I LOVED My Creative Work! So Why Did I Avoid It for So Long?
Procrastination, Curiosity, and the Questions Worth Asking Before You Yell at Yourself
Soooooo, I’ve created some really rad projects over the years. I’ve also been part of bringing a whole lot of other people’s creations into the world. Something I’ve found myself doing throughout all of that is... avoiding the crap out of what I love! Sometimes! Not all the time. haha But sometimes I just cannot get myself to do the thing.
Let me tell you, I’ve spiraled about it. I’ve beat myself up over not being disciplined enough. I’ve made schedules and deadlines and told myself I just needed to focus and then before I know it, I’m spending more time feeling bad about not doing the thing than I am doing the thing I supposedly love doing. Can anyone else relate to that?
*I’m assuming you’re raising your hand from the other side of your screen.
Okay, great! I’m not alone! haha
It took me a while to realize that when I was doing this, I was jumping to a conclusion really fast. I was procrastinating, yes. No denying that. But! I was taking that behavior and immediately turning it into a diagnosis about myself: I’m not disciplined enough. I need to focus. I need to stop avoiding it and just do the damn thing. And hey, sometimes maybe I did need to do the damn thing. But other times? There was a lot more going on.
Somewhere along the way I traded in my self-judgment hat for a curiosity hat. Mine has a magnifying glass sticking out the side Inspector Gadget style, obviously, because if I’m going to wear an imaginary curiosity hat I’m going all in. Instead of starting with What is wrong with me?, I started asking, “What’s going on here?”
I got curious about HOW I was creating.
I started looking at the structure I had created around whatever I was working on because maybe THAT was draining me. Maybe I had decided I needed to work on something at the same time every day or have one day a week where I worked on it and knowing that time was coming started to feel heavy. Most of the time that structure worked for me for a while! But I found myself trying to stick to it because I thought that was how I was supposed to create.
There are so many things like this that we just kind of accept as part of creating. Be consistent. Have a routine. Create every day. Set deadlines. Use this tool. Be on this platform. And I'm like, “DO I REALLY NEED TO THOUGH?”
Let's say I love writing, but staring at a computer screen drains the shit out of me. Why am I assuming I need to write that way? Maybe I could write by hand for hours. Maybe I want a typewriter. Maybe I want to go for a walk and talk through all my ideas first. The computer is just the way most of us write now, so it can be really easy to assume that's part of writing. It's not. It's a computer. haha
Deadlines have been another one for me. I can decide I want something done by Friday and then life happens. I get sick. Someone I love needs me. Something takes three times longer than I thought it would. Meanwhile NO ONE ELSE KNOWS ABOUT THIS DEADLINE. I made it up! So why am I now putting all this pressure on myself because I'm not going to hit it?
I'm a human having a human experience and life happens. I can move the deadline. I can change the structure. I can find another way to do the thing. When I started letting myself question all of that, I found that sometimes I still really wanted to create, I just didn't want to keep creating under the conditions I had put around it.
I got curious about whether the creation was still mine.
This one can sting a little, not gonna lie. I've had a LOT of interests and passions over the years. My neurospicy brain can get very excited about something, pour myself into it, learn a ridiculous amount about it, and then at some point there's something shiny over there now. haha
So I started going all the way back to the beginning. Why did I want to do this in the first place? Was there a moment where I was like, OOOOO I want to try THAT!? Or was I good at something and people noticed and praised me for it, so I kept doing it? Maybe I went to school for it or spent years getting better at it or maybe at some point I built a whole project or career around it.
And then I had to be willing to ask myself if I still wanted it, because I can spend five years doing something and decide I want something different now. I can also spend five years doing something and realize I may have been carrying an idea of who I was supposed to be that started with somebody else a really long time ago.
Neither one means those five years were a waste. I learned things. I had experiences. I got really fucking good at something! All of that gets to come with me into whatever I do next. Maybe I'm committed enough to myself and love myself enough to pivot when I want to.
I got curious about what my body was doing.
This is a BIG one in the way I work now because I pay attention to my body and nervous system a lot. So if I'm avoiding something, I'm curious about what happens in my body when I think about doing it. Am I getting tense? Am I scared? Do I go numb? Do I suddenly want to do literally anything else? And if I wasn't responding this way before, I'm REALLY curious about what changed.
Visibility is an easy example. I was creating something for months and having a great time and eventually more people ended up seeing it. I wanted that! I shared the thing because I wanted people to see the thing! And now my body is going, HELLO?! WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING?! WE HAVE NOT DONE THIS BEFORE!
