You're Not Avoiding the Task, You're Avoiding the Feeling

There is a page in Emma's notebook that has been written out, in more or less the same words, most weeks for months.

Five things on it. Email the curator she met last spring. Book the studio visit. Get the new work up on the website. Finish the residency application. And every week, in that big looping handwriting of hers, the same five things go down on a clean page, and by the following week not one of them has a line through it.

If you have a page like that, and I think most of you do, I think some of you could recite yours to me right now, then this one is for you. It will help you to work out why you are repeatedly delaying doing those specific tasks, so you can finally break that cycle, get them done and make some real progress.Before we go any further, if you haven't followed the show yet, do that now, because these solo episodes land every week and they are built to be used rather than just listened to.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

The task that´s been on your list for weeks isn’t a procrastination problem; it’s an emotional one. Emailing the curator, updating your website, raising your prices look like simple tasks, but by not doing them you are actually dodging the risk of rejection, judgement, or getting it wrong in public.

Instead of asking, “Why can’t I just do this?”, say, “I’m not avoiding the task, I’m avoiding the feeling that…”. 

Reframe the task, make it tiny and less threatening: “email the curator” becomes “practice reaching out,” “update my website” becomes “practice being seen.” 

Make taking action embarrassingly small. Send a three‑line email to that curator, spend 30 minutes on updating your website – so fear doesn’t get a vote, and you can actually do it on an ordinary, messy day.

BEST MOMENTS

“Not one of those five tasks was a task. All five were feelings that she'd already decided the task would produce.”

“You tell yourself to put the new work online, and it (your brain) files that under judgement. And you tell yourself to raise your prices, and it files that under losing everything you've built.”

“Confidence arrives afterwards. It arrives as evidence. Every difficult email that you've sent, every application you've submitted, every room that you've walked into before you felt ready, your brain quietly loved that you came out the other side.”