just show up
stop postponing the act
I’ve noticed this subtle, sneaky, nearly undetectable pattern in myself where I’ll have an idea, and I’ll then say to myself: oh, that’s a great idea. I want to let it sit. I will write about it soon. And then another idea pops up, before I get the chance to write about that first idea. But this next idea is so compelling! And I want to write about it, too. Oh, it’s going to be so good, so perfect, I think to myself. I need to carve out GOOD QUALITY WRITING TIME to fully honour this oh-so-precious idea. But—shock of all shocks—this magical idea-expression-and-perfection writing time does not appear. I know! We are all sooo surprised to hear this. Then, when I feel sufficiently clogged up with ideas like this, I notice that my motivation to write starts to decline, because the idea bar to that needs to be cleared to trump all of these previous ideas that I have thought about writing, but haven’t actually written, becomes unreasonably high. And so I stall. And then I feel uninspired, because I am maintaining these sort of ideologically open loops, lightly nursing them without actually bringing them to life, which then pulls my energy away from being able to fully focus on new ideas as they emerge. It is quite the self-defeating loop, that ultimately produces nothing at all.
I don’t yet have a good term for this. It’s probably something close to ‘open-loop-creativity-drain’, but I’ll work on a more catchy label. The gist of this ‘syndrome’ (that I am quite guilty of) is that you essentially indulge yourself more in ideas than action, letting the dopamine hit come from conceiving of the idea itself—instead of actually creating it—and then you feel stuck when you don’t see your ideas coming to life, further denting your ‘execution-oriented’ confidence, ultimately keeping you from sharing what feels most alive for you (because you don’t have the energy / momentum / confidence / SENSE OF LIGHTNESS to casually create—and casual creation is actually what produces great ideas, from what I have seen).
The ‘antidote’ to this, of course, is simply to take action. Just take action on something. Even if it is not the most sparkly, shiny, perfect idea… Just start. Just make something.
I feel like I always write something of this nature when I feel stuck. Right now, I know that I have SO much I would like to write about. I want to write about creativity, and people-pleasing, and the importance of disagreeableness, and truth-seeking, and the falling birth rate, and how to re-invigorate a generation of people disenchanted from the idea of creating families to MAKE BEAUTIFUL THINGS (hopefully all to come soon…), but as I sat down here and felt the tug of a few ideas I haven’t given enough time and space to, I felt called to write (and share) this instead. I intend to get to these other ideas still. Whether that intention will come to fruition or not is less important to me than writing this, though. Because this is the act of naming the block I am seeing, of calling out the pattern I know will keep me stuck if I don’t act in opposition to what it feels me to do. And I would like to get un-stuck. And so here we are.
They say that sunlight is the best disinfectant. I tend to agree: if you notice you are avoiding something, name it. Do something of this sort—of what I am doing by writing this; look at it squarely, examine the behaviour or resistance, and act in direct opposition to what you feel hesitant to do.
At this particular moment, I notice that I feel hesitant to publish something that doesn’t feel like one of my gRaNd IdEaS. And so I am doing exactly that: writing something that does not feel especially profound or striking or insightful or even necessarily that helpful to you. But it is what I need to do to get through this little action block—or hiccup, shall we say—that seems to have appeared, keeping me from sharing those ideas that feel much more important to write about. So I hope this will do for now. I’ll be back very soon with something much more juicy and interesting for you to chew on :)
Until then, hasta luego! (signing off from a café in Mexico City).
links to learn more about my work:
1-1 Clarity Coaching: figure out what you truly want out of life and start taking action towards it.
Creative Liberation: unblock yourself, act on your ideas, and share your gifts and creativity with the world. My virtual course that takes you from avoidance to expression.
Men to Kings: 1-1 coaching for men based on the four key masculine archetypes: King, Warrior, Magician, Lover, to cultivate balance, alignment and direction in your life. You can also get my free archetype guide here.
related essays you might enjoy: make more, care less, unblock your mind, don’t let your ideas rot
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How did this land with you? Is there something you are avoiding you want to name and move through right now?
As a writer and procrastinator, this hit home.