Here’s some inspiration for those of you who may be in a rut: be productive, don’t just “try” to be productive. A lot has happened over the past few months (good and bad) and I’ve been doing a lot of reflection of where I stand. I’ve finally come around to realize that if you go into a slump, no matter what the situation: job, family, relationship – you’ll continue to fall short of goals that would otherwise be obtainable. In my opinion, it’s the endless cycle of lack of drive and inspiration that holds you back from being able to come back out on top.It really sank in over the last week or so when I realized that the amount of work I’ve been getting done outside of my job has been declining and I’ve been getting kind of lazy in some aspects of my life.
As a little back story: I started a new job about 2 months ago and I couldn’t be happier. My previous job which I was at for two years was beginning to take the creative drive away from me due to the lack of morale in the office, difference in opinions with my boss, and the lack of appreciation I felt for the amount of work that I was doing. But no matter how I would feel after work, I would still occasionally have the drive and random bursts of inspiration to go home and work on my personal projects for myself and freelance clients.
It was then when I was contacted about my new job and I was excited/nervous to go through the interview process again. I had to update my portfolio, make sure my website was up to date and polished, and put aside all of those anxious emotions to relax myself to make sure I portrayed myself and my work appropriately. Throughout this whole process, I continued to have and gain that creative drive to get everything done. Needless to say, I got the job and couldn’t be happier. The environment is great, the people are great, I now work the typical 9-5, and since it’s an international company, there’s a lot of room for professional growth. Everything sounds great so what more could I ask for, right?
Well long story short, breaking up with my girlfriend, having resentment for how my old boss treated me, not really seeing my friends from my last job and now being available for happy hour (which definitely has its ups and downs), that little bit of drive and inspiration that I had at home dropped significantly and my productivity followed. Fortunately, I always have that drive when I’m at work, it’s just transferring that drive to my own work once I get home. Don’t get me wrong, I got to spend a lot of time with my friends and wouldn’t have come to this realization without them. I think that was a crucial step. Knowing that you’ll always have those friends for support has got to be one of the best things to get that drive back. That’s what made me realize that I needed to stop lying to myself and get back into my routine of getting things accomplished. I kept saying things like “I’ll try to get that done this week” and “Let me try a couple things and see what I can do” but for some reason, I could never get anything accomplished. Having a routine can be monotonous at times for some people, but for me, it helps keep all of my projects on track and I needed to get back to that.
Now that the smoke has cleared, I’ve realized that I just put myself in this rut with no way to get out. I needed to find that drive again and I needed the inspiration to get back to my productive self. Dwelling on situations does absolutely nothing but kill your inspiration. It clouds up your brain and doesn’t let you be creative or think straight. It makes you lazy and sucks the happiness out of you. If you just let the past go and don’t keep thinking what could have been or worry about what other people are saying, you’ll be able to get back into the groove and be productive.
It’s not always life events that trigger this downward spiral though, it can be anything. If you take one thing away from this post, realize that it’s a lot easier to lie to yourself than you think. The human brain works wonders, but not always for the best. You can kid yourself to believe whatever you want to. Designing is what I love doing and I kept telling myself that I needed to get back into that creative person. Reading this post woke me up and I knew what I had to do. It was this quote from that post that sums it up for me:
A person needs a healthy self-respect to pursue novel ideas, and to make mistakes, despite criticism from others. Self-doubt there may be, but it cannot always win the day. Breaking generally-accepted rules, or even stretching them, takes confidence. Continuing to do so, in the face of scepticism and scorn, takes even more.
So the only thing to do is get back into creating things and find that inspiration that comes from everything I see. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes, just go back to doing what you love and makes you happy. Don’t lie to yourself or anyone else regarding your work or whatever you’ve been putting off. Stop putting long timelines on projects, stop saying the word try and use the word do. Keep pushing yourself to be who you want to be, not the product of past events. Hopefully this helps you if you’re in a similar situation or at least makes you think when you come across something similar in the future. In this realization, I’ve decided that I’m going to get back into posting articles so stay tuned for some great stuff and some more inspirational posts, pictures and more!