I'll be pulling for you! The habit of adding things is so hard to break. I just did it again today and only because Milli came to read my blog did I realize I set myself up again. LOL 🙂 We should set up a "too many projects anonymous"

Thanks so much for taking a second to leave a comment and your nice words about my podcast and blog. It certainly helps to know that something I am doing is making a difference. I'm thrilled that what I intended (to help others like me) is being accomplished!

Please feel free to leave comments or voice mail and I look forward to hearing more from you. 🙂

You're an ideas person–that much is clear–but maybe you haven't quite accepted yourself for that yet. Just guessing, because I'm one too and I've had my own struggles with that. And the way you describe your situation sounds SO familiar!

We "ideas people" tend to think everyone is like that–that everyone has too many creative (or other) ideas and not enough time to put them all into play. But that's not so. If that was really true, then TV would not be nearly as popular as it is ;~)

Anyway, here are a couple of things that, in my own imperfect way, I've come up with to help me with this situation:

— Accept that I'm an ideas person and that the ideas (and/or the impulses to embark on new creative projects) will never stop. But that I can gain some perspective and control simply by accepting myself for it.

— Find a way to capture my ideas as they come, but don't act on them immediately. If I keep a record of them, and just keep adding to it, eventually I start to see some imperatives jumping out at me. Each idea I get is always "hot," and I want to do it NOW. But if I write it down, it loses some of its heat and then I can go back to the main thing(s) I was already working on. The peace of mind this brings me really helps. I remind myself, "These are all great ideas, but I cannot give life to them all. I'm only human."

— Later, I can come back to all those ideas I recorded and decide whether to act on them. And sometimes this is even better, because stuff I've learned since then helps me write a better blog post, article, short story or whatever.

— I use Whizfolders (www.whizfolders.com) to capture and organize my ideas–but it sounds like you've already found something that works great for you.

— I looked at how much I was helping others and how much that was interfering with my own creative dreams. I felt obligated to help everyone else with their writing dreams. And I've been doing that for nine years now. But I reached a point where I said, "Ya know what? I want to focus on my own biggest project for now." (a screenplay) So I made official announcements to my students and coaching clients that I was taking a sabbatical. And then I began to work on getting selfish for my own writing. I immediately got much happier!

— This is not to say I don't still want to help people. But I've narrowed it down for now to simpler things. Like writing blog posts that can help people with their fear of writing (and even this is a selfish act, because I only do it when I want to), or leaving supportive comments on my friends' Facebook profiles. Things of that nature that don't require me to take on another project.

— I've allowed myself to see that, in some situations, being selfish is called for. Because I have my own creativity to express and I'm always going to be frustrated at some level if I don't give my all to that.

— I've worked on giving myself acceptance for some daily habits that I thought were "bad" and were really adding to my procrastination (such as working in my pajamas until 2 pm). I was embarrassed that I wasn't more "together" but I was actually instinctively trying to live the free-flow of a creative person. And, ha! Other people don't care as much as I feared they would. The Schwan's guy came to deliver and it was almost noon. I was eating breakfast in my jammies. He didn't even blink an eye. He was too focused on his own imperatives to notice what I was doing. I felt so liberated! Especially because I felt no need to explain myself.

Hope this helps a little. Your blog post really helped me! Cuz even though I've worked on accepting myself more, I did feel alone with it. Just reading someone else describing the exact same problems that I have was very comforting. Thanks for your honesty!

And best of luck with everything you desire to do. Despite the feeling that you're procrastinating, you *are* achieving a lot and making a difference. And you really care. That counts for so much.

– Milli

I've still got a couple of weeks of hair-pulling to get through before my workload eases up, but I swear, once I get to that point, I'm sticking to a promise – no more extra work. I've got plenty on my plate.

So please keep doing what you are doing, putting out invaluable podcasts and blog posts. And expect to hear more comments from me in the future.

Sincerely
Seth