Chasing Rabbits

There is a saying: “A hunter who chases more than one rabbit will go home with none.” It’s an adage I’ve kept in mind more and more in the past few years, because it hits far too close to home for me.

When I first came across the saying a few years back, I wasn’t ready to heed its wisdom - I was spreading myself too thin with my creative work, striving to learn and perfect a variety of new skills all at once (on top of working retail during the pandemic). It was a perfect cyclone - a vicious cycle - of not seeing meaningful results, pressuring myself, projecting that same pressure as coming from those around me, and burnout.

Too many rabbits.

Meanwhile, I’m seeing others creating and sharing their work in various stages of completion: a complete video game, a work-in-progress watercolor painting, 30 seconds of music - you name it. I was (and still am) glad to see others being creative and sharing their work.

At the same time, with each project I saw, my own self-conscious pressure grew: Why am I not making anything? My work isn’t worth sharing yet. Time’s ticking - you better chase those rabbits even harder!

These aren’t the thoughts that lead to success. Not by any means.

I had to take a tough look at myself and what I was doing. My system wasn’t working. My mindset wasn’t working.

So what did I do?

The first and most significant step I took was listing and organizing all of the projects I had started since 2019. I wrote and typed them all out in various ways in a few different places. As my choir professor from college said: “The biggest lie we tell ourselves is ‘I don’t need to write that down, I’ll remember it.’” Wise words.

With my projects listed on paper, on my whiteboard, and on a Google doc, I then began to prioritize each project. My approach is to categorize each project by estimated lengths of time it’ll likely take to complete. Near-term projects should take less than one year. Mid-term projects should take between one and three years. Far-term projects should take more than 3 years to complete. (I say “should” because life happens, and I do my best to account for that.)

At this point, it became so much easier to focus on catching one rabbit, instead of scrambling and failing to catch several at once.

To further my own self-structure, I bought a desk calendar and a weekly planner. The desk calendar is used for monthly “big-picture” reminders: bill payments, day job schedule, deadlines, events, and so on. I’m a big-picture kinda guy, so this is always where I start my scheduling.

The weekly planner has the time of day listed in columns, in 15-minute increments, which helps me to “zoom in” on my day-to-day schedule. Being a visual person, I indicate blocks of time for whatever activities are happening in a given day.

Not only am I able to focus on catching one rabbit, but I’m able to schedule time to do so.

Except there’s a critical final element: self-discipline. Without this, having an organized list and having a schedule means nothing.

One of the best (in my opinion) concepts for self-discipline is the idea of working from motivation vs. working from consistency. When working from motivation, you’re working from feeling and inspiration. Feelings change and inspiration fades. But when you’re working from consistency, you’re working from patterns, repetition, and habit. 

I’ve come a long way in the past six months, and I’m happy with myself for that. Ironically, taking time to reflect gives me motivation, which I’m using to reach a more stable consistency.

My college advisor would often tell his students (something to the effect of): “You have to be the one who wants success. It won’t be given to you.”

I have to focus on one rabbit. I have to dedicate time to catching the rabbit. I have to want to catch the rabbit.

It’s never going to catch itself.