From the Inspirational Thought Unit
I started this year with a vision, goals that supported that vision, strategy that supported the goals, a schedule to implement the strategy, and initiated the habits and practices that would help me make this vision a reality.
January went great. By February the screws started coming loose. I got casual with my schedule as other urgent and/or important things popped up. As I drifted from the habits and schedule I formed in January I noticed the work started suffering too.
Then I was reminded of this idea from on of my favorite self-mastery books: Art and Fear by David Bayles and Ted Orland.
"When things go haywire, your best opening strategy might be to return -very carefully and consciously- to the habits and practices in play the last time you felt good about the work."
From Art and Fear, page 57.
I didn't want to stall completely. I've been there before and to pull out of a stall is not easy. Sometimes it takes months or years! Realizing I was losing altitude (to continue with this metaphor) I needed to realign the rudder and blast the engines to get this project back to a proper airspeed.
The engines of your project aren't your goals or your vision or your strategy, they are your habits.
For me, that's doing creative work in the mornings when I'm sharp, instead of evenings when I'm easily distracted. It's priming my environment (both physical and digital) to make the next action easy. And it's having a bias towards action instead of endless preparing and hedging.
To get back on track this week I focused in on these habits, which got my airspeed up, and made significant progress on the comic in the last several days.
Return to your creative habits...something to consider if your project has stalled.
-Jake