I have updated all of my Creative Work Problems Comics Posts on this blog!
I uploaded them for a while to Instagram and my blog as solo posts. When I did them, I mostly just posted the comic itself, and rarely some more information about it. Well, now I’ve updated them all and added additional help and knowledge for almost every topic. I’ve also updated the name of the post so that it’s no longer named after the comic. Each topic is now more easily identifiable by the title of the post. You can now search the hell out of this site if you are looking for a topic you need help with.
I have listed below every post I have made with these comics in it. So if you’re interested in more information about a topic you see at the bottom of the list, don’t hesitate to go there.
Sometimes we wish that we are already in our ideal future. That we have already achieved our dreams. We dream about how this day would be in a distant time. How we would finally do what we have longed for. How we could be. Our better selves. We revel in this moment until we fall back into the here and now. After this, our brief future dream embeds itself back into the background of our minds.
This daydream of our desired being can help us. By making it real before we work on what will bring that future closer. Before you start your creative work, imagine what it would be like. To be that person. No, you will BE that person as soon as you start working. This person is what you always wanted to be: Disciplined, hardworking, less perfect, or even someone who knows how important breaks are. It is your choice what you will be in your future.
All you have to do is this: Start a ritual you do before you start working if you don’t already. For example, I have an hourglass that I turn over as soon as I start working. Imagine that you are that future person as soon as you finish this ritual. While doing this, imagine what this person does differently than the present you. What makes them better? You will be like your future self and work the way you always wanted until you are done with your work and return to the present.
Try it out and play this future role of you. You will perform better and get better. With this method, the chances of fulfilling your dream are getting closer. And suddenly your ideal future is here without you even realizing it.
Sources
Herman, T. (2019). The Alter Ego Effect: The Power of Secret Identities to Transform Your Life. Harper Business.
Screw annual resolutions! I have a better solution for you, which I have been doing for several years now. You destroy bad habits with it or form good habits that stay. Whether it’s creative habits or you just want to get up earlier. I’ll give you a foolproof guide on how to do it.
Change your Habits with a Challenge
I present to you “The Habit Challenge”! This is a challenge where you try to change your habits every month. Why only one month? Because that is often enough. You always hear about the 66-day rule to form a habit but fuck that. If it doesn’t work after a month, keep going for another month. And another month. Until it just works.
Do only one challenge and change only one habit! Anything else will overwhelm you, and you’ll give up anyway. You have 12 months in a year. Even if you take 2 months for each habit, you will have changed 6 in one year.
Make a physical note or use an app for your progress. Stick a homemade calendar on the wall where you cross off what you have done each day. On the piece of paper, write the challenge itself. Maybe also some information and tips.
This is how my challenge calendar always looks like. See below how I mark the boxes.
Now and then, you’ll see that the challenge doesn’t work. Maybe one that fails badly. Shit happens. Change it or make a new challenge. If it is important to you, keep doing it to beat the habit into you.
“Oh no, the month has already started, I can’t do the challenge now.” Stop right there! Hear this: You can start right now! It will be just a 2-week challenge to practice. Or you do your challenges from mid-month to mid-month. No one is forcing you to go by the traditional calendar. Make your own damn calendar!
The Habit Challenge – A Step-by-Step Guide
Step 1:
Firstly, write down what habits you want or want to banish from your life. Maybe how to change your perfectionism.
Plan the challenge, what exactly you want to do, and when precisely. Make it tangible! A challenge of mine a few years ago was to get up at 6 am, read for half an hour, and be ready to start working early. If you know you can’t do something, you can just start with the 5-minute rule: Do it for only 5 minutes. You can always add more time later.
Step 2:
Then take a piece of paper and draw 31 squares on it. Write the title of the challenge and what you want to do (as said, define it clearly). Put some tips and info’s on it if you feel like it. And anything else too! Let your creativity run wild.
Step 3:
Now do the challenge!
I use these marks on my boxes to get a clear vision of how my month went.
Step 4:
After a month (or whenever you want), sum up and analyze the whole thing.
