You Don't NEED All the Answers, Instead...

You Need Small Consistent Action

You NEED small consistent action.

I am a recovering information junkie. I think most people can relate to this in some capacity because it is almost impossible to escape the firehose of information that is readily available. All you have to do is turn on the Google nozzle and you get flooded with opinions and how-tos. I’m not saying that these things are bad, but it is pretty easy to feel like you don’t have all the answers and that you can’t move forward until you “do more research" because that listicle video thumbnail told you so.

This was me, and if I’m being honest it still is in many regards (like I said I’m a recovering info addict). I didn’t know how to start or run a business or do marketing not to mention what kind of business or niche I wanted to be in. There were many things I didn’t know (and still don’t), but rather than take one action everyday to get to my goal, I instead did more research and “planning”. I was stuck in that all the time and then I would make these big ambitious goals and when those plans flopped I would be deflated, defeated, and then resume the cycle of more research because I must have missed something.

Now I could sit here and be all “whoa is me” about not taking action sooner or not getting my act together. Honestly, I am glad that I went through all that muck because it gives me perspective and humility to finally say: I don’t know what the heck I’m doing! Admitting this to myself, I think, is the first step in becoming someone who creates and takes action instead of consuming and doing absolutely nothing with that information. Once I admitted that, I then asked myself a simple question:

What is one small thing that I can do today that will get me closer to whatever I want to achieve?

In this case I wanted to be more consistent in creating something everyday. I was very inconsistent because I was too busy either researching or straight up delaying through mindless entertainment and distraction. I’ve talked about this in my newsletter (subscribe below), that the best thing for me to do was to post a drawing everyday. 55 days in and I can say that I feel really good about my direction so far. I have managed to find a style and way of working that I like, I have felt more free to experiment and post bad drawings just to get in the habit of showing my work, and I am slowly growing my business and work as an illustrator and artist.

Another example is my website. At the time of writing this my site is pretty bare bones. I have one product (hoping to add more today…fingers crossed), I have a few blog posts, and one current project up in my portfolio. I have other work that I could put up there, but they are kind of all over the place in terms of style and theme and were mostly experiments that I am probably going to keep. The point is that my website is FAR from perfect. I pulled the trigger on getting a squarespace site because of the ease of use and reliability of the service. It has been so easy to just open up a new blog post and post it with my drawings and my thoughts (No matter how imperfect). My goal is to make small adjustments over time, and before I know it the site will be teaming with brilliant creations and a frequently updated blog that will hopefully help others who stumble into my corner of the web.

So how about you? What are you avoiding by researching? What is one thing that you can do everyday to move the needle toward that thing that want? Once you have it, go do it.

K. Bye.