I've always been a list kind of guy. I like the sense of accomplishment that comes with crossing things out. As an actor, designer and producer my days fill with inventory. On my desk. Phone. Calendar. Moleskine notebooks cloud my life with tasks galore. From personal and professional, to down-right random...anyone else need a daily reminder to drink more water? Bueller?
As the lists grow, my motivation to tackle them shrinks. My goals become burdens and weeks can pass with little to show for.
Amongst the Post-it piles lay one of the most daunting tasks:revamp my website
For the past year or so I've been stuck in this creative-limbo unsure how to combat this challenge.
Why a 'challenge' you ask? I've never been a fan of doing things for myself...I know, how altruistic (rolls eyes at use of big word). But isn't that the case for most of us? As doers and makers we find it easy to follow thru and get shit done when the content at hand is not our own, but the second we have to write our own bio, design our own logo or cut our own demo reel, we take an immediate back seat and push it off until later.
Maybe it's my perfectionist mindset or the thrill of procrastinating until the 11th hour, but creating your own content is hard. Putting yourself out there is hard.
For months I mulled over every little detail of what my website could be. If it wasn't perfect, it wasn't ready to be seen, I would say. But when is anything really complete, let alone perfect? Instead of embracing the process and actually allowing myself to organically create my website, I enabled fear of perfection, or lack there of to hinder my ability to showcase my work.
So what changed? What inspired the shift? I realized i needed to stop talking about it, and...
JUST. DO. IT.
I said 'screw you' to that little voice called self-doubt and wrote a brief bio, uploaded my resume, collected a few images and in less that 2 hours I had my website.
Is it perfect? Probably not. But it's something. And I'll take that over nothing any day.
From here on out, I am committing to this mantra. I will not only write things down, but I will set tangible goals, do less, more often and no longer care whether something is perfect or complete.
First step? My journal entries. Each week, I will post on one of the following categories:
- BEHIND THE SCENES
Tidbits from the other side of the lens
- THOUGHTS
Industry ramblings + personal reflection
- SHAMELESS PLUG
Promotion of work I love, whether I'm involved or not
- RESOURCES
Industry related tidbits I find most helpful
Here's to holding myself accountable and getting it done!
– Matthew
