The more important a piece of work is to you, the more difficult it is to make progress on and release it.
Obsessive creative energy builds up; your expectations rise endlessly. You envision what this work is going to be like after you’re done, as well as what this work will do for you and your career.
As your expectations rise, your uncertainty about the work’s outcome turns into despair.
There are a cluster of solutions, all sharing the same theme:
“While it takes emotional commitment to make creative work, it takes emotional detachment to make it better,” Robert Solomon writes in The Art of Client Service.
The right creative process for you will involve dialing up and down emotional energy, depending on where you are with your work and what your work needs from you.