Here is a list of questions you can ask yourself:
Did it not work? What exactly didn’t work? What patterns do you see in this failure? Can you do something else? Do I just have to keep going? Can someone help me?
Did it work? How did you do it? Can you do something the same way for your next challenge? What did you do better than the last time?
Analyze your failure and your success in detail. Sometimes one part of your habit worked better than another. Figure it out! Only through such a breakdown can you approach the next month better. It took me a few tries to form my perfect morning routine. To know what works and what doesn’t, I had to check and do my challenge again and again.
Perfectionism can be good! But you need the right one, because there are two different types: Adaptive and Maladaptive Perfectionism. As an adaptive perfectionist (the better type of perfectionism), you have high-performance expectations but allow yourself small mistakes for the greater good. You have high standards and are more critical of your work to achieve good results. The best part about adaptive perfectionism is that creativity is maximized in people with moderately high levels of this type of perfectionism.
What is Maladaptive Perfectionism?
Maladaptive perfectionists (the type of perfectionism to avoid) are more likely to procrastinate because they try to avoid mistakes. They are more concerned about making mistakes and achieving high standards. They believe that they cannot make mistakes or do bad work because they want perfect results. As a result, maladaptive perfectionism hurts your performance!
You can have both types in different situations and to different degrees. The goal here is to try to use the adaptive one to your advantage and avoid the maladaptive one. I’ll show you four steps to move from maladaptive to adaptive perfectionism.
How to go from a Maladaptive to an Adaptive Perfectionism in 4 steps.
➡ Step 1: Identify your type of perfectionism and when it occurs
If you struggle with perfectionism, you probably already have the maladaptive type in the area where you experience this negative perfectionism. You probably wouldn’t consider it bad if it were the adaptive type. Try to find out why. Is there an area of your creative life where you allow yourself to make mistakes? If so, why? Find out where you struggle the most and where you want to be perfect but struggle less. The better you can identify your problems when they occur and how you have dealt with them in the past, the better you can change yourself.
Once you have done this, the next step is to try to change your maladaptive perfectionism into an adaptive one.
➡Step 2: Be aware of the challenging process and obstacles.
Fixing perfectionism itself is difficult, if not impossible. However, we can change how we react to these stressful experiences to reduce the negative effects. To do this, we need to change the self-criticism in us. We must begin to allow ourselves to make mistakes.
There will be obstacles and setbacks in this process of change. If you have ever tried to change, you know this. A bad day, something not working, not seeing progress, and much more can set you back to zero. Try to visualize the risks that could come your way to free yourself from your bad perfectionism. Lie down, close your eyes, and imagine how you can (and probably will) fail. Figure out in your mind’s eye how you are going to get over those failures. If you do this, you will be ready when the negative environment tries to stop you in the future!
To allow mistakes and to get better over obstacles and setbacks, we also need to change our mindset. It is not easy and it takes time, but it works. So be aware of the challenging process that awaits you.
➡ Step 3: Change your mindset.
There is a fixed mindset and a growth mindset. A fixed mindset is the belief that you can’t change. A growth mindset is the belief that skills are qualities that can be developed. A person with a growth mindset is allowed to make mistakes in order to get better.
Position yourself in a growth mindset. Just knowing that it exists will get you there. Then allow yourself to go out and fail. Try it actively. Do something where you have a bad case of maladaptive perfectionism and just make mistakes. Learn it, train your mindset. Figure out what you can learn from the mistakes you make. How can you improve? Remember that every mistake you make will make you much better than not making any mistakes at all.
Know that you can change this mindset and always remember this when you have problems with your perfectionism.
It would help if you had clear goals with a detailed plan of how you want to change. Write it down and put it where you can see it. Write down your “Why“! Why do you want to change? If you change, what will be better? Visualize how you will succeed and what benefits you will have. Imagine this just like the bad things from step 2. How will you feel if you succeed? What does it look like? Do this regularly and it will motivate you to change for the better.
If you don’t write your goals down, you’ll either forget them or not take them seriously. So don’t skip this step! It’s one of the easiest things to do and won’t take much time, although it has a big impact.
