Process Growth Pains

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Sometimes you make cool things using a particular process, and that process is good for a time. Then you are introduced to another process, and it expands your ability to produce new works in such a fantastic way that it has become indispensable to you. You could never possibly return to the simpler and less functional process that you used before. So you’re working in this new process, and as you get into it, you start to realize that it has limitations. Limitations that actually start to hurt your productivity. You now start running into barriers to your productivity on a regular basis. Barriers that make your workflow - no longer work. You’re now intimidated by the tools and the techniques that you can’t not think in, and it’s pretty much a living hell. The thing that you were most passionate about is now a problem for you again.

Then you get a couple nights of good sleep, and you pick it up again with new solutions that you thought about while you were away from directly facing the problems. Challenges get better as you have persistence in dealing with them, addressing them, and resolving them. There are times when it’s harder. There are times when it gets easier. But the key is to keep at it. There’s always a way to solve a problem. There’s a chance that you’ll be a lot more successful in accomplishing your goals by changing your perception of the process, rather than deciding that the process itself is flawed or needs to be replaced. The most important part of making the breakthrough that will carry you through to your eventual triumph is a positive and optimistic perspective - because if you’re getting down on yourself or the project as a whole, you’re already making it much harder than it needs to be. Remember to take a break, get yourself into a good headspace, and try again. You can rock it.

This is how persistence, a few nights of good rest, and some time away from the problem pays off. Things work out. They may not be identical to what you originally had in mind, and you may have had to grow through the process to make your next step. Remember - the key is being in the right headspace to start with, or the growth and willingness to try something new, better, different will not be there - and I cannot stress how completely essential it is.

Anyone out there who rocked an important life goal, or a series of them in 2015, I congratulate you. Make sure that you’re doing what you need to take care of yourself both physically and mentally, and that is the platform from which you can launch all of your future dreams from.

Kick some more ass in 2016, and I’ll see you in the future!