Your life’s portfolio is only as good as the projects you actually complete. The worst thing you can do is start things but never complete them. For instance, you might start writing a book on a random day, create a sketch the next day, and try creating an ad the following day.
If you do all of these things and expect them to miraculously add up to some sort of creative portfolio, then you are heavily mistaken. In other words, you are laying the bricks of thousands of different houses and expecting a villa to appear, which is not going to happen.
Focus on One Project at a Time
If you complete one project first instead of putting your energy into the various projects scattered here and there, you will see that you can only complete projects if you give each one of the projects your undivided attention—one after the other.
The more focused you are on completing one project, the more projects you can finish in the future. You might want to think of it as a motivating cycle because completing a project is just another skill that you can refine and step up in life.
Suppose you want to tick off the goal of writing a book from your list of life goals; you cannot tick the box unless you have actually completed the book. It all starts with having an excellent book idea, creating an outline, and working every day on your first draft until it is completed.
After the completed draft, you will want to edit it yourself a few times before you hire a professional editor and proofreader to apply their skills to your manuscript. Once you feel confident about your book, you can then prepare a query letter and pitch to a dozen literary agents, such as Canadian literary agents, that is, if you reside in Canada, and try to land a great book deal. However, you also have the option of self-publishing, which won’t take you as much time as traditional publishing; however, you will be investing all the money yourself.
Nonetheless, you get the point. Only after you have fully focused on and completed a single project can you move on to the next project. So, completing a project is a skill, and it is addictive as the reward is enormous—depending on the project and how much value it holds in your life.
Once you have completed one project, you will get the dopamine boost, and you will want to work on the next project to feel a sense of fulfillment after completing that, too. This way, the cycle will never end, and your portfolio will keep growing.
Understand Why You Procrastinate:
There are several reasons why you might start a project and never complete it. Instead of completing the project, you might leave it in the middle and start working on another project only to abandon it, too.
Usually, the reasons why you might do so revolve around a lack of self-belief. This aspect is specifically true if you are a perfectionist and cannot take criticism or tolerate the idea of potential failure. Also, you might be getting way more excited about some new idea about a new project, and without a second thought, you might abandon your current project.
Another reason people procrastinate and never complete projects is that they subconsciously don’t like the idea or project enough and believe that they have better things to spend their time on.
Sometimes, we humans are simply scared of other people’s opinion and their judgment of us. For instance, you might have shared your project idea with your partner or friends, who might not have approved the idea, which in turn might have prompted you to abandon the project completely.
Last but not least, another very common reason for procrastinating and not completing the project might be that things are getting hard. Believe us when we tell you that many people want to write a book or become the author of a book, but at least 80% of them quit their writing journey the very moment when things get hard, and they lose their passion.
This aspect takes us to the importance of choosing a project that we are really passionate about; otherwise, you might never finish what you started, which in turn can leave you without a proper portfolio but a history of dozens of unfinished projects.
Accept Bad First Drafts:
If you are working on a book project or you are about to start a book project, you should know that your first book is more likely to suck, especially when it comes to the first draft – you won’t like the first draft for your writing project – and that is totally okay.
Now, this might be a bit of a harsh reality to accept and digest – but – if you are really passionate about your project and about completing it, then you will want to let go of your inner critic and bad farewell to perfectionism because, at this point, your entire focus should be on getting things done instead of getting things perfectly done.
Remember that the blank page in your Google Doc might appear intimidating at first, but as soon it starts filling up one day after the other, you will want to enjoy the process and the subsequent progress. If you are writing a book, you might want to set aside two hours every day where you do nothing but focus on the project at hand.
You might have days when you spend much less time working on the draft, but even if it is half a page, it is still progress and better than giving up altogether and doing nothing. Your focus should be on simply doing it, even if it comprises writing a bad book as your first book in life. When you let go of perfectionism, your goal will seem more achievable, and you are less likely to abandon it.
