#013 - Putting Myself on the Hook

Paddling vigorously without moving forward

Jul 08, 2021

This is Slow Cooked, a collection of weekly musings, ongoing projects, and the media I’m consuming; delivered every Thursday.

What’s cooking

I’ve always found it hard to separate my professional life from my personal life. Especially when my happiness is tied up in the work I’m putting out.

Which I realise is unhealthy and entirely unsustainable.

This often leads to an endless loop where displeasure at work influences how I feel, which then affects my levels of productivity, and so on…

In combatting this, two months ago, I wrote about the strategies that have helped affect change in my personal life. They’ve allowed me to land in a pocket of creative flow more often, more consistently, and with greater ease.

But in the past two weeks, they’ve been failing me. Or rather I’ve failed to act on them. I’ve been behind on my reading, have spent too much time on devices, and have been ignoring the cues that lead to negative feelings.

Although constant rejection — in the multiple forms it takes, be it potential clients falling through or work being hard to come by, especially in the current climate; is inextricably linked to the kind of work I do.

It doesn’t make it any easier to deal with.

It’s the feeling of paddling vigorously without moving forward.

Part of me knows that I just need to stick with it and if I trust the process, results will follow. And that the highs and lows are normal, however demoralising the lows are.

But this cyclical feeling of dejection that filters through to my everyday, shouldn’t be.

I keep coming back to this statement from Seth Godin’s, ‘The Practice’ —

“Your work is too important to be left to how you feel today.”

I don’t expect there to be a silver bullet that will help solve this.

But I am curious to know what strategies you employ that help you out of a rut?

Are you able to detach your professional life from your personal life? And if so, how have you gone about doing it?

In writing this newsletter, I am accountable to myself to put it out every week. So in sharing this with you, I am putting myself on the hook — to dig myself out of a hole of my own creation.

Feel free to reply to this email, I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. Or leave a comment.

What I’m reading

‘Somewhere Totally Else’ by Hans Ulrich Obrist

‘The Practice: Shipping Creative Work’ by Seth Godin

What I’m listening to

Adam Grant — Design Matters with Debbie Millman

An excellent conversation between Adam Grant and Debbie Millman about how if we have the curiosity to reconsider our beliefs/assumptions of the world, we can reinvent ourselves. His book, ‘Think Again’ is in my reading queue.

Thank you

As always, thank you taking the time out of your day to read this.

With Slow Cooked, I'm trying to build a community of sorts. So, it would mean a lot to me if you'd share this with others who you think would be interested in it too! Every little helps.

Talk soon,

Vihan Shah