I listen to something while I walk. I bounce between multiple windows while I work. I'm in a constant state of stress about looming deadlines, even as I waste time on remembered tasks of little importance.

I spent an entire weekend reading a sci-fi pulp series. I raced through each book, completely immersed. As Monday loomed, the sickness found it's voice. I had wasted my weekend. I had procrastinated the work I needed to do.

But what if I have it backwards? What if my soul craves long periods of time where I am able to immerse myself and be fully present – even if that involves space knights falling from the sky like iron rain.

Productivity is a sickness. It is the quality of presence that holds our desired reward.

The past two days I have awoken to the insanity of my daily existence. How I struggle to be present. Even as I write these words, I feel the urge to listen to something on my headphones or to check my email. I'm waiting to hear from a client, aren't I? Was that the beep of a chat message?

I always blamed my procrastination for that horrid panic of cramming all my effort into those last few precious minutes before a deadline. Now I see that I have been tricked. Blaming procrastination traps me in the paradigm where I am forever distracted and unsettled.

It is life spent alternating between distracted and panicked. The only constant is the voice of blame in my head, chiding myself for procrastinating yet again.

The culprit is not procrastination. It is a lack of focus and presence. It is an inability to take a deep breath and just be fully here with what is happening or needed in the moment. 

I tell myself that I am better when I am doing three things at once. I dash to email, fire something off, remember a task, launch my browser, log into a service, check my stats, spend 2 minutes manically trying to remember the task that brought me to my browser, remember it, log into a different service, do the task, then drift aimlessly between all my windows wondering what was next.

I am a machine of disconnection. Or rather, I was.

Now I am learning to breathe. I keep my task list handy. When something comes up, I simply add it to the list. Then I let it go and return to what I was focused on doing. Slowly, less interruptions surface. A calm focus begins to emerge, freed from the bouncing distractions, the fear and the malaise.

I expect to slip back into my old ways. I hope only that I grow better at catching myself and returning to the present moment.

How do you stay focused? Do you have a ritual? A practice? Methods? Tools? Please share.

Model: Marsha D, Art: Brooke Shaden

Learning a craft is hard work and I wish this was all that was required. If we want to make a living from our art, we have to overcome our limiting beliefs around money, talent and the role of art. These beliefs cripple us or, at best, cause us to lose faith and question our worth.

For a while, I thought I was alone in this regard. But as I interviewed and spoke to those who have gone before us on this journey, I began to realize that we all suffer from these debilitating beliefs.

I recently ran a survey where I asked about the work I was producing and what was resonating with people. At the end, I asked two questions. Do they consider themselves someone who buys art? And to identify their profession.

Only two people said they do not consider themselves someone who buys art. And both self-identified as artists. In other words, out of over a hundred responses, only artists said they don't buy art.

This floors me. We want people to support us and our art in one breath and in the next we are telling the world that even we wouldn't support the arts.

I get it. As artists, we don't have a lot of disposable income. Things are tight. But if we don't believe that art is worth supporting, how can we expect others to do so?

We have to become the change we wish to see in the world. I now buy more art in one month than I did in the past ten years. I buy little things and I cherish every one as I recognize that I am giving hope and encouragement to the artists I love.

Who are you supporting? What are your beliefs about the worth of your art?

I go into this and more in the book I am launching this month. The two people from my survey may be excited to find out they can get this book for free.

We had just left After Dark and I had been driving for over 9 hours. My hands gripped the wheel tightly and my mind was churning. I was thinking about my work in a completely new light. I had such a clear vision of my photographs transferred onto reclaimed pieces of wood.

The wood would be an active part of the image and each piece would be unique. I remember getting goose bumps just thinking about it.

And then a year passed. I avoided working on it at every opportunity, diverted by more "pressing issues".

Two months ago that all changed. I started researching transfer methods and ordering supplies. There was a lot to figure out: the method, the mix of chemicals, and the type of transfer sheets to use. I had more failures than successes. Heck, all I had was failures. I spent weeks attempting transfers onto simple wooden planks with no luck. Time and again the image would not stick to the wood.

I was just about to throw in the towel and write it all off when I achieved a partial transfer. It wasn't much, but it was enough. In retrospect, I have no idea how I managed this as the transfer sheets I were using at that time were actually guaranteed to NOT transfer. Yup. Explains SO much.  

My first partial transfer of any merit

It took more nights of failing, failing, failing to narrow in on what was wrong (the transfer sheets, maybe?) and order the correct supplies. I wrote about my breakthrough in my blog post aptly titled, My First Successful Wood Transfer.

My first, successful transfer.

To say there was much celebrating and drinking of wine would be an understatement. But this was just the beginning of a much scarier journey. It meant I now had the basic skills necessary to begin exploring what I really wanted to do in the first place.

So I did what any sane individual would do, I put it all aside and did my best to not think about it.

I found myself making sly little excuses to avoid anything to do with wood transfers. I'd like to think that my newfound insights into the power of Resistance brought me back to the table, but no. It was my friends that kept sending me time-bomb emails, quotes and poems.

I found myself with nothing better to do one day, meaning I was just bouncing around the social media, so I forced myself to sit down and research wood suppliers. The next day things were a blur of motion as I found myself in a local showroom loading my arms with scraps. They were actually happy to sell this stuff to me! Crazy!

