If you’re involved in creative work, whether it’s writing or leading or designing or coaching, you know what it feels like to get stuck.
A question I receive regularly goes, “This project is important to me, but I’m stuck. How do I get started, and how do I finish?”
We’ve all been there. Getting stuck is a drag because we know that our creative work is some of the most important work we do. It comprises what is probably the most profound contribution we have to offer the world.
Photo by Jakob Owens on Unsplash
If we stay stuck, if we can’t figure this out, at the very least we could end up feeling unfulfilled—like we didn’t accomplish all we thought we could.
In this post I want to share a question that can make a significant difference in your creative life. If you ask this question or one of its variations regularly and follow through on where it takes you, it can quickly help you get unstuck and jumpstart the projects that are most important to you.
The Question
Your project is often more difficult in your imagination than it is in reality. When you’re stuck, the problem is often not the work itself. It’s the vagueness of how we imagine the work will be.
So, without further ado, here’s the question: How could I make this easier for myself?
We get stuck because we make whatever the project is this big deal in our minds. We think it’s going to be like building the Eiffel Tower when, really, if we just give ourselves a chance, it won’t be like that at all.
Variations on the question:
- What if this were easy? What would that look like?
- What if I’m making this project more difficult in my head than it really is?
- What do I need to do to make this easier for myself?
- What would need to be true to make this project a lot easier?
- What are one or two things I could do to make this easier?
I’m not saying creative work doesn’t require, well, work, but let’s not sabotage ourselves by making it more difficult than it is.
Applying the Question to Your Project
When you ask a question like “What if this were easy?” you are forcing yourself to get concrete about your next steps. To think creatively about how to make the project doable.
Instead of having this vague impression that the work is “too tough” and you “don’t have enough time” and “probably no one will want it anyway” and all of that kind of thing, just pause for a minute.
Give yourself a chance. Ask yourself: What if this were easy? What do I need to do to make this easier for myself?
From there, you could go a lot of different directions.
Do you need to schedule 30 minutes a day? You could do that, right? That’s not so hard.
Do you need to use some vacation time and get away for a week? I’ll bet you could make some amazing progress if you did that.
Do you need to take a break from the idea of this project? Seriously. Do you need to just walk away from it for a while and give yourself a prompt to pick it up six months or a year from now? That would be better than having this nagging sense of failure all the time, right? Maybe it’s best to set it aside for a while so that you can tend to other matters. You’re not deciding to kill it right now. You’re being intentional about delaying it.
Do you need to talk it out with a friend or two? It can be difficult to admit we need someone else’s listening ear, but doing this almost guaranteed to lower the temperature on how you’re feeling right now.
Do you need to start a group of people who get together once a week or once a month for accountability and inspiration? That could be a game changer for someone reading this.
Do you need a new tool or a course or a coach? Would that make this project easier? Your creativity may not be worth a trip to the poor house, but it’s certainly worth some investment, right? Consider BookCamp!
Listen, you can do this, this is within your reach. Start asking this question and then do something that makes it easier for yourself.
You can do it, and the reality is we need you to do it. We need you to share your gift with us.
So let me ask you an important question. As you consider your most important project, what’s one thing could you do to make it easier? You can leave a comment by clicking here.
Chad, this is awesome! Excellent question. My first concrete step would be to ask the question (regarding one work project and one creative project) and one of my next steps might be to set aside the 30 minutes a day for the creative project. For the work project, the other day I organized the assignment, what the editor wants, and now I am set to do some brainstorming even when not at the computer (i.e. this weekend ). I think I’ll need to ask myself your question again even in the next couple of days – I simply don’t have time to get stuck!
Tracie, excellent thinking here. Love you’re already applying the question to multiple projects in multiple ways. Keep after it!
Terrific post, indeed! I’ve hit a rough spot in my current WIP and have been needlessly stewing over the problem, deepening the rut. Mind-mapping the question “What do I need to do to make this easier for myself?” was incredibly fruitful. But what I most needed to read today was this line: “Listen, you can do this, this is within your reach.” Thanks, Chad!
You bet, Kathy!! Hang in there, and keep on keeping on!
Loved this post Chad.
I’ve been at the same company for a decade. I am salesperson and I remember a breakthrough meeting several years ago. I was doing well and during the meeting my boss shared her insights about my job. She said sometimes you make your job too challenging. It’s about sending emails, making phone calls, and connecting. Don’t make it anything more than that.
Now, I do the same with writing. It’s about the current scene, the current idea, the current blog. Other than that, if I focus too much everything else that has to do with the entrepreneurial life, I freeze. I need to keep moving forward no matter how I feel about it and keep it simple.
Neil Gaiman once said in an interview that if you only write when you are inspired, you might be a decent poet, but you’ll never be a novelist. Why? Because you need to hit your word count. He surmises that when you finish your book, you won’t be able to tell when you were inspired or when you were not. You’ll be done, and that is what matters in the end. So write no matter how you feel.
For me anyway, there has never been a better way to break through the wall of being stuck then to turn and face it head-on, by sitting down and doing the work. It’s a little clunky at first, but in no time I am typing away.
Robert, Love your emphasis on focusing on the current scene/idea/blog post and not getting overwhelmed with more than that. That’s great advice!