The Race I Keep Losing

Oh hey, how you doing over there? Before we dive in…

I’m touring in Eastern Canada this fall!

A Little Bit Much is kicking off in Toronto and closing in a few cities in Nova Scotia. Cities and dates are here → cheladavison.com/show

If you’re in the area, please come! If you’re not in the area, please travel or tell your people who are!

Let me know if you’re coming out. Do I want to hang out afterwards? Yes, I do.

You know when you’re subscribed to a newsletter (or maybe you write one) and then the author (or you) doesn’t write in a while, and then they/you start with “I haven’t written in a while, sorry, here’s why…”

I’m always like “you’re good, don’t need to do that, please just jump in.”

But here I am, having been MIA and am about to explain myself! Less so as an apology or to lubricate the re-entry, but more like “whoa, have I ever been in a thing, let me tell you about it!”

So… whoa, have I ever been in a thing. Let me tell you about it!

Also…to all the new folks who’ve subscribed recently…HI! Welcome. Hope you dig it here. To all you rock steady readers, I be cheatin’.

Quick Q for all the creatives, the project jugglers, the artists who play in different mediums or the entrepreneurs with small or non-existent teams: When you immerse yourself in one area of your work/business/art for a while, do you ever feel like you’re cheating on other parts?

I’ve been cheating on my writing practice with a social media project of all things. What?! With that cheap hussy??? Exactly. THE DISGRACE.

I can’t just do things bit by bit, APPARENTLY, so I decided I wanted to produce 300 pieces of content before releasing any of them and then publish 3X/day for 3 months. When I told my small team this plan, the first response was “for fuck’s sake, Chela”.

So, yeah, that took over my life. Not all has gone according to plan, but that’s okay. I built whole worlds. It’s a show of sorts. There are characters.

Let me know in the comments if you’re interested in how deeply I nerded out on creating this thing, and I’ll take you behind the scenes. The time and effort it’s taken are disproportionate to whatever outcomes it’s supposed to produce, certainly, but there were things I needed from the experience, and the breakthroughs I’ve been gunning for are certainly underway.

Not only did I not feel like I had a ton of time for other creative things (I learned how to edit video, y’all, which in my 15 years of making videos I had not once edited one myself), I ended up with a wee bit of writer’s block. Just couldn’t get here.

I used to feel a lot of pressure to keep all the parts moving simultaneously. Not that I don’t feel pressure now, but the quality is different and my relationship with time has evolved. The juggle of creating a service/program/body of work, marketing it and delivering it, usually all at once, was a lot. For decades I did all three at the same time, continuously.

These past few years, I’ve been working on my bat-shit-bananas relationship with time. Also, notably, time scarcity, over-working, over-functioning, and not claiming inner space, creative space, pleasure space—space, just any old space— are themes I most frequently worked with clients on. Almost like it’s cultural or systemic or something.

I’ve been practicing, with really intense intention, not making plans and timelines (SO HARD). But instead, following aliveness, trusting the process and giving myself over to fewer things at a time so I can be more intensely and more satisfyingly in them.

I’ve been working on my time dysmorphia a lot. The outside world continually reflects to me that I’m up to a lot, doing a lot, producing a lot, and it always, always, always feels like I’m behind. I don’t mean behind others. I can fall into comparison traps from time to time, but that’s not my Achilles. For me, it’s how much time I think something needs from me to be able to do it well, or meet the vision I’m holding for it.

My race is with myself, and I’m always losing.

It’s always longer than I anticipated, and the result is always inferior to what I imagined or intended. I always, always, feel like I’m failing or falling short.

That doesn’t mean that what I’m creating, doing or producing is slow and of low quality. It just feels like it. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it’s excellent. I’m often proud of myself; this isn’t a pity party.

I’ve made peace with the probability that some part of me will always be disappointed in myself and what I produce, and I’m becoming unbothered by that. I think that’s just part of art. It certainly isn’t stopping me from trying and going for things anymore, and I’m pretty sure that’s how remarkable stuff ends up getting made.

Part of what I’ve learned is that it’s this interior pressure that helps create good work. If I can stay with a project despite feeling like it sucks and is taking too long (and even rub my heart in the midst of the anxiety and say out loud “you’re okay, you’re okay, you’re okay”), while it feels shittier and slower than my idealistic visionary self wanted, I’m still pretty prolific and things do come together in a way that I feel good about (if I don’t let my inner totally-fucking-tyrannical critic take it to the ground).

Part of working with my time dysmorphia has been about letting things take the time that they take, and letting go of other things while I’m in them. Trying to maintain all the things while moving intensely into something I’ve deemed a priority is not a “me problem”. Every ambitious, driven and creative person I know does this. As you build the thing, you need to deliver the thing and maintain the thing and especially as people become reliant on you or are paying you and you have a standard you’re committed to maintaining, leaning into something new, something innovative or growing in a new way can take a lot.

Why? Because we forget to subtract. Or at least I do. And that’s been something I’ve been practicing. If I want to give energy and attention to something, especially if it’s something that’s working a growth edge in me that’s emotionally charged in any way (I feel vulnerable, scared, out of my comfort zone, etc), I need to intentionally say “this thing over here isn’t getting my attention for a while” so I can give myself what I need to be in the new and in the stretch.

I am sorry I haven’t been here in a bit, because I want a relationship with you, because I feel dedicated not just to the practice of writing, but to you as a reader. Would we call it cheating? Or creative polyamory? (You should see what I let happen to my garden this summer; now that’s a disgrace!)

Turns out fidelity to everything is fidelity to nothing.

Wanna see some of what’s underway? The characters are one bit (some have story lines, my dudes. Someone might even get cancelled. Some haven’t dropped yet), but there are other things I’m trying out too. Again, let me know if you’re interested in knowing more about the why and how of it. They’re in these places:

Instagram / Facebook / TikTok / YouTube / Substack

Thanks for being on the ride with me.

With Love,

Chela