The coolest place on the f'ing planet! And it's in Scarborough? My rant on Scarborough is totally going to haunt me now.

I stacked my treasures in the kitchen, much to the joy of my partner, as where else does one store 25 pounds of assorted lumber, and I set to transferring my favourite photos to the prepped and ready lumber.

Oh, the horror.

I've had my printer going strong and steady for the past few months and have grown used to my images appearing quite sharp and even sexy on rag, fine art and other papers. Only now, I was printing on darker substances with their own personalities and the results were nothing short of awful.

So I created some space and I sat. As luck would have it, I was having conversations with my art friends Doris, Mandy and Jon so a few things were top of mind for me. First, I had to connect my purpose to this initiative. Second, I needed to sit with the medium and what I was feeling. Third, this was supposed to be a scary but amazing journey, so I had to stop with the expectations and just push ahead. 

So I re-prepped my wood, and selected three pieces that were speaking to me.

The new three.

I then went back to work and focused on what was at the heart of what I am trying to accomplish. A word came to me and then an image flashed into my head. This was not an image I ever expected to be working with. It was of Pat Miller's wonderful pig Sturgis.

I carried the wood pieces into my office to sit with them and it wasn't long before everything started to come together.

I don't have a great photo of the final piece yet... this is just a quick shot from my iPhone and before I've even pulled the piece out of the transfer blocks, but this is what came to me over a year ago. I haven't perfected it, but I've found the path.

A friend emailed me as she found herself struggling to work on something that means more to her than anything in this world. I found myself unsure of how to answer. She is one of the most talented writers I know. Her purpose in this world is so clearly tied to helping the forgotten, the lost creatures held to our every whim, and all too often living lives of cruelty and neglect.

She had purchased the domain for her blog. She had given her credit card for the monthly Squarespace fees. I had read the first entry and it changed my life. I was mesmerized and within days I had become vegan again. The power of her words were tangible and real.

And yet she had been coming up with excuses to avoid meeting with me of late and had found herself unable to write the next entry.

I hope she doesn't hate me for putting this out to the world, but as I walked and contemplated her questions, I realized that this is something I struggle with each and every day. Further, it is something that everyone I am speaking with in my podcast is also struggling with.

We are all battling what Steven Pressfield calls Resistance. 

How much easier is it to watch television, play video games or even read a good book than it is to sit down and do our true work? The work we are called to is anything but f'ing easy. We sit there and nothing comes out but crap. Every brush stroke, every letter typed, every print we make is anything but up to par. It is beyond infuriating. 

So we walk away. We come up with innocent little excuses. "My family hasn't heard from me in days." "Who am I to do this?" "It's too hard."

Pressfield sees Resistance as a universal force that works from within us. In fact, it arises in direct response to any act that aligns with our purpose or calling. "The more important a call or action is to our soul's evolution, the more Resistance we will feel toward pursuing it."

I urge everyone to purchase, or dig out from their bookcase, Pressfield's War of Art. It remains my most trusted advisor in this battle.

Before Pressfield, I never realized just how insidious a force Resistance can be. It's that little whisper wondering how tired you feel right now. It's the sudden thought to do a chore you've been putting off for months just as you sit down to start your work. It's the dopamine-inducing pull to veg out watching television.

We are at war and Resistance is the enemy. Let me repeat that. We are at war, people, and Resistance is the enemy! 

It's time to don our flak jackets, pull down our helmets and carve out a sacrosanct hour from every day to show up and do our work, regardless of what happens or doesn't happen.

We need defeat Resistance only once to know that it can be overcome. We just have to ship our product one time. After that, it becomes easier to sit down and fight through the loss for words, the lack of talent and the insidious little desires, voices and misdirections. Those never go away, but we become better at brushing them aside and working through them.

I'm unsure what advice to offer my friend except to say that she is not alone. We are all right there with her. We may not walk the exact same path, but we all fight the same forces. Am I right? Please comment and tell her your story.

I'm not scared of change. In fact, I don't think you find it scary either.

This is just a safe thing for us to say. It is a little trick we collectively use to cover up what I believe Jordan Peterson would call a hole in our map of the world.

I think we are really afraid of success.

Just about everyone denies this. Some do so quite emphatically, even with anger. 

It is safer to say we are afraid of change. We can all embrace this together and buy some self-help books on Getting Things Done or Taking Action. We even feel good saying it. Consultants can make lots of money doing change management and we can all stay safely in our cocoons.

But it's bullshit. I'm not afraid of trying a new sandwich at the local fast food joint. I even try new clothes or a bizarre haircut from time to time. Do I love disruption and change? No, but I'm not afraid of it. It doesn't make me curl up sobbing on the floor under my desk.

But one thing does do just that and it's contemplating success. Not just any success. I'm speaking of successfully answering my calling in the world – to live up to the full potential of what I came into this world to accomplish.

I'm told that the Sufi have a belief that when we die we are asked one question, "How many people did you feed?"

When I speak of success, I am speaking of this. When I say I am scared of success, I mean that I am torn completely apart by even contemplating the path to success. It seems to run counter to everything I have acquired, built or desired. This is not the case, but this is what it feels like. It tears my heart and soul out of my body and places them raw into the world and I am wracked by sobs.

To contemplate success, we must ask what matters to our soul. 

This is not a question that can be unasked so we run from it.

I am running from "loving people for their true potential and helping them to achieve nothing less."

What are you running from?