Image by the incomparable Jean “Moebius” Giraud, 1938-2012
One of the key skills of being an independent artist or anyone who works on their own projects is self discipline. The ability to be a bit inflexible with oneself and motivate oneself to do challenging things. To work hard when you’re alone at home surrounded by distractions, or to follow through when you’re tired or feel you deserve a break. I have been doing this for many years and am pretty good at it. In fact at times I am so good that I risk over working and burning out.
This is a hard balance to find. How do you set limits when you love what you do and are in charge of the schedule? For me I do well with momentum and streaks, doing things in a routine ways consistently over periods of time. Every Saturday I do a bit of work on this, every morning I do certain routines. The steadiness and feeling of momentum keeps me going.
But then something happens which blows those things up. Today my son fell on the steps in the train station on the way to school and hurt his leg (it turns out it’s just a bruise, after doctors and xrays, he’s fine). As a result my daily routine and rhythm are totally scrambled. This is a bit scary as I feel like it threatens my momentum and my system that’s been going well lately.
But as much as systems and structure are helpful, we are human and the world is messy. Just as we need to show compassion to others, we also need to show it to ourselves and keep perspective. I didn’t slack off today or choose to disrupt the routine. It’s foolish to cling to a pattern if it’s so brittle that breaking it will disrupt your progress. So here I am, finding balance between internal structure and external chaos and allowing myself a little suppleness, a little flexibility. The trees that can bend and blow in the wind don’t get blown over.
