The Words Are Trapped
"Can you make the fear go away? Some people say they can; I'm not sure that it's true. I think that what we can do is dance with the fear ... Once you get into the cycle of shipping, you begin to associate the fear with producing work of value. And then that idea that you can use fear as a compass, that you can say why is this making me nervous — maybe this nervousness is pointing me where I need to go, not the other way around." - Seth Godin, The Tim Ferriss Show
I don't want to write right now.
It's been two and a half years since I was a full-time sports blogger, forced to post ~5 times a day. It was impossible at first. Eventually easy. I gave so many shits about what people would think. Then a few. Then almost none. I hoped friends would read 5% of my work. Didn't care about 45%. The other 50% was garbage.
I wasted two hours determining if I should write something today. Not even what I should say. Fuck. There's no pressure on you to read this. It took 15 seconds for you to read, 15 minutes for me to right. Why was this such a debate?
In two days I'm giving a talk where I'm challenging people to take an action towards something they've put off, for 30 days. I'm afraid of giving the talk. I haven't practiced yet.
This is my first post of 32 straight days, when I'll reevaluate. And probably be like, you lazy fuck, why hadn't you done this earlier? Then I hope I'll post 'til death.
Of course, I'll probably make up some stupid excuse, stop, and agonize again two and a half years later.
So you seem to be on track. That's good. It's hard. No, it's hard for some. Not for others. I've been trying to make a commitment to post every few days, which is hard for me. It's hard physically but I find it's the mental part of it that's harder. If I'm able to sit in front of a computer (or whatever the case) it's the process of trying to keep the string at the right tension to let something out, get it down, share it, but not let it start to run away and pull too much and lose control of it and get it tangled into somethings it looks like the cats been playing within under the house for 3 days. It's a juggling act. You're doing great so far, I think. Good luck for the next ....however many days until ...I really want to say death but it just sounds creepy and morbid, so I'll say, until stopping.
Thanks, Brooke :)
So far so good, but that's easy to say after four days, ha.
I think it's hard for everyone, save a few freaks. For me, the big difference has come when I'm forced to write. When I was a full-time blogger, writer's block didn't exist. The only cure to perfectionism is forced publishing. Day 1 it feels physically impossible. Day 300, 600, etc... it's not so difficult. It's a muscle. It gets stronger, slowly.
I say that because as soon as I quit, my perfectionism came back. I've had trouble publishing since then.
Hence committing to an audience, friends, and social media on publishing once a day for 30 days.
You're doing great, too. I kindly suggest challenging yourself with a forcing function of your own ... I'm happy to keep tabs, as much for my own accountability as yours :)
A blogging buddy system!!😬👏👏👏 I like it. I have two problems with my productivity. One is perfectionism. The other is chronic health issues-ism. I have some days I can't get out of bed or do anything and that's where I fall down a lot of the time. But I'm inspired by the potential for insentive and for connecting with people who are striving to put out decent content here and who are real...and ..not arsehats! I'm giving it a go though and I'll follow you and keep an eye on your output as well and give you a nudge if I think you've fallen asleep at the wheel. Onward!💪
Thanks! Please do. I wish I could help with the health thing, but all I can do is wish you the best and hope that the writing can help, at least mentally. And you can beat the perfectionism. Feel good!
Kindness always gets upvoted. And not being an arsehat since that's sort of becoming my signoff thing.