An activity I enjoyed and did well has become painfully immobilising. How do I change this? | Australian lifestyle

As a freelancer, I’ve published hundreds of articles over the years, with few writing issues. I was in favor of almost any topic, as long as someone else gave it an assignment. Now my dream scenario has turned into a nightmare. I applied to write my book in my own way and received funding, but at least when I’m not procrastinating, I’m plagued by something that feels like a horror of low grade laundry, Make yet another tea or finish another job.

I read the report about “procrastination as self-harm” and tried to sit down with that feeling. It can reduce me to tears and tremors. I don’t know what I’m afraid of, and how the activities I enjoyed and did well got stuck so painfully – just because I’m doing it for myself .. How can I change this inner attitude and heal my fears?

Eleanor says: If you’re comfortable, many great writers fall into this spiral. Hunter S. Thompson was making an evasive road trip while his desperate editor guessed the route and left a message for the next motel. .. Douglas Adams energetically threw the typewriter through the window on the second floor after the manuscript was due.

The problem is the reason. What does your project represent to you as you look away from it? It can be difficult. It can be boring. Writing a book can be both.

But it may be that you finally got what you wanted. You have made an existential change from an aspirant to a performer.

The transition is not without loss. What was once possible must come down from the realm of imagination and become concrete.Something is lost by learning everything, like the moment you finally saw a monster in a horror movie It’s not. It’s not a cloud of possibilities that is so much fun to dream about. Writing a finite book with an edge and an ending is sad. Even if we get what we want, we mourn the time when all the future is open.

You are also simply not accustomed to getting what you dreamed of. It’s a new role. That includes things that you may feel are not yet allowed. Make a final decision, make a phone call in front of yourself or others, or just take up space.

It’s all about saying that your fears may not be just the fear of failure. Sometimes success is just as scary.

So how do you talk to your fears? It’s a different idea, but I’ll quickly explain for myself why it helped me write a book in three months without throwing my computer out the window.

Don’t talk to fear. You don’t have to soothe it before you can write it. Get started even if you’re afraid – write even if you feel terrible. Think of yourself as a practicing athlete, not as a performer in the final recital. Yes, I feel sick, yes, you are exhausted, yes, you are not doing as well as you think, but you do not stop swimming because of that. I do it when I feel sick.

That will I feel sick; there are days or weeks when the reason for avoiding this task seems to be a good reason to avoid it. However, we already know which of the two ways of feeling miserable (one comes from working and the other coming from avoiding) is more tolerable.

I know that “do it anyway” is frustrating advice. There are useful strategies, such as promising only 100 words. This is the same creative way of standing in the pool for 5 minutes instead of barking to swim 100 laps. These are useful, but they are part of the overall effort to take a look at how you feel and put it in what you are doing. Please do it even though you feel sick.

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