When I was a kid, I worked hard to play hard. It was a byproduct of being homeschooled. I learned that I could complete all my work in three or four hours and be free to do as I pleased the rest of the day, which sometimes meant bike rides, extra trips to the library, or a continuation of whatever story I was directing on the set of my bedroom floor.
Work Life
Be Still
I know the importance of being still, but I’m no good at it. I try to be, but it’s a struggle. I’m followed by various tracks of questions put on repeat: “What do I do next? What should I be doing? Am I doing the right thing? How do I know if I’m doing the right thing? If I’m not doing the right thing, what should I be doing? What should I be pursuing? What about that person? Did I offend that person? Why is he or she being quiet? What should I do?” The questions aren’t easy ones to answer – they often are impossible to answer – yet the perfectionistic, impatient person I am wants answers right now. The more I think about how I don’t have the answers, the more frustrated and worried I become. I turn into the polar opposite of stillness. I’m on edge, jittery, cranky.
Choose Rest
Some days, you need to rest. You have to call a time out. You don’t write. You don’t read. You don’t draw. You don’t listen to music unless music is something that helps you rest. You don’t watch movies. You’re quiet. You crawl beneath the covers or a blanket and sleep. You need to feel human again. You need to feel like yourself again, and the only way you know to do that is to take a break from everything and give yourself the rest you desperately need.
How to Handle Fear: Jump into the Deep End
The usual saying when it comes to fear is to fight or flee it. A third option is available: jump deep into the thing that produces the fear. The option isn’t about fighting; it’s about recognizing that the fearful thing may be the one thing that one needs or wants to do.
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When You’re Exhausted
Some days – sometimes many days or weeks or months – you are going to awaken, and you’ll be more tired than or just as tired as when you went to bed. Everything in you argues with the alarm. You wonder how it’s 5:30 a.m. already. You wonder why you set the alarm for such an early hour, then remember you are trying to create a space in which you can do your work. Even so, you struggle not to throw the alarm against the wall. You argue with the voice that says to turn off the alarm and to pull the covers over your head.
View Everything as an Experiment
I’m sometimes asked how I deal with failure or how I keep moving forward when I struggle with perfectionism. One of the tricks is to keep a forward mindset as well as an other-minded one. The other, to borrow a phrase from Paul Jarvis, is to “view everything as an experiment.”