How to Keep Working, Even When You Don’t Want To
Hello dear readers. Today's post will be short and sweet - hopefully, it'll provide some utility.
I've been working on my app, Fitness Frenzy, and I love it. It's my baby, and I’m a proud parent. However, I also resent it at times - it causes a lot of gray hairs. Some days even thinking about working on it gives me anxiety. So what's the deal? Why is my passion project sometimes so hard to continue? Well, I'm not actually sure of the cause, maybe self doubt? In any case, that doesn't matter so much as that this phenomenon is COMMON. Every artist (in his or her own right), I'll wager, has felt this in some way. So how do we fix this? Like most worthwhile treatments, the answer is simple but can sometimes be insurmountably hard to do.
JUST START WORKING, EVERY WORK DAY, FOR SOME AMOUNT OF TIME.
There, post done.
Just kidding, kind of... That is the solution, but it does not make the act any easier. By no means do I follow that advice 100% of the time (or even 80%). When I fall into these funks, I'll do a couple of things.
Remember that ANY amount of work will progress you forward. You don't always have to be making leaps and bounds. Actually, expecting too much out of yourself all of the time probably exacerbates the problem. Be kind to yourself and try to get SOMETHING done; tomorrow will be a better day.
Newtons First Law of motion. Objects at rest will tend to stay at rest. When you face dreaded work, you are at rest. Energy needs to be added to the system for anything (you) to start moving. So stop thinking about why it's hard to work; just take action. Here is the fun part; objects in motion will tend to stay in motion. So once you put in that painful amount of activation energy, you may find it is easy, and dare I say, fun to continue working!
Find resources and/or communities to help. The field guide to this problem is called 'The War of Art' by Steven Pressfield. If you have not read this (or listened to it in my case), stop everything and do that. If you get ANYTHING out of this post, it should be to read that book. The second part of this solution is finding similar communities that face similar problems. There is strength in numbers. For me, with my app, I love watching and listening to indie video game developers - their struggles are very close to my own. I like to take a look at how they deal with these issues. Seeing that I'm not alone in this pursuit fills me with DETERMINATION.
So there you have it, some unsolicited thoughts and recommendations on how to beat working dread. Remember, you started whatever project you did for a reason. Keep going until the very end; you'll be glad you did.
Cheers,
Ya Boi,
Christian
