Iain K. MacLeod

June 9, 2023

Creative Self-help

Thoughts and habits not conducive to the work: 

  • Believing you’re not good enough.
  • Feeling you don’t have the energy it takes.
  • Mistaking adopted rules for absolute truths.
  • Not wanting to do the work (laziness).
  • Not taking the work to its highest expression (settling).
  • Having goals so ambitious that you can’t begin.
  • Thinking you can only do your best work in certain conditions.
  • Requiring specific tools or equipment to do the work.
  • Abandoning a project as soon as it gets difficult.
  • Feeling like you need permission to start or move forward.
  • Letting a perceived need for funding, equipment, or support get in the way.
  • Having too many ideas and not knowing where to start.
  • Never finishing projects.
  • Blaming circumstances or other people for interfering with your process.
  • Romanticizing negative behaviors or addictions.
  • Believing a certain mood or state is necessary to do your best work.
  • Prioritizing other activities and responsibilities over your commitment to making art.
  • Distractibility and procrastination.
  • Impatience.
  • Thinking anything that’s out of your control is in your way.

About Iain K. MacLeod

He/Him | Paid Worker. Unremarkable Hobbyist. Occasional Friend. Full-time Dad. Great-great-great-grandnephew of Angus “Giant” MacAskill. Worked skateboard check at 1994 Gobblefest in Cape Breton. Based in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada. aka Boost Ventilator. For more info…