➡ Step 5: Build a habit!
This one right here is the cauldron of the whole process. The most important step! If you don’t cook this stuff every day, nothing will happen. Building habits is such a good way to change yourself. Yes, the process is long and it will take time. But you are getting older anyway. So why not change while you are on the road? To build a habit we use the way Charles Duhigg writes in his book “The Power of Habit“. A habit is made up of these three things: Cue ➡ Routine ➡ Reward. We break them down in our case of perfectionism.
Cue
The cue is when your perfectionism kicks in and prevents you from being productive. You don’t have to do anything if it’s adaptive perfectionism. Remember, this is the good kind! Just let it be. If you just can’t work, then it’s the bad kind of perfectionism, and we’ll use that as a cue for our new habit. So try to find those cues when your bad perfectionism strikes.
Routine
Usually, your routine was different. You gave up or got emotional about your creative work. Now we use what we learned in the previous steps: Why did maladaptive perfectionism strike you? Why isn’t it the adaptive kind? Can I change this? Did I make a mistake? Can I learn from it? Tell yourself that the way you feel right now is okay. That what you are doing is good. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Small mistakes are OK to get good results! This is where the growth mindset we talked about in Step 3 comes in!
Reward
The reward will be that you will feel better. That you can finish your work, even if you feel like you couldn’t finish it. Maybe you reward yourself with the feeling that you have overcome your maladaptive perfectionism and replaced it with an adaptive one. You can even experiment with other rewards, like taking a break or getting a nice cup of coffee or tea. See what works best for you.
Something more: Craving
There is also the craving that drives the habit. You will crave the rewards, and therefore you will do the habit automatically. So if you reward yourself with good things (like feeling better), then you will use that habit without hesitation when maladaptive perfectionism strikes!
Conclusion
If you use these steps, there is a chance that you will find a way out of the deep hole of maladaptive perfectionism. But remember, this is going to take a long time to fix. If you’re afraid it’s going to take too long, here’s a tip: It is always going to take a long time. There is no way around it. No shortcuts. That’s why it’s important to start NOW!
Sources
Wigert, B., Reiter-Palmon, R., Kaufman, J. C., & Silvia, P. J. (2012). Perfectionism: The good, the bad, and the creative. Journal of Research in Personality, 46(6), 775–779. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2012.08.007
Yeager, D. S., & Dweck, C. S. (2012). Mindsets That Promote Resilience: When Students Believe That Personal Characteristics Can Be Developed. Educational Psychologist, 47(4), 302–314. https://doi.org/10.1080/00461520.2012.722805
Duhigg, C. (2012). The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business(1 edition). Random House.
Check out Mindset by Carol S. Dweck for more info about this topic. Even knowing about the good (growth) mindset puts you in the right place to get you in the right direction.
If you don’t want to read a whole book about it, don’t worry. Here are some action steps you can take right now to change your mindset.
Know yourself Start by noticing when you think, “I’m just not good at this”. Recognize those moments and try to change them. Instead of thinking you can’t tell yourself you can learn with some effort.
Positive Vibes Only When your inner voice starts to be all negative, challenge it. Change those “I can’t” thoughts to “I can do this with some practice” or “Mistakes help me get better”.
Accept the challenge Embrace challenges like they’re your new best friend! Don’t see them as obstacles: see them as opportunities to improve your skills and intelligence.
Criticism is good Criticism isn’t your enemy. It’s your guide to a better self. Think of it as helpful feedback that can make you better. Use it as a map for your personal development journey.
Effort is Everything It’s not just about the final result. The effort you put in is everything. The more you hustle and put in the work, the more progress you’ll see.
Celebrate the victories Stop obsessing about the big win. Celebrate the small wins, the small improvements. Every step forward is a win in the game of a positive mindset.
Bounce Back: Failures and setbacks happen – that’s good. Instead of freaking out, see them as opportunities to learn and bounce back stronger. Remember that setbacks are just pit stops on your creative journey.
Keep It Curious Stay curious and keep the love of creativity alive. Try new things, explore random things, and be open to absorbing knowledge from all kinds of places.
