photo coloured-pencils_zps846f8c33.jpg
[sneak preview: close-up of one of my 1001 idea lists]

Yesterday was the first night in a while I fell right asleep. I did not spend another 2 hours trying to silence my hyperactive brain. I slept so well because of an insight I had that I would like to share with you.

Over the last week I have been working practically non-stop on my newest product. It’s a collection of 1001 ideas, divided into varied categories. Each category is a different list on a separate page. In the past few weeks I finished the brainstorming and selection part of the ideas. Last week, I started photographing a fun background for each separate list of ideas, hence, making them into a collection of high quality A4 prints.

I thought it would take me 3 hours to finish each print: plan, prepare, take and edit the picture, and add all the ideas into it in a visually pleasing way. That way I would be able to finish 3 prints a day, and in 10 days (counting the weekend) I should be done the weekend before Christmas, leaving me a couple of days to think about marketing, launch pictures and writing up posts.

Yeah, I thought wrong.

The thing is, I have been working my butt off, and finishing 3 prints a day is just not feasible. In fact, when I work really hard, finishing 2 is about the maximum that is realistic to accomplish within a day. That is, when I completely ignore my blog in the meantime, tell my sister I can’t talk on the phone because I need to finish taking pictures before daylight is gone, and am a wreck by the time I eat dinner with Joran because I haven’t allowed myself a single moment to breathe during the day, all while being disappointed in myself for once again finishing ‘only one and a half print’ in a whole day.

I mildly underestimated the amount of work it was going to take to finish something with a level of quality that I can be proud of. With mildly I mean greatly.

 photo purple-sequins-hand_zps699b129f.jpg

Why am I telling you all of this?

Well, do you ever feel like you work incredibly hard, yet it’s just not good enough?

You have big dreams. You set high goals for yourself. Often you even make a specific planning for how you are going to accomplish your plans. But what happens if your planning gets muddled? Not because you have been watching funny cat videos on YouTube all day, but just because giving it your all still isn’t enough.

Big goals are great. Big, unrealistic goals are tiresome and demotivating.

When you work on something big that you’ve never done before, it’s often hard to tell in advance how much time it’s going to take. You make a planning to the best of your ability. But when your planning fails, you have two options.

1. You produce what you can in a day at your maximum workload. At the end of each and every day you feel hugely disappointed that you didn’t make your initial target.
2. You alter your expectations. From now on your target is set at a lower, more realistic rate. You still continue to produce the same results at maximum workload. However, now at the end of the day, you feel like you have accomplished a lot and feel good about yourself and your work.

Let me simplify that even more:
1. Do the work. Feel like crap.
2. Do the work. Feel good.

Lower your expectations.

For those of you who read that line with contempt (a.k.a. you’re like me) I will say it again, friendly.

Lower your expectations, please.

 photo pink-sequins_zps2bd9f06b.jpg

You are not a super human. I do believe in your enormous potential. I do believe that you are able to accomplish amazing things that not many people out there will be able to do. But they will take time, lot’s of it. Allow yourself that time.

It can be scary to lower your expectations. You might feel like you are letting yourself down by not living up to your initial goals. But setting huge, unrealistic targets and mindlessly expecting from yourself to accomplish them is just madness.

Just because you want something really bad, doesn’t magically give you more hours in a day.

It doesn’t work like that. (Although I wish it would.)

You need to cut yourself some slack. Seriously. Dividing a huge goal into more realistic sub targets is the very least you can do as an act of kindness towards yourself.

Stop being so hard on yourself. Allow yourself to accomplish the same as you would find realistic for a friend, family member or colleague.

You’ll find that work is a lot more fun when you allow yourself the time you actually need to get it done.

Ok. Enough about goals and plannings and expectations.

Over to the fun stuff.

So yes, my project feels gigantic, and I need to manage my workload expectations, but I do believe it’s going to be great.

Yesterday I finished a list with ‘Questions to ask when you’re stuck in a boring conversation’. I also worked on a print about ‘Things to do when you’re stuck in a traffic jam’. I photographed car shaped candy for that. I had to restrict myself from eating all the licorice before the final picture was taken. In the Netherlands the type of candy is quite well known, but I believe outside you don’t quite appreciate the taste of licorice the way we do.

 photo car-licorice_zpsd5787b19.jpg[licorice cars I used for my ‘Things to when you’re stuck in a traffic jam idea list]

I’m at a total of 11 A4-posters now. There is going to be a list with party theme ideas, last minute gift ideas, guerilla art project ideas, ways to surprise your partner and many more fun lists.

Although I had planned to launch my 1001 idea source before Christmas, you will have to wait a little bit longer for it (the whole lowering your expectation story might have something to do with that). I can’t tell you what exact date to expect it. I can tell you that you can expect 1. I’ll be pouring out my whole heart and all of my energy and creativity into it in the coming weeks 2. It’s going to be awesome.

At least my reviewed perspective of reality makes me able to sleep at night again. Now I need to start listening to my own advice and remember it.

Do you ever pressure yourself with unrealistic expectations? What helps you to break through?

9 Comments

  • Reply

    Lyssa

    December 18, 2014 at 18:15

    This season, my mantra is, “Breathe deep, seek peace, live in the moment!” It has helped me tackle the little and large projects. Also, whenever I find myself falling behind or freaking out, I tell myself, “Grace… grace.” There is much grace for many things!

  • Reply

    Joyce Welch

    December 22, 2014 at 16:13

    Thank you so much for once again inspiring me to keep at it. I so appreciate the time and love you put into sharing your creative process. For me sometimes I really do have to force myself to step away to gain perspective and balance when I start long term projects. I finally learned to schedule breaks for myself. I close my eyes and focus on images or read books and quotes that restore my peace.

    Looking forward to 1001 ideas!

    • Reply

      magicaldaydream

      December 25, 2014 at 12:50

      Scheduling breaks is so important. I find it difficult to do this but I’m starting to be increasingly aware of its importance

  • Reply

    Rachael Rifkin

    December 29, 2014 at 20:28

    Ooh, I’m really excited about your 1001 ideas project! It will be awesome no matter when you release it. :-)

    By the way, I tried to like licorice when I was in the Netherlands for a couple months. It was definitely better than the kind you find in the States, but I couldn’t quite understand the unrelenting love Dutch people have for it. On the other hand, I fell in love with the chewy pink-purple pig candy while I was there.

    • Reply

      magicaldaydream

      January 3, 2015 at 23:22

      Yay! Thanks for saying that. Ohh I know what kind of candy you mean! We have monkeys like that too but they taste very different. I always thought the pigs taste a tiny bit like soap haha

  • Reply

    Nissa

    February 26, 2015 at 14:42

    I happened upon your blog today after following a ping around the interwebs; from medium-weight interfacing googling, to to a comments you left on a sewing tutorial on a clutch purse sew-along, where your handle “Magical Daydreams caught my eye, to here. And I really needed to read this blog post today as I took a cuppa and some ontbijtkoek and started at my newly-tasseled clutch-purse and wondered if it looked good to others as well as my own tired eyes.
    So, from my creative station to yours, which might not be so far away as I’m in Amsterdam, your stuff is cool. I like it. It’s inspiring, and I recognise your take on art, kindness, hard work and life in my own musings. Thanks for creating it and presenting it to the world.

    • Reply

      magicaldaydream

      March 23, 2015 at 08:13

      Thanks! And how beautiful to hear:) I’m curious how your purse turned out!

  • Pingback:

    January 14, 2017 at 17:22

LEAVE A REPLY

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.