Project 365: Mile 2 - The Work Begins
If this is your first year long picture-a-day project you might just have noticed that the task seemed to get much more difficult over the last few days. What's going on?
Remembering that project365 is a distance race not a sprint let's return to my favorite project365-as-a-marathon analogy. When you run a marathon there is so much preparation and effort in just getting to the start-line that, by the time you are warmed up and are hanging out in a that huge crowd waiting for the gun to fire it feels like a rock concert audience waiting for the band to come on – there is so much anticipation and nervous energy. When the race starts and that crowd first starts to jog and then gradually gains momentum you are running on pure adrenaline. For the first couple of miles you are at the heart of a huge crowd with spectators cheering the sight of thousands of people in motion, cameras capturing the event for local TV news and papers and you are just swept along, literally, in the moment. It can take a couple of miles for the pack to start to spread out and for you to find some space at which point the magnitude of what lies ahead can be daunting – you can go from feeling in the middle of the best party ever to feeling very alone in no time flat.
For the first mile or two you just run on the energy of the crowd but once that passes it's time to do the real work of the race; you're not really going to feel that camaraderie and adrenaline until the last couple of miles and, in this moment, the end of the race is a distant dream. It's time to find your space and your pace, to start listening to your body, tune out discomfort and concentrate on those things that will let you achieve your goals. Personally, I start to try to ignore the runners around me; if I get caught up in a group going to fast I will hit the wall – if I hang out with people going too slow I will get frustrated. I either look down at my feet and the ground for a mile or so or look over the heads of the other runners. I start to get a little chant, rhythm or song going in my head to run along to and I concentrate on form. At this point you are on your own.
Very similar things happen in the typical project365 group. January 1st the gun is fired and we're off! Many of us having been waiting for a long time for the project to begin and we're full of creative energy and good intentions. The first few days you can't wait to take and post your shots. You go to your project365 communities on Flickr and everyone is firing on all cylinders, posting amazing work and it's just too easy. Your fellow project365ers spend surplus energy commenting on tens of pictures everyday and participating in discussions and sub-projects; each image you post gets more views, comments and favorites than you are used to – perhaps a picture or two hits 'explore' – now we're motoring!
But, around day 20 you look around and the pack is spreading and thinning. A few participants have already fallen by the wayside, many are finding it hard to fit their picture-a-day into their busy lives. The free time of the holidays is gone – we're back to work with nothing interesting to shoot, certainly nothing explore-worthy. Your average views-per-image are half what they were last week so no one would notice if we just quit. What's the point of going on? It would be so easy to just stop; what are you going to do?
Like a marathon, it's time to do the work. You have to stop worrying about the others around you and get back to basics. Find a pace that works for you this means finding times that best work for you for making pictures and posting them. Make it as easy as possible for you to succeed – that means taking a camera everywhere so that there are no missed opportunities or excuses for not taking a shot. That means having a regular time for processing images and posting them – maybe over coffee when you first get up, during a coffee break at work or last thing before you go to bed, just make it a routine.
Pace means just plodding on forward one step at a time relentlessly. If you're running this race so your friends can see you, forget it. It's Sunday morning and they're all still in bed. Your fellow runners aren't really paying much attention to you, they have their own demons to wrestle with over the next 20-something miles. You have to run this race for you – to find out what you are capable of. Post your daily picture even if you are not totally happy with it, even if it is not half as good as the one you posted yesterday, or your buddy posted yesterday, even if it will get only 2 views and have no chance of hitting Explore. Just post picture after picture, relentlessly.
So get on pace, check your form, forget about the rest of the pack and do the work. You know you can make it to the end of this if you want to enough and you are relentless.
PS - Project 365 is not exactly the same as a New Year's resolution but they share a lot of the same characteristics. Ceratainly this post I read today seems to apply: Do You Make These 7 Mistakes When Trying to Keep Your New Year’s Resolution?
"So after the initial enthusiasm wanes it may not feel as that much fun anymore. It’s sort of enthusiasm backlash. This is the homeostasis kicking in within your mind (no matter if the goal/habit etc. is actually very positive for you). It’s a resistance to change to keep the system (you) stable. If you are simply aware of this being what it is - rather than a signal to give up - you can persevere, be patient and keep going more easily."
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