A rant on dealing with procrastination in creativity.

So we just feel stuck. That's the crazy part, is we put a word to it, and it's procrastination. And it feels like we're putting it off, but it's not even that feeling. Like we feel stuck, right? And we can sit down to do the work, but we're just stuck. Like, there is nothing else to call it. Sometimes it just feels like somebody's holding onto us. This can come when we're creating. It can come when we're working on our business. I mean, it doesn't matter. But that's the crazy thing, is it actually does matter. It's the things that matter the most to us that make us procrastinate. And why is that? Honestly, I have no clue. And I'm not even going to try to answer that question. I'm sure somebody way smarter than me has already put that out there into the Internet ethos. But I am going to talk about what I'm doing to combat procrastination. I haven't beaten it yet. I don't know that I ever fully will. But I'm gonna talk about some things that I'm. That I'm doing, especially in terms of my creativity and dealing with the business side of stuff. I often get this, like, cyclical thing in my head where I'm like, well, you know, I know I need to do this thing. I just don't know where to start. Like, hand in there if you feel me. Like, I don't know if you feel this, but it's like when I say I don't know where to start, it's really just me saying, I'm afraid that this isn't going to work if I start this way. I'm afraid that this isn't going to work if I don't do it absolutely correctly. I'm afraid that this isn't going to play out the way that I hope that it'll play out. Right? We're looking for the return on the thing that we're doing. And this is so normal, right? My own personal clients deal with this all the time. I was in one of my favorite client meetings this week, and we were talking about this very thing. Like, she's coming up against some really heavy walls in life. And granted, they're usually backed by something very real. There's very real feelings that creep up. There's very real stories that come into play with these things. It may involve that you've tried something like this before and it failed, right? Or it may involve, like, a voice in your head. Or somebody in your head saying, are you really sure this is a good idea? Right? Or it may involve something you saw online that said, like, well, if you don't do this, then you're not going to get the best ROI for this thing. And, you know, you really got to click 16 things before you get like the 3.2% return. Return from the. Whatever it is. It's just all. It all swirls up in there. So the biggest thing that I believe we have to remind ourselves of is that the task is not the issue. The task that we start with is not the problem. We can start with any task and just get started. The thing that is the problem is this. It's the mind, it's the thought process. It's all those intangibles that we don't really take the time to look at. And we spend all the time in the what ifs instead of in the moment. We spend all of our time on the end result and not on the process. And so this is the big work. The outcome is the only thing that we don't have control over. Therefore, it's the only thing that we can question. If we are just going and marrying ourselves to the process itself and trusting it and trusting ourselves, we can't question that, right? We can refine a process. We can refine and build upon our process and our systems and the things that we do. We cannot refine an outcome. An outcome is out of our control. There are too many variables. There are too many variables on the other side of anything that we're trying to do. And another feeling that we get all the time is like, well, I feel like I'm behind. And what happens when we feel like we're behind? Well, if you're like me, then you shut it off. Like, I put up a wall. I go, I want to get out. I want to stay away from everybody. I want to be in my own zone. And I just don't want to talk to anybody because I feel like I too much to do. Here's the deal. If you're doing any work, right, that you have an expectation set to, then you are already behind. From the moment that the inception of this thing exists, you are forever behind. From that point on until it is completely finished, you are behind. And even in those moments, you know this as a creative. When you feel like it's done, it's even then never really done. It just kind of like you just kind of had to let it go, right? You had to just be like, all right, well, there it is.

Go. It's like pushing the little chicken out. You know, you're like, I hope you don't die. So we need to remember these things in these moments of procrastination or really just moments of fear. These moments of like real tangible fear of what could happen. So currently I'm just on the back end of releasing my creative business basics course. And so for the first time ever, I am investing into some Facebook ads. But I'm not doing them on my own. I'm hiring somebody to do it. My word for this year is support. I need support from people that I can trust. And so this is a big investment for me. It's really scary for me because I've never done anything like this before. And toward the end of 2020, I got really comfortable here doing this kind of stuff where I was just kind of ranting and riffing on things and talking about what I'm passionate about. And then at the end of the year, I was like, okay, you know, 2021, I'm going to make a big investment in my business and see what happens. I'm just going to go after it. And the moment I did that, what changed for me? Well, it was no longer about the process of just showing up. It was like, well, if I don't show up right then these Facebook ads are gonna crash and I'm gonna lose thousands of dollars and I'm gonna like, just bail. The whole thing is gonna fall into like under and I'm gonna like, the world will collapse and I will die like a horrible death underneath the pile of Internet rubble that is YouTube. I don't know, whatever. But everything shifted. And so then when I went to make a video.

