If Finishing Feels Like Submitting Yourself to Criticism

The mental battle: Fear of judgment can keep you from turning in an assignment. But if you hide your work for too long, you deprive yourself of receiving valuable feedback and open yourself up to criticism for not delivering on time or for veering off track.

What to do: Reframe the situation or conversation. If you feel like your external success determines your internal worth, you will see the results of each new project as a judgment of your value as a human being. To help you overcome that mindset, you can say to yourself: I am a good______(graphic designer, writer, etc.). If they don’t like the first draft I submit, I am not a failure. I need to step back from the situation, clarify what they want changed, think about how I can implement their suggestions, make the adjustments, turn it in again and move on.

Or if you don’t mind receiving feedback but need it communicated in a certain way, consider talking with your boss, co-workers, or even clients about how to constructively give their input. For instance, you could request that you initially receive comments via -mail before a meeting so you have the opportunity to process them before responding. Or you could say something like: I really appreciate it when you let me know you feel unsatisfied with a presentation. But it would help me to meet your needs if you could clarify what specific changes you want me to make instead of just telling me that you’re unhappy with what I showed you.

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Victory shall be yours: With the right approach, you can push through to 100%.

https://99u.com/articles/7062/why-cant-i-finish

Having Trouble Finishing Your Labor Of Love?

When no one is nagging you to complete your dream project, it can be hard to stay motivated. How to eradicate excuses and power through to the finish.

By Mark McGuinness

Everyone thinks they have a book inside them, but not so many make the time and effort to bring it to birth. For ‘book’ you could substitute ‘screenplay’, ‘album’, ‘startup’, or ‘crocheted iPad case for your Etsy shop’.

All of these are self-started creative projects – labors of love that we feel inspired to do in spite (or maybe because) of the fact no one is pressuring us to get them done. If you can actually see a project like this through to completion, it’s one of the biggest creative buzzes you will ever experience.

But getting it done – without a boss or client told you to account, and with precious little spare time or money – is one of the biggest challenges you’ll ever face.

This was brought home to me recently when I decided to write a book, in the middle of running my own business and being responsible for two blogs and two toddlers. I’ve now finished the draft, and am in the process of revising it for the editor. So with in the end in sight, I thought I’d share a few of the principles that helped me get this far.