My reasoning for writing this blog post is spurred on by Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, that has a lot of terrific wisdom. In particular, morning pages – a practice I do almost every morning.
We learn to do something by doing it. There is no other way. – John Holt, Educator
I’m scared. Real fear. Who admits out loud they are fearful? Instead of naming it as fear, I use other terms to describe why I haven’t been able to follow through. I tell myself I’m lazy, a procrastinator or even worse a perfectionist. But all these things could actually be fears. Fear of failure. Fear of success. Fear of being great. If I’m going to go for it, I better do it right. The key is to figure out ways to overcome these fears.
So how do we do move past the fear? Julia Cameron offers a process for moving forward.
- List any resentments (anger) you have in connection with this project?
- Ask your artist to list any and all fears about the projected piece of work and/or anyone connected to it.
- Ask yourself if that is all. Have you left out any itsy fear?
- Ask yourself what you stand to gain by not doing this piece of work?
- Make your deal.
“Okay Creative Force, you take care of the quality, I’ll take care of the quantity.”
Now more than ever, I realize I need to focus more on quantity, and trust that the quality will improve as I go. The only way to get better is by learning and doing. Put stuff out there, then do it even better next time. So the only way to get better is really by starting.
I’ve had a project at work that I have needed to complete for months. I’ve been worried about the quality, what people would say, but have also been telling everyone I know that I’m working on this project. I’ve taken online courses, read articles and watched YouTube videos about producing a video. But I’ve procrastinated, thinking I have to produce something usable, publishable or even good. In reality all I need to do is just move forward with my project. But it feels safer to just learn and study about it instead of actually doing it.
Two days ago, I started. I told my artist, my creative child, to stop sulking, holding grudges, harboring irrational fears. I asked myself a few questions suggested in the book and my answers helped me remove some of the blocks standing between the artist and the work.
I said the quote out loud – “Okay Creative Force, you take care of the quality, I’ll take care of the quantity” and started to create. I gathered and uploaded all of the images and recorded videos to a work project board, rewatched an iMovie tutorial and once everything was in its place, mise en place, I started to edit my first video. I finished two videos for my manager to review before the holiday weekend.
Do the work. Don’t judge the work.
If you are stuck this will help! Let’s do this.
