Have you ever felt stuck?
Have you felt a desire to create a fantastic piece of work, only to find yourself desperately bashing your head against your desk because nothing was coming out?
Yes, I have felt that too.
To be honest, I have been struggling to write this article for a long time. Oh, the irony.
But feeling stuck is part of creating a business. It’s not a sign that you should drop everything and hide under the bed because you won’t be able to deliver to your audience.
In reality, it’s a sign that you care about what you are doing, and that’s why you are setting your aims too high.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying you should lower the quality of what you do for your business to deliver something to your audience.
What I’m saying is that the creation process is messy.
Take me as an example. Whenever I write an article I start with a rough idea of what I want to say. But the first draft is always a mess, it makes no sense at all, it has comments, spelling mistakes and usually, I feel like I should throw it away and start again.
But if I don’t start with that messy first draft, I will never be able to publish an article.
The first part of any creative process is to push the idea forward, to get it out of your head to have a better look at it.
It doesn’t matter if you are writing, designing or creating a product for your business, it all looks horrible at the beginning, and that’s ok because this first version will never reach your audience. It’s only for you to look at it and start molding it into something better.
So the next time you feel stuck, give yourself permission to create your most horrible work and to have crazy ideas that don’t make business sense. Because what you are doing is overcoming your perfectionism and your fear of failure.
You are taking a stand and not procrastinating on it.
You are accepting that in the end, creating something that is truly valuable for your audience is about doing the work when you find it hard.
And once you have that horrible piece of work in front of you, take the time to pour all your love into it. Shape it gently until it becomes something you want to show to your audience.
You will soon realize that what started as a complete mess in your head, now is aligned with your values and it has reached that high standard that you wanted to achieve in the first place.
Being stuck is ok, and is part of creating a business that aligns with you. That alignment is what brings the right people to you. It’s what makes you grow.
Your business is a labor of love, and sometimes it’s not as straightforward as you would like, but everything you create for your audience has a small part of you in it. So be proud of it, even if you were feeling stuck for weeks.