Procrastinating in Your Creative Life? These Tips Might Help!

Let’s talk about procrastination. I think this is a really interesting topic that comes with all sorts of different facets and angles. Let’s dive in to why we do it in our creative life, and some tips about how to cope and deal with it. Let’s get started.

Video Transcript: Procrastinating in Your Creative Life? These Tips Might Help!

Yesterday I was listening to a podcast with some creative hearts talking about this idea of resistance. They were going through a project and they’d come close to the end, and they were just feeling all this resistance, and it was showing up in the form of procrastination in their life.

I personally have a love/hate relationship with the term ‘resistance’.

I think that it’s a worthwhile thing to know about if it’s something you haven’t been aware of before.

When I’m talking about resistance, it’s a term I came across in Steven Pressfield’s book “The War of Art”, which is a very masculine sort of approach in some ways to dealing with this phenomenon. For me it felt a little bit too hardcore, like if you’re resisting something then you just have to push through it and make it happen.

That might not be the way that other people read that book, I know a lot of people find it really helpful, but for me I found it was just like, “Oh, put the brakes on! That doesn’t work for me.”

Instead, what I’ve found is useful when it comes to resistance and procrastination in my creative life is looking at it with a sense of gentleness and self-nurturing and being kind to myself.

What I’ve found, is when I boil it down, there’s often only two reasons why I’m procrastinating on a project.

The first is because I actually need more information. I might now know what this tiny little element is to be able to create the larger picture, or it might not even be that small, it could be a gaping hole in my set of skills or the materials I have or the timing.

If I take the pressure off myself and go, “Okay, what’s the next small step that I can take in this project?” Usually I can get a little bit of momentum going again.

That’s the first tip that I would suggest, breaking things into small steps.

If you’re feeling frozen with a business project, or creative project, or de-cluttering or wardrobe or whatever it is that you are wanting to do, see if you can find something that takes just a few minutes to do the next step.

You might decide you want to find a book that’s going to give you some inspiration around it, or you might decide you’re going to do a bit of research on… I’m having a mind blank, but I hope you understand what I’m saying.

I’ll give you an example from my life.

Yesterday, I wanted to film more of these blog post videos for you, but I came up against some resistance, and when I looked at it, it was like, “Do you know what actually is the problem here? The problem is I’m feeling a little bit uninspired because I’ve run out of outfits I think look nice with this backdrop.”

A lot of my clothes are a bit too dark and they come across really heavy in the video, so what I decided to do was give myself the pleasure of going and finding some bright colorful scarves to break things up.

I did that by heading off to the local country town and going to the op shops, and I had so much fun. I got this scarf for a dollar!

I had such a ball that then I came home and I felt really pleased and happy knowing the resistance I was feeling, which was a valid resistance, I don’t want to look the same in all of my videos, it might be vanity or it might be creativity, whatever you call it, that’s what I was feeling.

Instead, I’d been able to transform it by taking a small step and now here I am talking to you, which is a great thing.

So see if you can break it down into small steps. That’s for when the resistance is coming from a lack of information, a lack of materials, or lack of skills. Sometimes, it’s just a timing thing too. The timing just isn’t right.

Looking for recognition

The second time I’ve noticed resistance or procrastination creep into my life is when my attention has shifted from looking for satisfaction within myself, and instead I’m putting it onto others. So it comes down to being worried about what other people are going to think.

If that’s the case, then I take really considered action to reverse that and put the locus of satisfaction back within my own heart. I have to make sure I’m being friendly with myself and say, “You know what Nic, let’s just do four videos today and we’ll see how they work out. If you don’t like them you don’t have to show anyone.

You get to make sure you’re happy with them first. They’re just for you to begin with.

Some of these things might sound like they’re just ways to delay a project even longer. I know a lot of people say you should stop researching, and a lot of people say you don’t have to wait till things are perfect. There’s definitely times for both of those tips.

But what I’ve found, is the more kind and gentle I am with myself, then the more I can rely on myself as the weeks, months and years tick over to keep showing up, keep being vulnerable and keep being real. The more I’m able to keep stepping up and chasing my creative dreams.

I really hope those two different angles might give you some different ways of looking at procrastination and resistance today, and give you some tools to be able to overcome them if it’s something you’re facing in any area of your life, particularly in your creative life.

That’s about it for me for this week. I’m wishing you a beautiful day, be kind to yourself, nurture your creativity, and I’ll see you later!

With love,

Nicola

Did you miss last week’s post? Check it out here: Which Paint Brushes to Use for Acrylic & Oil Paints

P.S. Now, if you’re new to my blog and you would like some help to get started with painting or creativity I’ve created a beautiful ten day free e-course that takes you through just that, getting started with painting and creativity. You can find that at NicolaNewman.com/begin. In there you’ll be taken through how to paint an abstract painting, we’ll do some writing and some photography exercises, and it’s loads of fun.