The motivation to do it

How do you get up in the morning? Do you bounce out of bed? Do you start humming your favourite tune on the way to the gym after a quick smoothie? Or is it more like a struggle, tossing and turning until you finally turn off the snooze button and make a cup of coffee, unsure of what the next step is?

I'm a little mix of both, depending on the day. Most days, it's pretty tough getting into something. If I'm about to do something exciting, or if it's a day "off" from everything I have to do, it's usually pretty easy. But uncertainty rules my days.

I figure many of us experience this, certainly those of us who work for ourselves, at home, making our own schedule. Here are some things I've learned to do when I want to clear my head and get moving.


1. Make a list and rough schedule the night before

If I can wake up and know exactly what I have to do, then I can get out of bed much more easily. Knowing what happens in my day before going to sleep means that I know how much time I have to spare or waste. Deadlines help me focus: finishing something is no longer just for me, it's for someone else, and making others happy makes me extremely happy. I like to use Google Calendar lately, and try to be as precise as possible.

2. Listen to Podcasts

I've recently got into podcasts like never before. I tried a few times in the past but was never interested until now. Finding the right podcast is crucial; I like to find ones which are uplifting, interesting, positive and filled with the wonders of the world. I want to know more about love, what great things people are doing in the world, and how ordinary folks like me got to where they are today. I highly recommend: On Being with Krista Tippett, Ted Radio Hour, and How I Built This.

3. Journaling or reading

If I've got too many things on the brain, getting started with work can be impossible. I need to dump my thoughts onto paper and clear clutter. Otherwise, sometimes it's about filling my brain with good, positive information so I'll go check out a few sites (for example, Behance, an inspiring portfolio site, helps me see what other artists are up to), pick up a good book, or listen to podcasts, as number 2 suggests.

4. Surround myself with my own work

As a freelance artist, it helps if I paste my own work all around me. In my little studio -- really, just a bedroom I took over which has a small table, a printer, and really bad lighting -- I decided to put some of my favourite previous work on display to remind me of what I love to do and why it feels good to finish projects. My current work is also on the walls, to see how much work has been completed to date, which helps me visualize timelines and feel great about getting things done (even if they're just small things).

5. Plan for exercise or fresh air

The thing I hate the most is having to be inside when there's a gorgeous blue sky calling me. If it's so distracting that my work ends up taking longer, I just go outside and take a walk or even take some of my work with me to a coffee shop. The first certainly means more productivity, but the second usually feeds my soul with some social interaction and people watching. Gotta do what feels right.

6. Fit meetings in throughout the week

If I am not drowning in work and deadlines, I like to have 2 or 3 days of meetings. Spreading them out makes me feel good: I like to get out of the house to talk about work, to stay inspired, to connect with my clients, and to keep the momentum going. After meetings I will usually get things done twice as quickly, since it's fresh in my mind and I feel what the client is looking for.

7. Don't beat yourself up

Since my artist brain is always turned on, it means that I am constantly "at work" in my mind. If I'm in my studio and things aren't coming out, it's frustrating. I end up sitting there for an hour, zoning out half the time and being frustrated from seeing no results. This is when I start beating myself up, and it's absolutely counter-productive. When this happens, I'm better off leaving the studio for an hour and getting rejuvenated with something like exercise, getting out of the house, talking to a friend, gardening, or going into town. No good work can come from ruminating, and beating myself up will get me nowhere fast.

8. Evening work

If I can't get anything done in the daytime for any reason, I like to set up in the evening. Evening time has a special feeling for me: it's dark, mysterious, and calm. I light some candles, find a way to do my work in the least amount of light as possible, and stay more focused. The only downside to evening work is that gatherings and events can at times creep up unexpectedly and they're hard to turn down. Working at night is absolutely my favourite.


And now, to work I go!

Distance makes the heart grow [fonder/fearful/joyful/weary/tired/wiser]

There are so many different sides to ourselves.

I wake up one morning and the me I knew is completely gone, replaced with a new version -- not always a better version, although I know I'm always moving forward -- and I wonder what happened over night. Did a dream change me? Did the stars and the planets in the sky change me? Where does the change begin, originate, formulate?

Some days I have no will to do anything. Even doing nothing is exhaustingly boring. It just doesn't feel any good. Certainly when I am forced to be alone, which amplifies the feelings ten fold. I try different attitudes: standing, sitting, laying in the sun, biking, hanging around strangers, hanging around people I know, coming back to being by myself. None of it works. I then wait for the shift in the night, when my subconscious gets to work on me and my conscious mind gives it room to become different again. Who knows if it will be better or worse ... but at least it will be different.