So maybe I need to spend some time there. What about being seen is bringing this up? Is there a way I can give myself some time to get used to this new level of visibility? Is there support I need around it?
I don't personally treat every uncomfortable feeling in my body as a message that I'm supposed to stop doing something. That would mean I'd never do anything new because new things can be fucking scary. haha But I also don't want to ignore what my body is doing and force my way through everything. I want the information. Then I can figure out what I want to do with it.
I got curious about how much I was trying to hold.
This has become a HUGE part of my creative work because a lot of what I do now is co-create with visionaries and other creative minds. I see that work as deeply creative even though I'm not necessarily the person painting the painting, writing the song, making the video or whatever the creation is.
Okay, metaphor time! Sometimes they're painting and I'm holding the canvas. Sometimes we're building the canvas together. Sometimes I'm looking at the easel going, ummmmm, I think this thing is about to fall over and I'm helping figure out what needs to go underneath it so the whole thing can keep growing.
Because once a creation gets bigger, there's often SO MUCH SHIT around the thing you originally wanted to create. Example: you're an artist and you love drawing. Cool! People want to buy your drawings, so now you have prints and inventory and a website and photographing your work and shipping and craft markets and social media and newsletters and bookkeeping and answering emails and OH MY GOD WHEN DO I DRAW?!
I've watched this happen with people I create alongside and I've experienced my own versions of it. You can reach a point where every new thing you make creates more work around the work and if you're already at capacity, of course there might be a part of you that starts going, please don't make another thing because I cannot hold any more.
That's when I'm asking different questions. What can come off the plate? What do I not need to be doing myself? Is there something here I hate doing that somebody else would LOVE doing? Has this grown to a point where I don't want to hold the whole damn thing alone anymore? If that's what's going on, me yelling at myself to be more disciplined isn't going to help much.
And sometimes I got curious and discovered... oh. I’m fucking scared.
Yep. haha Sometimes I’ve looked under all the rocks and there isn’t some big structural issue or lost passion or deeper misalignment. I want the thing. I love the thing. I want to take the next step. I’m just scared to take it. I’ve learned that I don’t want to treat fear as an automatic stop sign, but I also don’t need to launch myself off a cliff every time I want to grow.
I worked alongside someone recently who really wanted to share more of their story and creativity with the world. They wanted to be on YouTube, but their body had a BIG response to being recorded. So we started around a fire where they felt safe storytelling. We stayed there for a while and then took another little step with voice recording. And another step with short videos. None of this was about finding a way for them to never feel scared. They WERE scared sometimes. The point was that we didn't have to go from sitting around a fire talking to HEY LET'S PUT A CAMERA IN YOUR FACE AND POST THIS ON YOUTUBE! There was so much space between those two things that we could play with.
That's something I've brought into my own work too. If there's something I really want to do and my body is having a big ol' NOPE response to the version I've imagined, what else could the next step look like? What's one little move in that direction that still feels like I'm stretching, but I'm not launching myself off a cliff? Then I get to have the experience of doing it. I get scared, I do the little thing, I come out the other side and my body has new information. Cool. We survived that one! Maybe now we try the next thing.
Soooooo, do I still procrastinate? Absofuckinglutely. haha I just don't immediately assume it means I need to get my shit together anymore. Now I put on my ridiculous Inspector Gadget curiosity hat and start poking around. Maybe I've built a structure around the thing that's draining me. Maybe something changed and I haven't noticed it yet. Maybe I'm trying to hold wayyyyy too much by myself. Maybe I don't even want this thing anymore! Or maybe I want it SO MUCH and I'm fucking terrified of what happens if I do it.
And yes, sometimes I poke around under all the rocks and eventually discover that nothing particularly profound is happening and I'm like, Whit... you have seventeen tabs open. Close them and do the damn thing. Fair! I've learned enough from all the other times that I don't want to start there anymore. I'd rather give myself a minute to wonder, “What's going on here?” because sometimes there is something underneath all that avoiding that I wouldn't have found if I'd already decided what the answer was.
Author’s Bio:
Whit Lauren is an Intuitive Creation Partner who has spent 20+ years helping entrepreneurs, creators and visionaries bring their ideas into the world. A lot of that work happens in the weird space between “I have this idea!” and “Okay... how the hell do we make this exist?” Whit brings business and project development, nervous system awareness, intuition and energetic awareness into that space and helps people build without losing themselves in the process.
You can find Whit at WhitLauren.com
