How to Overcome a Slump
Are you trying your best? Working as hard as ever, but everything seems to go wrong despite your efforts? Are you frustrated and ready to give up? You may be in a slump. A slump is when things just don’t go your way for an extended period of time. It’s common to make mistakes and have to fix them, but over and over again seemingly in an endless cycle of mishap after mishap is mentally exhausting. It seems like you just can’t catch a break.
I remember my first slump. In the fall of my junior year in high school I started going to basketball workouts, which usually consisted of pickup games. I anticipated making the Varsity team after a successful JV year as a sophomore. These games had two purposes. They were a way to get us players into shape to start the season, but also an opportunity for the coaches to start their evaluation of the team. In the first couple of weeks I played with my fellow juniors and the seniors. I performed okay, but I noticed I was not as strong, as fast, or as good. I felt like I was trying to catch up while they were progressing past me. It was disheartening and I got in my head. I started missing easy shots, making bad passes, and falling further behind. Eventually I was moved over to the other court with JV and knew my high school basketball career was done. I wouldn’t make varsity. So I gave up.
I don’t regret giving up, but I knew I could have tried harder. I realize now that I didn’t give up as much as I gave in. I let the pressure of making a big leap to varsity get to me. I let the slump pull me down. I could have put in the work to push past it, but I took the easy route out and decided basketball wasn’t for me.
I could write my basketball experience off as a lack of maturity. I wasn’t mentally as strong as I am now. But I still have those same feelings today when I hit a slump. When things aren’t going my way I lose motivation. Today I’m able to push through and continue, so what do I do differently?
Shift focus
Right now I’m working on a relatively small project for my daughter. A dress stand I wrote about in my post about Designing Projects. The other day I was gluing up a panel I planned to use for the lower shelf and boy did everything go wrong. I milled my lumber and jointed my edges. I decided to put a video together of this build so I setup my camera, grabbed my glue, and got to work thinking everything would go smoothly. But it didn’t. These boards were thinner than I’m used to so clamping was tricky. There was less surface area for the clamps to put pressure and the thinness caused the boards to buckle. Twice, the clamps to sprang off the boards. It took me three attempts with three different clamping variations to get them together. I was annoyed, I was frustrated, I wanted to grab a beer and go inside but I knew I’d just ruminate in my frustration for the rest of the night.
Instead, I needed a break. I needed to be productive. So I tackled a chore I had been meaning to do for months. I cleaned and waxed the bed of my planer. I gathered up my paste wax, turned on the air compressor and went to work. With a little shoot of compressed air here, a little scrubbing there, and some wax on, wax off action I had a nicely waxed, slippery smooth surface for future planing. That change of focus from my frustrating glue up to a clean, smooth planer left me feeling accomplished at the end of the evening. I was able to walk inside feeling good, with a clear, relaxed mind, ready to head to bed for a restful nights sleep instead of laying away for hours thinking about what I could have done better.
Create a win
Confidence. We gain it one drop at a time with every success and lose buckets worth in a failure. If you find yourself down in a slump you need to climb out by building your confidence back up and the best way to do that is to have successes.
One way I create a success is by completing a side project. If I’m in the middle of a troublesome project that has been headache after headache, I’ll pivot to something else. A little while ago I was making a cabinet. I cruised right through building the carcass, the face frame, and gluing up the top. My next step was to build the doors so I could start painting. Carrying forward the confidence I’d built after an easy path thus far, I jumped in quickly. I milled my lumber flat, cut the grooves and tenons in my rails and stiles, and cut the plywood to fit. Got them all glued up and in clamps all in one day. That felt great, until it wasn’t. It turns out I was too quick. I didn’t leave time for the wood to adjust in between milling and assembly and all of my milled lumber warped, leaving me with bowed doors. A huge setback. Non-flat cabinet doors means they wouldn’t completely close. The cabinet would look off no matter what I did. There was nothing I could to fix it so I had to start over, which meant going back to the lumber yard, buying more wood, letting it acclimate to my shop, mill it, let it acclimate again to not make the same mistake twice, mill to final size, and then build the doors. In that whole process I had some time to kill, so I decided to make a picture frame in the meantime.
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I knew I could make a flat door but I wanted to prove it to myself. Picture frames and doors are very similar so it was a good confidence booster. I’ve made a lot of picture frames so I knew it would be a walk in the park. That’s the key to this one. Pick a project you know you can do with ease to rebuild your confidence. Picture frames don’t take long so I put one together that day. It felt great to complete a project. It felt great to give the frame to my wife to put my daughter’s artwork in. That simple frame gave me the confidence I needed to remake the doors properly.
Celebrate
A success will add a drop back into the bucket, but celebrating that success will add even more. You need to take the time to reflect and relish what you can do. Small or big, celebrate what you’ve accomplished. If you’re struggling, pick something easy you’ve made before and make it again. Remind yourself that you know what you are doing and when you finish the project currently giving you problems you’ll be able to build it again next time easier and faster than first time.
Remember, the next thing you make will be the best thing you’ve ever made. Your next project has the benefit of your gained experience, the skills you’ve built, and the new tools in your toolbelt.