I looked back at my posts in recent months and I can see my little BURSTS of “yeah! I wanna WRITE!!” where, once in a while, I manage to splat something on the page. As I mentioned last month when I wrote about writing, and trying to build habits, I just keep getting derailed.
In that post I talked about my proclivity for mindless websurfing — generally fueled by social media — but I think it’s more than habit, it’s mood. It has to be. I used to blog all the time, now… not so much. And lately, I hate everything I write — all of it — so a lot of it ends up being ignored/abandoned/buried in my document folders. It’s not just writing, I also can’t seem to get interested in crafting lately.
All my creative energy has left the building.
When I am at work, all I can think about is how much I want to be making stuff — writing, painting, taking photos, recording videos (hell, I haven’t even edited the reviews Alynda and I recorded in August for Cloud and Silver Lining, let alone figured out a production workaround for going forward — Sorry, Alynda, I suck), knitting or sewing. But the instant I cross the threshold at home, I just… fade.
It’s not that I’m demotivated — not like anyone has told me, “don’t quit your day job” — quite the opposite. Nor is it exactly depression, although it does come with a certain emptiness. I just feel like it’s such an uphill battle to find my “true fans,” my audience, my customers, that I find myself thinking “why bother.” Of course, I also know that if I’m not creating, I could be making progress on the uphill battle: listing items on Zibbet, promoting the works I’ve already published, even reading marketing texts.
I realize I am self-sabotaging.
Burning my own fields is one of my key flaws (it’s the answer I never give in the interview when asked, What would you say is your weakest characteristic?) — I know this, I understand and can see what I am doing, but still I let myself continue. I know that what is causing my inaction is both fear of failure and its close cousin fear of success and, when faced with two paths that each look frightening, standing still seems a reasonable course of action.
I keep saying, “if only I knew what direction things might take at work…” but really, that is just a part of standing still. A friend of mine, and former coworker, recently told me that getting laid off was the best possible thing that could have happened to her. It forced her to take action, pick a path, and follow it. And she’s thriving.
But, there seems to be no likelihood of my being laid off and even considering walking away from a stable, long-term job with benefits brings on massive guilt in the current job market. It’s like I feel like I owe it to every unemployed/underemployed friend to stay put.
Every couple of weeks, Shawn asks me, “What do you REALLY want to do?” and I have two answers: “I don’t know,” and the somewhat more truthful, “not much.” It’s not that I want inaction, it’s that I honestly feel paralyzed, unmotivated, and guilty.
I don’t know how to fix it
I could push myself forward but I don’t feel strong enough right now — and I can’t even tell if that is just another excuse for inaction.
I do know how you feel. And may I say, that you expressed it very well.i think we put the pressure on ourselves, and therefore create the guilt ourselves. Doing something because you feel guilty not doing it most likely will not be full filling. Most of us work in a job that pays the bills. Not the one we would live to have. No shame in that. No harm trying to change it either.