one hundred percent of zero

i’ve been listening to the seanwes podcast a lot lately and it has been literally life-changing. it has motivated me to figure out what i should be doing with my life (while i keep my day job and try not to let it crush my soul). it’s amazing how the wisdom from the podcast simultaneously gives me the gumption to be professional and gives me the encouragement i need to keep me from despairing about where i am now. the overlap technique eases my mind about my current job, which i am feeling ready to transition out of, but am reluctant to leave because at the heart of it i still enjoy the work itself.

however, when i have a day off, i have all this optimistic energy leading up into it and all these plans for a productive day. inevitably, when the day comes, i waste it because i feel frustrated with my lack of direction. the things i intend to do to push my life forward are great on paper, but are so grey and undefined when i’m actually in it, trying to feel like i accomplished something. all that energy from the day before quickly fizzles out. my last day off i started a plan for writing a series of children’s books, and got really fired up about it. that was three days ago, and that excitement is already gone.

so what in the world will keep me interested enough to stick with? i know i love writing. even just putting out a long overdue blog post gives me some satisfaction. so i started thinking about re-vamping my website and updating all of the photos of things i’ve made and improving the web presence before the next wave of art and craft show applications. i think i would feel better about my website/blog/shop–and general online presence for my personal “brand”–if they were all integrated. i think i’d feel a better sense of direction if everything i do, however eclectic, was all on one platform. if i get in the habit of contributing content regularly, i will pay attention to the rest of my brand, since it will all be there in plain sight of anyone who may read the blog post i just shared. making it public will hopefully give me the incentive to be more professional, intentional, and regular with creating content. if i create a risk of being seen by more people, i’ll make sure my stuff is good enough to be seen.

this ties in with the fear of success under the disguise of fear of failure, i think. if i stay under the radar, then i don’t run the risk of having a large audience. my failures are less public. if i have no audience, there’s no pressure to create more content or to make a great presentation of what’s already out there. if i start curating what goes out, make the content excellent and valuable–and do it regularly–more people will see it and have expectations of me. then i would have to keep creating new and better content. i would have direction and motivation. that sounds like success. i want to create regularly, but how could i possibly handle people expecting me to create something regularly? why is this totally irrational fear such a strong reality for creative types?

the lack of expectation/direction/pressure is what keeps me from creating content outside of my day job. i don’t feel this kind of anxiety and fear at my day job. why is that? maybe because it’s not personal, although i always feel that any work one does is a reflection of their work ethic. i’m not okay with putting out sub-par work, but i am okay with something being 75-80% as good as it could be in the interest of being timely. if it gets the job done and there isn’t realistically time to get it to 100%, i just call it done and get it out there. it will serve its purpose better now at 75% than it will at 100% if it’s too late.

maybe that’s another catch-22 about creating my own work: i have all the time i need outside of work to do 100% on something, because there’s no expectation and no deadline. but there’s also no direction and no urgency. i can do 100% on anything i want. so much freedom! okay…ummm…what do i want to make? i have no earthly idea.

and maybe part of that is the unspoken pressure to make it 100%, even though you don’t even have so much as an idea for a starting point. wouldn’t 75% of anything be better than 100% of nothing? what are you afraid of? seventy-five is a success compared to zero. that’s an excuse created by you disguised as fear of failure. your brain somehow can’t let you accept that there’s value in just getting something started, even if you abandon it for something else. at least you learned something and it caused you to do the other thing. now you know the first thing didn’t hold your interest and you can move on and be one step closer to finding what you love to do. and if that thing comes to only 75% of your expectations, great! you have time to improve on it. because you don’t have a following yet, you have the freedom to explore and the luxury of no pressure.

i’m great at sabotaging myself. my fear of success is strong. when craft fair season rolls around, i always panic that i haven’t really done anything new since the last cycle of shows. i don’t really want to do the show anyway, but i can’t live with myself if i don’t apply. so i reluctantly apply, submitting a 75% quality application at best, knowing and somewhat hoping that i won’t get accepted. and every time, i get the email: congratulations, you’re in! and every time, my reaction is: oh shit, now i have to make a bunch of stuff. part of me was hoping for rejection because it alleviates me of the responsibility of making new product, while avoiding the guilt of not even applying (which would be not even trying–putting out 0%–which is the same as failure).

if your 75% was good enough to get you in, then that means that your 75% is as good as or better than every single person who even bothered to apply. so just start something. if you’re too paralyzed by fear to even start something, unrealistic expectations of yourself may be holding you back. that resistance is all internal. you’d love to exonerate yourself from putting anything out there, but if you even 75% like something you created, then it will be valuable or at least enjoyable to someone else. are you worried that your stuff is stupid or not worthy of someone’s attention? look at the internet. there’s no shortage of room for stupid, and stupid gets a lot of attention. there’s room in the world for your creations, and the world needs what you have to offer. anything that was worthy of your own time and effort will only add to the good. because you’re the type of person to have these anxieties, you are probably also the kind of person whose 75% exceeds many others’ 100%. so put it out there. it’s probably better than you think.

“some people might look at you funny, and that’s okay. we painters are happier than most, so that’s alright.” –Bob Ross

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