's a vicious cycle. A horrible, vicious cycle, that eventually results in a book. Possibly a good book, but it could also be a bad one too. It'll be finished, though, and that's what matters. A finished book, I can work with.
Being an author, or any professional artist, is quite possibly the most illogical job on the planet. So much of it relies on inspiration and gut instinct, and so much of the work results in self-loathing. Finishing, though, oh finishing is one of the most beautiful highs a person can experience. I'm definitely addicted.