Falling out of love ... with a project
What to do when the blush is off the rose
Today I want to discuss that moment in our creative lives when we fall out of love with a project.
I think of creative projects as entities unto themselves, and as a result, we are in relationships with them.
With projects, like relationships, there is nothing more tortuous than a relationship with unexplored potential.
So if you’re at the threshold, cross it. DIVE IN. Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. You only learn by experience. Be a person who regrets doing not a person who regrets not doing. Etc.
Once you dive in you will, more often than not, experience a consuming, intoxicating honeymoon phase. Filled with NRE (new relationship energy) your project will become your obsession while everything else in your life will take the back seat. Creative energy will be flowing out of you; you’ll be getting loads of work done without effort. In short, it will be bliss.
Until it isn’t.
The rose tinted glasses inevitably come off. The blush wears off the rose.
You find yourself bored with your project. Or frustrated with it. Irritated even. You realise it’s not as perfect as you initially thought. In fact, it’s as flawed and complicated as every other project.
Now, you have found yourself a pivotal crossroads: Quit or Commit?
I say, err on the side of “commit” with a project. Especially if you’ve never finished one, or one like this, before. Fear is powerful and can easily be misread as instinct.
[That being said, I'm a huge advocate for following your instincts. If everything in your gut says, No. And you’ve interrogated this “No” from all angles, and you’re sure it’s not just fear in disguise. Of course, you gotta listen.]
If you stick with your project after the going gets tough, the relationship deepens, enriches, challenges, surprises and provides you with unexpected lessons and growth.
And not matter the outcome, it will be worth it.
I’m now going to invoke a passage from a book by Louis de Bernieres, who eloquently describes the quit or commit conundrum:
“Love is a temporary madness, it erupts like volcanoes and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is.
Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being in love, which any fool can do. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident.
Those that truly love have roots that grow towards each other underground, and, when all the pretty blossoms have fallen from their branches, they find that they are one tree and not two.” – Louis de Bernieres
One final thing to keep in mind, in support of COMMITTING: Unlike a relationship, projects are finite. You’re not staring down the abyss of forever. You’re just following through on a project.
When you’re in the drudgery, ho-hum phase, plodding away at your project, no longer thoroughly convinced of its charms, the important things to remember are:
THIS IS NORMAL -- there is no endless honeymoon (and you’d be insufferable to everyone else in your life if you were in one)
KEEP GOING -- commit to your project with your actions, show up to it daily/regularly.
THIS TOO WILL PASS -- you’re working towards an ending (imposing a public deadline helps)
HAVE FAITH -- there’s a certain amount of blind faith necessary to finish a project. Don’t worry about it being good or bad. Keep the faith. Keep going.
FINISHING FEELS AMAZING -- I had a teacher (Sheldon Rosen) who said, “Give yourself the satisfaction of having finished something” which I had not at that point. His wisdom galvanised me and has lingered for over a decade.
By seeing your current project through to completion, the next time a project gets its hooks in you, you’ll be better equipped for the dance/tussle, and better equipped each time after that.
Wherever you’re at with your creative work -- in the throes of passion, waiting for a love to get its hooks in you or in the hard-work phase -- I'm sending you my admiration, encouragement and love.