Enthusiastic Encouragement & Dubious Advice, Vol 4, Iss 19: How to Get Started
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Hi friends! We received a surprise package from my dear friend Violet this week and as I was pulling out the thoughtfully curated goodies, I pulled out two small boxes (one pictured below) and burst into tears. She had included cookies from the Honolulu Cookie Company. Unbeknownst to her, my mother would include cookies from the HCC in every package she sent to me during her 7 years of living in Hawai’i. Grief is ever-present and while the world continues to pile things on so many of us, life absurdly goes on.
Speaking of, I want to say that it feels really weird to still be working and living and making art and finding joy when so many are suffering. I have no solutions. I know this is how it’s always been. But if you feel extra weird right now doing anything other than screaming and crying and tearing things down, just know you are not alone.
I continue to grasp for joy where I can. Sometimes we can feel guilty when we find that moment of joy and it is so important to remember that our individual suffering doesn’t lessen the suffering of others. If I go around feeling bad it does not, contrary to popular belief, lighten the load of other people.
In my search for joy, I have a bajillion creative ideas I want to learn and/or do and I am frequently running into the roadblock that is my own brain. I am not particularly afraid of failing or even afraid of not being good at something right away (no shame if either of these is you, though). I find that what I keep ramming against is overwhelm and a very specific flavor of overwhelm. I overwhelm myself by thinking of these projects in their entirety. They will take time and resources and skills I’ll need to develop and then oh my gosh, what is my plan for this after I make it, learn it, or write it and what if I end up being super into this thing and where will I keep all the supplies or where will I get this published, etc. etc. etc.
I overwhelm and intimidate myself before I even start. I have the motivation to do these things, I have the desire, but I lack the task initiation. I’m totally fine once I start something! I thought for an embarrassingly long time about this newsletter before I started it almost four years ago. I had some iteration of it in my head for years. Now that I have over 200 issues under my belt, writing this newsletter is one of the least overwhelming things I do all week. It’s definitely labor, but I don’t feel compelled to avoid it.
So how do I recommend jumping these hurdles of our own design and getting “the thing” started? For me, it involves something I am terrible at: being present. Being right where I am, right at this moment. One of the things I have mentioned I am working on learning is crochet. I was definitely overwhelming myself by thinking about the amount of time I will have to devote to learning in order to make all the cool things I want to make. I took a moment to step back and think to myself, “You literally don’t even own yarn or a hook and you’re worried about people asking you to make them things? Slow your roll.” I’ve found that every time I’m encountering this, I revisit two* questions:
1. What is the very, very first step?
2a. What is the immediate next step?
2b. What is the immediate next step now that you have done the above? And so on.
I only tackle one question at a time and I also allow myself to be done for the day after addressing that question. The hardest part is trying not to think ahead, especially because I am a planner and contingency-planner to a fault. My first step for crochet was to figure out how I was going to learn. YouTube? CreativeBug? The incredibly helpful subreddit? Pay for lessons? Once I figured that out, I gave myself a gold star and did something else. When I had the spell slots, I asked myself about the immediate next step. It was to watch the first video or read the tutorial and learn about the supplies I would need to get going. Great. Did that, made my supply list, and then called it quits for the day. The next immediate step after that was to get supplies so we went to the craft store and got supplies a few days later. Excellent. Check off that step. Don’t worry about step #27 if I haven’t even done step #2.
I am now at the next step, which is to watch another video. I have chosen to learn using CreativeBug (free through the library!) and the lessons are a 30-day course. I have been doing some other projects lately that I’m finding joy in and look forward to sharing with you soon so crochet is on the back burner at the moment but I’m no longer feeling intimidated by it.
While my pattern of questions is helpful for creative things and specifically, things without a time limit, it can also help with other projects to a certain degree. Cleaning, decluttering, and organizing, for instance. Unpacking. Work projects. Focusing on the next immediate step can help release us from intimidation by breaking down what we want to do into manageable pieces. We don’t need to know or have all the pieces in front of us in order to do the next logical thing.
I hope this helps and if you want to learn other ways I apply these questions, take a look at Volume 3, Issue 24: Tips on Handling Overwhelm.
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