HaldeCraft: Lack of motivation? Perfectionism? Procrastination? Burnout?

For immediate lack of a better term, I’m going to say that since I got back from Ireland, I’ve had a severe case of Being Unmotivated. But… is it really? I’m not “unmotivated” as in “sitting on the couch all day staring at the ceiling while I think about all the things I should be doing.” I’m not “unmotivated” as in “barely any energy to get up out of bed.” It’s more like… I’m not motivated to keep doing things at such a break-neck speed as I have been doing things for I don’t know how long. After all, if you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten, right? So if I keep making things for HaldeCraft at a sleep-denying speed, especially making things that aren’t fun but have sold in the past so I keep making them because I have to make something that actually sells so that I have money to buy supplies to make more things… Yeah… I’m not motivated to be stuck in a hamster wheel. I’m not a hamster. And I hate running!

I am a long fighter of Perfectionism. I heard this podcast in 2015, an episode of Stuff Mom Never Told you, called “Little Miss Perfect.” It was about perfectionism, and one of the things that they talked about that blew my mind is that perfectionism can manifest in not wanting to start something because you’re afraid you might not do it right. All this time I thought it meant thinking that everything had to be right/perfect?

As I was growing up, at home and at school, not doing something right got you noticed. Being noticed was almost never great. Therefore, I learned that no mistakes meant not being noticed, and not being noticed was nice, safe, and quiet. Not being noticed kept you in the background. So I tried to do everything… well, if not perfectly, at least not wrong. I didn’t really have the opportunity to drag my heels on starting things, because there were deadlines (homework, essays, etc.). Also, as far as homework and other things for school, I had instructions. I didn’t have to figure out shit for myself from the ground up. I was pretty good at following the rules, and got pretty good at staying off the radar of either my StepMonster or shitty kids at school.

As I grew up, and started to have to figure shit out for myself from the ground up, I came to think that perfect is the enemy of finished (not that I ever thought I was doing things perfectly, I just was doing things as well as I could). I don’t feel like I need to do something with absolutely no mistakes for me to enjoy doing it (or finish doing it)… but at the same time sometimes I am afraid to start something because what if I do it wrong? And yet I frequently start doing new things, especially around HaldeCraft, and I frequently do them wrong! And when I do, I usually post about the failure on social media! So go figure.

But lately I’ve been reluctant to start some new things, and I can’t tell if it’s because I think I might do them wrong, or I just don’t have the motivation to do them, or maybe… I just don’t care? Or I do care, but there are so many things I want to do that I get overwhelmed wondering where to start, which to do first? Or I’m putting off starting a new thing until I cross some imaginary line of “well I’m finally done with this, I can start on that” (except I don’t know what I’d be done with). Or maybe it’s because I don’t have a hard deadline for the things I’m not jumping on, so I keep putting off working on them….? The things I do have deadlines for, I tend to do by the time they’re due. Mostly. (shifty eyes). But for something new that I want to bring into the shop, lately, I’ve just felt sort of “meh” about it.

I don’t feel that way about my life… just my job (which you could argue is my life, but whatevs). I do everything myself, and have for … it’ll be fourteen years this August. And it seems like some of the stuff is just neverending. Social media? Spend a couple hours Friday and a couple hours Saturday and do all my social media for the next week… and then next week I have to do it all over again, except with different photos and saying different things. Quarterly sales tax? Gotta do that four times a year. Supply inventory, of paints/glazes/worn out brushes/packing material/boxes/labels/paper/soap supplies/yarn/dyes… it never ends, and since they all go at different rates all the time, it’s not like I can say “oh, the 15th is inventory day” or something. I might already be out of something by the 15th! Or not need anything for three 15ths in a row!

Anyway; my point… am I a little burnt out right now? Why? I mean, other than “burnout” is typically described as being a form of exhaustion because of constantly feeling swamped, usually in relationship to one’s job. Which, hilariously, the “fix” for is supposed to be talking to one’s boss and seeing if anyone else in the company can take on some of your workload. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Maybe it’s a little from Column A, a little from Column B. All I know is that for a few weeks now, I’ve had this feeling that something is off and I can’t quite put my finger on it. Knitters, you know how when you’re working on a project, and you know in your heart of hearts, that something is wrong with the project, but you’ve done too much work on it and you don’t want to rip it out because it’ll mean all that work was useless? But at the same time you don’t want to keep going with it because there’s just something weird and off about it? It’s like that.

So, instead, I’m going to be downsizing HaldeCraft a little. In the last couple of weeks I’ve taken off a number of ceramics that have never gotten a lot of interest. I might bring them to craft shows or I might wind up giving a lot of them away as birthday and Christmas presents. I’ve also taken off a lot of yarns that I haven’t had to dye in the last two years. I’ve taken off the buttons and the stitch markers, and won’t be replacing them – but I do have a plan for them, and the yarn… stay tuned to HaldeCraft in the next week or two for more info on that. And I have my eye on another handful of ceramics that I won’t be restocking as they sell out.

I’m going to start building slower, more ornate things, using my textures and sprig molds (things like the address plaques). I have ideas for a good fifteen new yarn colorways, at least (maybe more), all based on the flora and fauna I have around here.

And I have a LOT of ideas for laser engraved and cut things – which is hilarious considering I originally bought the machine primarily to make my own dollhouse things.

I get so excited thinking about the new things I’m going to do, and so tired when I think about the things I’ve already done that don’t sell. I kind of feel like I *should* still try to sell them, but then I think about the futility of the never-ending social media and would I rather have those posts be about stuff that makes me tired to look at, or stuff I feel excited about? I kind of feel like my energy for a thing comes out through that thing – if I’m tired of buttons, even when I post about buttons, the buttons don’t sell. So there’s nothing wrong with phasing them out (even suddenly) and working on new things. There’s no law saying I can’t make more, down the road, if people do ask about them.