I’ve been sitting in my Batman chair for nearly two-hours. I have, in that time, worked on two major projects. I love the work. I love being creative. I hate that sometimes it feels like no matter how much time passes, I am not getting anywhere on a project.
One of the first I teach my students about is the dopamine response. In short, when you get a reward, it feels good. However, we are becoming increasingly wired to get rewarded for doing less and less. As a result, we don’t want to do more. Instead we want to “work smarter” and we expect the reward to come quickly. This means that if I am writing a novel, I am waiting a long time for that ‘hit’ of it being done. If I am working any project and I don’t see progress, I don’t get that hit. Not getting that hit can make it feel like I am wasting my time and effort. I know I am not, but that doesn’t give my brain and body the “ahhh yeah” it needs.
No, I don’t have a solution. I don’t think there is one that is realistic and doesn’t eventually lead to segmenting work into a series of rewards. Instead I try to teach myself to lock in and enjoy the work for the work and treat the process as the thing I love vs. the result being the thing I am looking for. To me, that makes far more sense because as a writer, I am always going to be moving on the the next project. In fact, when I stop for any significant period of time, it takes me forever to get the momentum built back up to be productive. This too is an aspect of the crazy dopamine engine that is the human brain.
Some Thoughts:
- Really enjoying the process this time around. It makes me happy when I am happy with the work as opposed to always questing for the ending. In fact, as I am writing, I’ve already got future projects in mind and I am making notes on everything. Exciting times and good energy… dopamine be damned.