Hi. Welcome. Have a seat. Let me tell you a tale of great aspirations and intense procrastination.
In 2006, I started my own website. In 2010, I started it again. And again in 2012. Mid-2015. And earlier in 2017. But you won't find them if you look. You won't find much of me, either.
What happened?
In the 1990s, I had dozens of my own websites. I was a dial-up-fuelled script kiddy in the heady days of LiveJournal, ICQ, MSN, AOL, IRC and GeoCities, when HTML was just HTML without a version number after it, and no one went by their real name. I designed and coded them, put my art on them, and wrote stuff - personal stuff - and tweaked them in infinite iteration and pixel-by-pixel care. They were small personal sites but I loved them and I loved having a platform for building and sharing them with others.
Until the internets went mainstream, I graduated from university and shit got real. I had to adult now. Which meant caring about my professional reputation. And people knew who you were on the web. Which meant less freedom and security behind online personas. And then - on a completely unrelated but coincidental course - I managed to layer an anxiety disorder over the top of my natural introversion. Social media became anathema and I was unable to get my actions to line up with my aspirations.
Building these websites was like growing older, gaining weight and then trying over and over and over again to take it off to little avail. It should have been doable. But it was hard. And I couldn't. Those of you familiar with imposter syndrome and the procrastination monster
In 2012, I wrote a post titled The Horror of the First Draft referencing a tweet made by Alain de Botton, articulating in detail my self- and situational-analysis of this struggle. I had finally understood the 'why' behind my inability to 'put myself out there', but it (evidently) didn't help me to actually do it.
On my pathway to becoming an accredited and qualified organisational coach, one thing I've learned is that we don't change without compelling reasons. And another thing i've learned is that for me (and many with perfectionist traits), procrastination is fear.
Cool story, grandma. What's your point?
You're right. This tale is not for you. And I'm not here to give you something. Yet.
This particular tale is for me. To face the fear (again) and sustain the change. But this is not a trick. There are many others who struggle with the same kinds of things and the more we share our stories of struggle, the greater our collective chance of overcoming those struggles. And in letting this tale be told, I hope to share a great many more which add value to your life.
So stick with me. Because I have no filter, no idea how this is going to go (which is completely ok) and I'm about to kick this 100th draft to 'published'!
Photo credit: Aaron Burden via Unsplash.