Escape From Maybe Land
Postponing “The Work” that your soul craves doing is a mortal sin.
Postponing “The Work” that your soul craves doing is a mortal sin.
“Some day I’ll write that book, but my life’s just too busy now.” said many people, year after year, who never wrote that book before they died.
Or sculpt that statue. Or write that poetry. Or make that painting. Or start that jewelry business. Or sow that dress. Or forge that blade.
You get the picture. Right?
We get bogged down with all kinds of excuses for not doing the thing we—deep down—feel we should be doing. I’m not immune to that, far from it. I’ve gone from moments of being prolific to months of doing nothing. I tell myself, “I can miss one day, ah a few days is fine as well” and then, “Shit! 3 months have passed!?”
Now I’m doing a much better job at staying consistent—or starting even—than I was ten years ago. But I could’ve just as well stayed stuck in saying “I’ll start that newsletter when the kids are a little older.”
To use a little strong wording (but I don’t think so): postponing “The Work” that your soul craves doing is a mortal sin.
And I mean that.
”I’m just too busy”
Is it because we’re so busy? I mean life can be very stressful at certain moments, when you or a loved one is in danger or when you just became a parent, for example. But I’m not talking about those moments. I’m talking about the everyday life that sometimes feels a bit too busy, which we all have to deal with. Is that too busy to do The Work?
Fun side note: when I was childless, I always thought I was so busy. Then I became a parent and really understood how busy one can be, and then as a parent of two kids, even busier! And still, I create more now than when I was a single and childless university student. Oh, how I sometimes long back to having this knowledge as a procrastinating adolescent!
I can’t look into your life or calendar, but a lack of time is rarely the real issue. I mean, yeah, there’s a difference in output between being able to work on your craft for one hour vs twenty hours each week. But the problem is we tell ourselves it’s OK not to do that one hour because we don’t have those twenty hours.
This is truly false, and the misunderstanding can cost you your creative life.
Many would-be-creative people (as Eric Maisel calls them) have a low-grade depression where they don’t know where it comes from. It’s not rare that it comes from refusing the call to create.
If you’d create a little each day, maybe even just for 15 minutes, you can at least be proud of yourself for doing so. Not necessarily for the outcome of your creation, but for doing The Work. (If you have trouble fitting your (would-be-)creative practice in your life, then read this post I wrote about creating your “atomic unit of production.”)
Another big pro of doing The Work daily is that you can pick it up easily between things (instead of picking up your phone to scroll Pinterest or Twitter) because you don’t need an hour to get into the work again. It’s in your head already. You know where to pick up when you think of, for example, that new character in chapter 3 of your book draft.
Fear and Doing The Work
I haven’t yet tackled the main reason why people postpone their Work, which is fear. Fear (of failure) probably needs a whole post—or a slew of posts even—to lay out.
But in short: the fear—of failure, of judgment, of rejection, and of success even—is something nearly all creative people have. (I’d even say the more fearful you are about your creative work, the bigger the potential of creativity because you (subconsciously) feel how different your ideas are, and thus the higher chance of rejection by the group/tribe.)
Every time you set out to create something, you have to battle that fear, that resistance. But every time you battle it, and win, i.e., you create something, that fear becomes a little more silent and subdued. And then, if you keep your streak of creating going, it’s a little easier to overcome the fear each time.
Though if you stop creating for a few weeks, the fear can return as strong as it was in the beginning. This overcoming of fear is one of the main reasons for being consistent (other than eventually having a bigger body of work or getting better at your craft). Your spouse, friends, or parents, who possibly don’t have the urge to create, might not understand though, so it’s on you to carve out time to create that consistency.
One way to carve out that time for yourself is to build a morning practice. (Maybe you have one already, for working out or meditating or something else, but this is specifically for “Doing The Work.”)
Starting your day with your craft will help you feel proud of yourself. It will fill your day with lightness and energy. And if you keep it up, you’ll create a body of work you didn’t think possible!
In short
Ok, to summarize: nearly all creatives fear doing The Work, but doing a little is better than doing nothing, and doing even a little helps to “save your creative soul.”
I hope you enjoyed this! Do you have any stories about the fear of creating or want to share how you stay consistent with your craft? Please leave me a comment!
Oh, and again, if you’re gonna test out my self-assessment for creatives, let me know what you think of it.
Sincerely,
Jibran