Momentum, move 1 step forward every day!

‘You have to make sure that every day something has been achieved, even if it is that one small script is signed off. …Especially important with creatives who can get ‘down’. It is vital to not to have a day where nothing happens as that one day becomes two, and it becomes acceptable that a day goes past and nothing gets moved forward. You need to have a wind behind your projects moving them forward.’

Mark Payne iSite TV
(Paraphrased)

This is superb advice from one of the founders of the very successful iSite TV production company for whom I am mid an eight month modelling contract as they are making a series of 400 product videos for Indesit and Hotpoint.   I did a two day shoot for them last year which has now translated into this current contract. The demands and challenges of being a production company, be it for film, commercials or indeed theatre projects are just the same but in larger scale for anyone wanting to devise, make and market their own projects. One video here to watch 😉
 
A dishwasher video here 😉
In his short piece of advice there is so much wisdom.

• As Mark says, creatives can get down and when you don’t have a huge team around you it is even easier to let projects drift and then you get depressed, even less happens then!
• It is dangerous to have days becoming weeks of inactivity on a project, you may never get focused again on it! I have novels in drawers awaiting the next edit or step to getting an agent ;(
• Every day a step forward! This could be on the script or the edit, on the marketing or networking on behalf of the project! There had to be some action by yourself every day, 365 days worth of tiny steps over years adds up to a working career.
• Momentum in one area means momentum in the very universe around you. Without getting all ‘Singing Psychic’ on you, I have seen so many times how when I am busy making work for myself so other paid work seems to fall out of the air!   For example this year I finished an 11 week role play acting job on Sunday Jan 11th & Monday morning I was at my virtual desk sending out CV’s and hustling. The only work I had booked in for 2015 was my own show, The Singing Psychic gig on Feb 19th at the Tristan Bates. All that week I sent off CVs, I talked to Colin Watkeys, my director for The Singing Psychic solo theatre show, about the show and started the write of the full show and did some workshops at the Actors Centre. On the Friday lunchtime I got what seemed like a random call from iSite about my possible availability, a further one an hour later as shoot dates had changed to that Monday 3 days hence and by 6pm that same night I was booked to be in location Monday morning.
• Also when you are in the daily business of ‘doing’ – writing, acting, filming then you are a lot more relaxed about it. I expect to see a film camera pointed at me on a daily basis, I do not freeze up, stress about how I look, have to think about my screen acting technique, I can go to auditions and focus on meeting people and telling the truth of the character I am there to portray!
• The mere fact that daily you are taking action on a project means that your subconscious or wherever you think your creativity comes from starts working in the corners of your life. You will start having brilliant ideas triggered by what you see going on, somehow you will start filtering life into the very project you are focusing on. I had this with my last Singing Psychic YouTube sketch, I went for a walk, had an idea for a poem and  two hours later was recording a whole sketch, as below.

What is the one project you could start today to build momentum? What tiny step can you do today? I don’t want to hear it’s the rugby or the cricket, you can’t miss the next episode of The Voice or you have to have lunch with the girls. Do that but get 30 minutes work in every day on your project. Build that momentum 😉