We hear perfectionism described a hundred different ways. Rarely do we hear it described as dangerous.

You know that feeling, right? When you incorporate a new productivity habit, you see everything you’re accomplishing, and you feel invincible?

Recently, I’ve been having trouble generating new ideas for my daily blog. 

Every time I start cleaning, ever since I was 15 years old, I start humming a funny song called One Little Corner. It’s ostensibly a cleaning song for grown-ups. The accidental genius? It’s spot-on with habit research. 

If it seems like someone has everything figured out, go look under their bed. If it looks like someone has their life all together, look at their inbox

There’s one downside about the idea of consistency that isn’t talked about enough. 

“The people with the best self-control are typically the ones who need to use it the least.”

It’s a grid of eight boxes, with a few scattered titles, bullet points, and lines on it. It helps me reduce stress, improve my health, stay productive while I work, remember my long-term projects, and achieve work-life balance. 

Today is the 100th day of the year, and this is my 100th blog in 100 days. Here are four things I’ve learned. 

Something interesting I’ve discovered while taking on daily challenges is this: about once every six weeks, I really don’t want to do the work. Today is one of those days.

“Is this tennis? Grinding for a year and a half, and then you lose to a guy who has a knee brace on?”

Dr. B.J. Fogg says a golden behavior has three criteria…

One of the darkest places creative people can go in their minds is asking themselves whether or not they should create today. We consider a few ideas, thinking of what to create. None of them feel good enough.

The idea of “decision fatigue” is common in popular science right now. The theory goes that we only have so much mental energy to give to decision-making, and when that decision-making energy is depleted, we are more susceptible to “make choices that seem impulsive or irrational.”

We just launched the second cohort of the 15-Day Creative Consistency Challenge. Each day, a small group of artists and creators will share one creative deliverable on a supportive community platform. There are daily lessons and creative prompts to get the juices flowing. 

“People might be skeptical about their ability to change if they’re by themselves, but a group will convince them to suspend disbelief.”

“The majority of tasks we procrastinate on are usually high in immediate costs but low in immediate benefits, thus making them unattractive in the short run.”

Recently, an artist told me about the freedom she feels when she commits to creating every day, even on days when she doesn’t feel like it. 

You might have a few minutes to cram, or double check information, but the best thing you can do for yourself, with so little time left, is breathe. 

When we see a goal fall out of consistency, we ghost the idea of it. We avoid questions about it and we avoid thinking about it because we feel guilty when we finally remember.