Plan the project. And then trust your ability to do it. I can’t say this will work for everyone or for any project. But if you know you are in your element, if you have the tools, then what you have to do is trust. Trust that you can do it. This is not easy, and yet it is very easy. As I started my project and as I finally was able to immerse myself in it, it turned out my project had a rhythm. Or I did. I worked until there was no more to say or do that day. I couldn’t push it, it wouldn’t have made anything better. The rhythm was there. And the process wasn’t painful, it wasn’t hard. It was a creative process. There is nothing hard about creativity. Trust. Rhythm. Creativity. Utilising presence to be productive.

The idea is to learn presence in every situation, like zen practice, just be there with yourself always. Urges to share it is to turn away from it. The direction of movement should be towards oneself, says Suzuki the zen master. Stay with oneself, make any movement a circle that goes back to oneself. Just stay…

But what to do with the urge to analyse, to be stimulated in thought, without turning the movement away from oneself? Analysis can quickly become a mission to share, to argue, to win, to achieve. How to do this in a way that is still presence? Then again, in order to start, continue, and finish a particular process, such as a thesis, presence is required. Or to enjoy it, presence is required.

The urge to procrastinate a project – how is it related to anxiety? One may procrastinate in order to avoid anxiety, which is associated to the project (the current example) – And there is simply no need to feel anxiety while being present, while staying with oneself, maybe not even possible – so the anxiety comes perhaps from the ideas attached to the performance, to working on the project — because the performance/the work is associated with the end result, which is associated with demands of achievement, of success. If one is attached to a certain end result, this will feel demanding, which will create performance anxiety, which will cause one either to procrastinate or to work under great stress. The attention is not towards what is happening in the present, what the body is doing, but on demands of achievement in the future. This means the mind and body are split in two (dualism). This split causes anxiety. The anxiety isn’t necessary, it only prevents one to live fully, to express oneself fully in the moment. And feel good. 

Goals are transitions, not end points. You don’t get there and then you’re finished. It’s all movement, process. Goals are sticks you put in the ground and you say, I’m gonna get there. And when you get there, what do you do? You go someplace else. Or you die, and go someplace else.

I don’t just happen. I choose how to act, how to respond. And those times when I think I’m just happening, I’ve forgotten my choice. My responsibility is to remember.

I want to be able to remember acceptance. I want to be able to remember how to breathe. I want to be able to remember how to communicate. I want to be able to remember how I’m feeling and refrain from acting on my impulses sometimes.

Finding ways to come back to the place I just left.