Starting something new? How to avoid your new venture becoming a grind

As we embark on a new project, idea or venture, the excitement can quickly wear off when it becomes a daily grind to continue. Here’s how to make your fun new thing sustainable and keep your creativity flowing, writes Steve Glaveski, author, podcaster and CEO of Collective Campus.

Starting something is easy. This is especially true when we’re buoyed on by the optimism bias — that pang of untempered enthusiasm we experience at the outset of a project, where all we can see is victory, and a path devoid of hurdles.

But far too often, once we inevitably run into said hurdles, our enthusiasm wanes, we slow down and we might give up altogether.

This is true of romantic relationships. It is true of business ventures. It is true of diets.

And it is true of creative pursuits.

All work and no play crushes creativity

Recently, I decided to make a late entry into the world of vlogging with my YouTube channel, WorkFlow. Initially, it was a bit of fun, and mostly me riffing enthusiastic about topics I’ve written about — with a very low-fi production.

But after a few weeks, I sought the advice of ‘experts’ in the field, and soon found myself:

• investing in and configuring an expense AV setup
• writing elaborate scripts
• incorporating animations
• hiring a video producer
• hiring a thumbnail creator
• putting together a content calendar

This not only increased the amount of time and cognitive effort several-fold, but it also did something far worse. It made creating content feel like … well, work!

And while I put together about 20 episodes that ticked all of YouTube’s boxes, I soon found myself losing the desire to go on, and dreaded that block in my calendar dedicated to creating said videos.

It wasn’t sustainable. It was becoming a grind.

Making creativity sustainable

I reflected on the objective of the channel, and what really mattered — teaching people how to work better — and I realised that I could do that far better whilst speaking from the hip, than from a carefully rehearsed script.

After all, my audience of mostly entrepreneurs and corporate executives was tuning in to get future of work insights, not champagne comedy or Disney-level animations.

Not only that, but when I riff unhinged, it is fun – and for me, sustainable.

This post originally appeared on steveglaveski.com, you can read the original here.

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