The most demanding type of execution is following through on a project, long after the mood has passed, long after you’ve run out of steam, and long after your inspiration reserves have been tapped out.
It sucks. You reach that dreaded point where you can’t even conceptualize how the hell you’re going to muster the momentum to catapult yourself out.
During preproduction of my animated folk rock opera, we ended up getting delayed nearly six months before officially starting the project, thanks to equipment malfunctions, scheduling conflicts and a few other unforeseen wrinkles.
It really started to infuriate me. Anything that delayed me from moving the project forward felt like a conspiracy against my greatness. There was a sad little death of hope and optimism that happened every time another unforeseen delay went down.
But over time, the lesson became abundantly clear.
Just because your project has been derailed, doesn’t mean it has to die on the vine. Just because your idea has its delays and disruptions, doesn’t mean it has to become a monument to a rare burst of creative enthusiasm.
We’re not perpetual motion machines, we’re human. We expect to lose momentum. We expect that there will be discouragements, delays, distractions, derailments and disappointments.
And when it inevitably happens, we don’t beat ourselves up, we simply start again. We don’t let our fleeing sense of impatience give way, we simply start again. And we don’t distort our work by not allowing it proper timing, we simply start again.
Trusting that we will reengage with the original joy that got us here in the first place. And that will be enough fuel to carry us to completion.
Grazer said it best in his book about curiosity conversations:
Perseverance is the capacity to calmly separate yourself from what’s being done to you.
Remember, everything takes longer than you think it will. You can’t move through anything faster than the hands of the clock will allow. But if you learn to trust the tempo of your own timing, there’s no reason you won’t be able to follow through.
LET ME ASK YA THIS…
How are you bolstering your sense of being in the right place at the right time?
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Scott Ginsberg
That Guy with the Nametag
Author. Speaker. Strategist. Inventor. Filmmaker. Publisher. Songwriter.
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