How to Get Shit Done When You’re a Weirdo
We’re in the middle of a crisis. It is an overwhelming, emotional, and scary time.
While we have to take care of ourselves and our loved ones we gotta keep the engine moving forward. Yes, it’s hard. Yes, it feels impossible. But what’s the other choice, give up?
I thought I’d post this Medium article I wrote a few months ago about getting shit done when you’re an artist and a weirdo.
Things continue to change and the fate of my Melania Trump Road Show tour is in question, the book release is hazy. I’m simply trying to move the needle a little bit every day, trying to make one more person laugh at a time.
For weirdos and creative types it can feel impossible to get shit done.
And there are some good reasons for this:
Life in General: This happens to everyone, but us weirdos are often juggling five different jobs. The likelihood that an unexpected snafu will appear is greater for us than if you have a solid job without weirdo aspirations.
Our Crazy-Ass Minds: We’re so good at thinking outside the box. Our favorite thing is to demolish it and create something different. When we’re doing something that hasn’t been done before or that we’ve never personally done, our minds are open to the different possibilities: the offshoots, the ways to expand, the tangential projects, the collaborations — and more! This makes us wizards. However; when the potential multiplies it can create obstacles and overwhelm.
The recent Medium article by Jordon Gross on accomplishing goals encapsulates how I deal with the realities of my offbeat life.
Focus on one small step at a time. Expect nothing in particular, just focus on taking that step, which is the most important thing.
Still feel overwhelmed?
Break it down into even smaller steps. Even if you only have 15 minutes a day you will have enough time to make progress on your projects. Ask my friend Samantha Bennett, she wrote a book about it.
So take the first steps. See what happens. Adjust. Take another one. Let the next step reveal itself to you. One step informs the other, so you’re not going to be able to predict what comes next.
The reality is that once you start on your path you’ll see that the steps before you are different than you thought they’d be. This is natural. This is GOOD. Almost every project I’ve ever done turned out way differently than I thought it would.
This happened on two recent projects for me. My book Inside Melania: What I Learned About Melania Trump by Impersonating Her, started out as a challenge to sit in a hotel room for a weekend to see simply — is there a book in me? My partner was at a conference in Key West, so I decided to take the opportunity of a free hotel room to investigate this idea.
At the end, yes, there was enough material for a book, but I wasn’t sure exactly what shape to put it in. So, I decided that the next step was to show it to people. The feedback I got changed the structure of the book. It went from containing mostly funny rants to having more short-form humor pieces. Then I decided to get more support in writing so I checked out programs at Catapult in which to develop my pieces. Once I felt like I had a solid manuscript, I thought about publishing. I remembered a publisher I met a long time ago and rang him up. He took it on, but his notes — again — shifted the direction of the book. I did more research, dug deeper, and doubled the size of the manuscript.
That weekend in Key West I had no idea that I would not only be releasing the book, but also touring it with a companion show, “The Melania Trump Road Show: Get Out the Vote and Get Me Out of the White House of Garbage.” If you would have told me that I would have freaked out. The objective was solely to dip my toe in. One small step.
Even the show is a different animal than when I first met it. Originally, I wanted to host as Melania and get local comics to guest star. Then I started working with comedian Jesse Sneddon and we spit-balled so many bits that we saw that we could do a scripted show. At that point we thought a run in NYC and then some other nearby cities would be the extent of our efforts. Then we brought on his friend Ula Uberbuson who introduced us to the plethora of opportunity available to touring artists. Next thing you know we’re planning a tour.
When you start to put things into action you learn more about what you need to do in order to make it happen. There’s no other way to do it. Like Marie Forleo says, “Clarity comes from engagement, not thought.”
You have no idea where your crazy-ass mind will take you. The only thing you need to do is say yes to moving forward.