With the man that I love gone for so long, I've ridden waves which I have conquered and some which I have fallen from. Fear has touched my heart in deep, deep places. Love has touched my heart and bounced back into the world and made everything beautiful and bright. Back and forth like this for months and months, and when the moment is so near to see him again, when I feel so amazingly giddy and have butterflies in my stomach, the wait is extended one more day, one more day, one more than I expected, and slowly my excitement and happiness turn sour, they turn to anxiety and frustration, "I want him now", I want it all right now. I don't want to wait any longer.

And yet I know, the expectation is what lets me down. I let myself down, he does not. He is doing exactly as he should.

It's all good in the hood when there's so much to do, when everyone is having fun, when my best friends are around and make me feel at home. When they're not around, I reminisce and I am grateful for the times when I was blessed to be in their presence. I am glad I have the ability to remember, for there are so many moments which I want to keep tucked away neatly, closeby, for easy access at any time. The memory of a face. Of a word. Of an emotion. But I do admit, I must become better at remembering. Remembering all of the little things as well as the big things, because they're all so important. With so much happening all at once, it's hard to hold on to all of it, and not much of it can come back on demand (I know some can do this so well!)

The best thing I can do is push him. The best thing I can do is love him, and love what he chooses to do, and say yes to him, say yes to every instance, every opportunity. Distance makes the heart grow fonder -- and weak and fearful and full of joy and full of sorrow and full of a rollercoaster of emotions -- and it will all be worth it at the end of my very long, substancial life.

Restle-ness

 

Restlessness.

Restlessness ...

 

What's next? What's out there? What's better? What's missing?

 

Always questioning, always seeking answers, and if there are answers given these answers do not stop the search for a new set of questions and it becomes infinity, a snake eating its own tail, a line forming a circle, an endless restlessness. It's exhausting, but it's also the way my mind keeps going and going. Nothing ever satisifies. 

 

How do I go about changing this kind of mind habit? it's as if the mind is the first to receive a direction, but if we can change our minds then we must have another source that directs our minds to think what it thinks. If I want to be here now, if I want to enjoy fully what I am doing and not seek elsewhere always for something bigger, grander, more this and more that ... how do I begin?

Vs.

Heart is racing fast.
It's beating, I know that for sure.
Will it come out?
Is it knocking at my chest,
demanding an appearance in the show?
All is well in the outbuilding, or so it seems.
Does my heart know something my mind does not?
Can my mind be peaceful while my body aches,
diaphragm struggles and I fall short of breath?
Perhaps the imminence of the truth ...
or as some like to call it, doom.

Familiarity

"Habit! That skillful but very slow housekeeper who begins by letting our mind suffer for weeks in a temporary arrangement, but whom we are nevertheless truly happy to discover, for without habit our mind, reduced to no more than its own resources, would be powerless to make a lodging habitable."

"...none of us constitutes a material whole, identical for everyone, which a person has only to go look up as though we were a book of specifications or a last testament, our social personality is a creation of the minds of others. Even the very simple act that we call "seeing a person we know" is in part an intellectual one. We fill the physical appearance of the individual we see with all the notions we have about him, and of the total picture that we form for ourselves, these notions certainly occupy the greater part."

Marcel Proust in "Swann's Way", about the mind creating habit and familiarity with objects and people.

Speaking of familiarity, go listen to "Familiarity" by the Punch Brothers.
Familiarity - Punch Brothers (youtube)

Allow stillness

"Sometimes, in a summer morning, having taken my bath, I sat in my sunny doorway from sunrise til noon, rapt in a revery, amidst the pines and the hickories and sumachs, in undisturbed solitude and stillness, while the birds sang around me or flitted noiseless through the house, until by the sun falling in at my west window, or the noise of some travellers' wagon on the distant highway, I was reminded of the lapse of time. I grew in those seasons like corn in the night, and they were far better than any work of the hands would ahve been. They were no time subtracted from my life, but so much over and above my usual allowance."

- Walden

Pheonix

Through the complete breakdown of all that I know, I can rise from the ashes and learn to grow.

This is what I have realized I must work on every day of my life:

1. I have to know myself before I can know others.
2. Once I know my past, I can know who I am right now.
3. Once I know who I am right now, I can figure out where I am going.
4. I make my own path, but I have made the path until now and I must know what path that is.
5. I must assert the power that I have, or else it will lay dormant until it bursts with negativity.
6. When another becomes my crutch, I lose all responsibility for myself. I must be responsible.
7. Living my life to the fullest helps those around me live to their highest potential.
8. Believing myself first, will make me credible to those around me.
9. To gain experience, I must actually do. I can only know if I enjoy the experience after doing.
10. I must live in the moment to truly appreciate things for myself, not for someone else.
11. Life is uncertainty. I must realize this and all will fall into place with less resistance.
12. It is not about the amount of time, it is about the quality of time. The essence of time.
13. Every person I meet is an opportunity to learn about myself and to show them who I really am.
14. Let go of old patterns that don't lend to me in this day and age.
15. If I love something, I must let it go.