Truth be told, I had trouble digging up the drive to write this particular blog. This week has been difficult at my day job, requiring me to work an extra day the last two weeks. I also have a kid and stay-at-home wife. With neither of us having family nearby, both of us have difficulty having a pure day off, so occasionally, she runs off to have a day away from our daughter. Today was one of those days. So, here I sit, catching up to a show on Netflix after a six day work week and my one day off spent with a child recovering from a sniffy nose.
It was tough stopping the episode to write a blog. As silly as that sounds, it was. It’d be so easy to just tune out and finally get some “me” time. I had to just take a step back and realize not only did I need to get this article done, I really did want to. As I’ve stated in my first blog, it’s really important to stay consistent with your content in order to grab attention of an authentic audience, but as I also stated in that article, I needed some time to just think about where I was with the campaign – and everything really.
Normally, I’m a really optimistic guy. I try to think about what can be and strive for that. It helps my creative momentum to strive for what can be. However, with this kickstarter campaign, I’ve been forcing myself to be pessimistic. I’ve been telling myself “this is probably not going to fund.” Not because I actually believe that or any neurotic reason (though trust me, I’m not without my anxieties), but because I have been riding off of the motivation that this project will fail – if I don’t put my all into it. If I don’t “leave it all on the field,” than there’s a chance the project – and I – will fail.
I’ve been riding that pessimism for the last two weeks to get me going, and it’s worked. Today, though, the pessimism wasn’t enough. I almost collapsed back into the loving arms of Netflix to just check out, letting the pessimism ride over me when something in me flipped the switch, allowing myself to be optimistic about the project.
“What if this succeeds?”
Motivation is a capricious thing sometimes. If you had a hard day, it’s sometimes just as hard to do what you need to do. Even on good days, I sometimes feel I can take the rest of the day off cause things are all good. For me, my motivation truly lies not in the pessimism or optimism, but in that goal of seeing my dream, whatever project it might be, come to life. At that point the optimism and pessimism are basically just a carrot and stick: “think of how great it’ll be when you finish this” and “it will never get finished if you don’t get to work!”
I don’t know what motivates you. It would take more than a 650 word blog post to find that out. I can, however, tell you that once I have that motivation, I ride it hard. I try to put reminders everywhere that’ll push me that harder. All I can say is look for that motivation, it’ll come to you organically or from effort, but once you have it, figure out what triggers it. Nurture it, because it’s how we get our projects done.
The Screech Dragon kickstarter campaign for Loaded Dice launches next weeks, so if you get a chance, head on over to our website and sign up for our mailing list! Thanks, as always, for reading.
Screech Dragon Studios 