Pro-create (*crastinate) - 20
Procrastinate – Delay or postpone action; put off doing something.
Since finishing university (one year later), I’ve been telling myself that I’ve been boosting my creativity and have been consistent with my ideas and projects. But the reality is that I’ve been procrastinating for a very long time and have lacked the motivation as an artist. It’s interesting that I was much more motivated during my studies, even though I was stressing about prioritising my assignments. Yet I’ve now had the pressure away from my deadlines and the freedom to commit to creative work, but it suddenly feels like the passion has died.
There’s a lot of factors to think about, in regards to this. Back at university, I was much more disciplined with my learning and I was surrounded by inspiration which gave me any excuse to go on a photoshoot or edit some photos. It felt like a rewarding experience as I did is because I enjoyed it and it was a form of escapism from everything else.
But since I finished, I had found myself overwhelmed with the cycle of work-life which started off as a reason for me not focusing on anything else. By the time it came to my days off, I was too mentally exhausted to even bother thinking about doing anything stimulating at all. I would rarely go out with my camera to take photos because my excuses were that I was too tired or I would just blame it on the weather. I wouldn’t make the time to edit any of my photos and footage from previous shoots, despite the fact that I had plenty of content to go through. Even small things like reading a book, going for a walk or even watching something seemed like a huge task for me.
As time went by, I just stopped feeling like I wanted to do any of these things as I wasn’t in the right mind frame to. Of course, this pandemic which we have been living in has also had another impact on the way we all live. Deep down I wanted to just get back into it, but I couldn’t force the motivation. One thing I’ve noticed is that if I’m not motivated about something, it reflects truly through my work. I would sometimes open up my photos on Adobe Photoshop just to give editing a try, and then I would close the application down after 10 minutes of me feeling like my result was rubbish.
I would do the same with old video footage by trying to create some sort of story, only to feel that the editing style was looking too basic to complete. I wanted my creative work to be great and not just Ok, which is why I wouldn’t bother completing a lot of it. I guess it was an insecurity that I had (still sometimes have) as an artist that if it’s not great; then what’s the point?
So for a while I’ve been experiencing ‘creative block’ and I really miss the days where the passion was just there and I didn’t feel like I had to try too hard. I’ve learned to deal with it better now by allowing myself to embrace the feeling rather than fighting it. I’ve realised that it’s pretty normal for everyone and even the greatest artists have experienced it at some point in their life. I also felt a bit more at ease when I started prioritising my mental health a bit more. I now understand that removing that pressure for constantly being creative makes it seem like less of a burden and something to look forward to instead.
Since then I’ve started to make more of an effort to put more time into creating things. I have got loads of ideas for different projects which I want to start on, but I don’t want to overwhelm myself by trying to do them all at once, only to leave me frustrated. I’m not as consistent as I used to be and I’m ok with that. The important thing is that I take baby steps to get back into the flow of things InShaAllah (God willing).
“My success can only come from Allah. In him I trust, and unto him I look” – Quran (11.88)
