I resonate with Stephen Covey’s thought quoted here. I did, after all, name my coaching work “breakTHROUGH Creativity Coaching” and I do love the excitement of shifting into a new paradigm. I also honor, however, the small behaviors of making headway; for me, they often provide the rich fertile bed from which the quantum leaps will spring.

II. Energy Management: Translations from the Psych Research Lab, the Board Room and the Shrink’s Couch
Fiore, Neil. The Now Habit: A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination and Enjoying Guilt-Free Play. 2007.
Fiore treats procrastination as I like to – as a code word for a host of underlying problems yet to be discovered. He presents a holistic program for confronting “perfectionism, fear of failure and success, indecisiveness, (and) imbalance of work and play.”

Not that he’s shy on practical tools. One of my favorites is the “Unschedule” where you schedule in only your fun and regular life activities. Doing this highlights the reality of how little time you have left for those projects you seem to have trouble getting to. In trying this out, I discovered an unexpected imbalance of work and play during the course of week; making simple changes quickly improved my sense of steady progress. Another of his ideas is to not count anything less than 30 minutes as good project work. Of course, if you stop at the art store on the way to pick up the kids, it’s a useful task that supports your art. What he’s suggesting is that aiming for a minimum of 30 minutes helps you settle in to a work session more quickly.

Although he does not focus on creativity directly, I consider him one of the better guides for systematically working through your particular procrastination patterns.
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III. Friends in Print: When you feel like reading
Pressfield, Steven. The War of Art. Break Through Blocks and Win your Inner Creative Battles. 2007.

Normally, I wouldn’t be recommending any resource that sets you up to be at war, but Pressman’s no-nonsense approach is so honest that he’s worth listening to.

He is a writer who has paid his dues as a novelist and screenwriter and talks not about procrastination but about resistance.  He sees resistance is a natural reaction to sustained effort and to all the underlying fears that can accompany creating. His vote for the “mother of all fears”, is Fear That We Will Succeed, because it may lead to being cast out from the tribes we come from. His prediction: “Yeah, we lose friends. But we find friends too, in places we never thought to look. And they’re better friends, truer friends. And we’re better and truer to them.” Does that lessen your fears?

IV. Creative Links
www.ndoylefineart.com/artmaking.html
For some lovely thoughts on how learning to make visual art can be a slow, lifelong process, read here. Nancy Doyle shares freely of her ideas and experience.  If you click to her home page, she also includes free paragraphs on detailed aspects of art instruction, painting techniques and artists’ profiles. Her piece on ‘Getting Discouraged’ is one of those well-written messages that recently ended up being forwarded from artist to artist, a spontaneous recommendation in itself.

V. E-mail changes. To change your e-mail address, subscribe, or unsubscribe please e-mail connect@dianereardon.com. If you use a spam filter, please add this e-mail address to your list of approved senders. This material is included on the breakTHROUGH Creativity Coaching (website www.dianereardon.com) All material is copyrighted ©, 31 May 2008, Diane Reardon. All rights reserved. Visit the website for back issues and details on scheduling a complimentary one-hour coaching session.
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