I couldn't do it. I sat here just like this and I thought, well, how am I going to do this to make it right? Where do I start so I can make it right? And then what I had to do, and I hope that you'll hear not the outcome as much as just the thought process that I was going through. What I had to do was stop myself and say the thing that made me the most money in the fourth quarter of last year was me showing up and being me, like fully me, right? Unapologetically, like just doing what I thought I needed to do. Did I get the most views? No, not even close. Right? This channel is small, but I got the best comments, the sweetest responses, the like, nicest emails. I got some high level clients. I got like, started a mastermind. I launched this course. I did the most that I had ever done when I started to show up unapologetically me. But the moment that there was money on, on the line and I needed a return on my investment, right? Whether you're making art or you're doing whatever, you're like, where's this going to work in my social media platform? What's this going to do on TikTok? How's this going to perform? As soon as you had that mindset, what changed for you? And that's what happened to me is I stopped and I said, well, how can I do this, right? All we can control is, is the process. Then we can look at the outcome, refine the process, look at the outcome, refine the process, rinse and repeat, right? So I had to come back to YouTube in this way and say, well, how am I showing up for these videos? And it's taken me a couple weeks to, like, start to figure it out again. Even in this video, you're noticing, like, I'm editing it because I've thought about it so much, like, how do I say the right thing? How do I make sure that it's all correct? If we're showing up for our people, correct is only us being us. So in your practical, everyday, like, thing, you know, what's something you might be able to practice to do this? I do a lot of.

You know, quick, just like, if I sense myself getting anxious, I stop myself and I try to figure out where that's coming from, you know, what's that tied to? And then I will ask myself, like, what is this costing me right now? If I go down this rabbit hole where thought is trying to take me, what is this going to cost me? So even like this video right now, I almost didn't make it for that exact same reason that we're talking about. I got so wrapped up into this, like, fear. And so I asked myself, like, what is this going to cost me if I don't get it done? And the big things that this was going to cost me, number one, is, you know, a, I'm just not going to finish a task that's on my list. B, it's not helping me help other people. It's costing me an opportunity to serve somebody. It's costing me personally a sense of confidence. It's costing me a sense of, like, just purpose in general, right? When I let this fear take over from me, it's literally stripping away my purpose. It's costing me my purpose. And so when I pull that away and I say, okay, that's not worth like, not doing this thing, then something starts to shift. So that's one way that I do this. Another thing I do is every morning, I do from the artist's way. I do morning pages. So I'll journal for three pages. Takes me about 25 minutes to do it. And I just. Anything that I'm, like, having a lot of fear around, I will just, like, word vomit on the page. There is no restriction to it. I just go. And I don't stop writing for the entire time until the three pages are done. And then when I get to this place of sometimes being really worked up, I'll purposefully write down a bunch of stuff that I'm grateful for that I have right now. Because often I realize that.

What I'm looking at, this future thing that I'm concerned about, doesn't really matter.

What matters is the process. It's the thing in the moment. That's what brings me joy. That's what serves my purpose. Whether or not more than 10 people watch this video doesn't detract my purpose from me. That doesn't strip that away. If one person saw this, and I know that's so cliche it feels dumb to even say it, but if one person saw this and it helped them, then I've done my purpose. We get so wrapped up in Big because we see big so much. Big is such a beautiful story, right? Small is not sexy, but we need to be talking about that more. Why are we so afraid to serve a small audience, right? So I'll think about that stuff, and I'll immediately go into gratitudes and write down a bunch of stuff that I'm grateful for. My kids, my wife, the fact that I get to live in an apartment that I really love. The fact that I get to have a YouTube channel, that every day I get to meet new people, that I have clients, that my business is growing, albeit slowly sometimes, right? That I am lucky enough to, like, have things like a coach and food. And, you know, when we think about things in that way, it really can be a shift. And it's like, I don't need the other stuff. Doesn't mean I shouldn't work for it, but I don't need it. You know.

Not hitting the bullseye is not the problem. The problem is just not taking a fricking swing, you know? And if none of that, like, seems to resonate with you, then just come back to, why are you doing this? Why are you making this stuff? Why are you wanting to do this thing, right? And if all you can think of is like, I want to do this to get more followers. I'm going to just be straight up. Like that's not enough. You're going to keep running into.

This block because your need to have more followers will probably never outweigh the lure of just not taking the first step because you'll never know exactly how to get there. There is no one path or direction. But if your path is toward serving somebody, toward, you know, figuring out like this, this deeper why, then you have somewhere to go. Then the process starts to make sense. And if all of your processes are aligning with that, why you can't go wrong. No matter the outcome, you cannot go wrong. Listen, I don't have this perfect in the least. I am so far from it. I'm so far from it and I am working on this every day. But I just want to talk to you guys for a while about this because this is real and I hear too many creatives struggling with this and I just wanted to bring it up and have some real discussions about like this is the hard work. Hey, if you like these longer form videos and you know, you want to talk about honestly like building a fan base, like building a real devoted fan base, if that is something you're looking for by being more, you go check this video out. It's a long form live stream where we talk about that very thing. And I think you'll get a lot from this. If you're ready to start growing a small and simple business. Creativebusinessbasics.com I have a course there that I think would be really powerful, really great for you. Money back guarantee, super affordable. All right, sending you guys love and I'll see you in the next one.