Rick Rubin shares about thoughts and habits which are not conducive to the creative work. However, most of these are applicable to our general work and life. Emphasis (bold) and extensions (italics) are mine.
• Believing you’re not good enough.
• Feeling you don’t have the energy it takes. (Focus is more important than energy)
• Mistaking adopted rules for absolute truths.
• Not wanting to do the work (laziness).
• Not taking the work to its highest expression (settling). (Don’t perfect your throw away work, instead use that focus to make your better the best)
• Having goals so ambitious that you can’t begin.
• Thinking you can only do your best work in certain conditions.
• Requiring specific tools or equipment to do the work.
• Abandoning a project as soon as it gets difficult.
• Feeling like you need permission to start or move forward.
• Letting a perceived need for funding, equipment, or support get in the way.
• Having too many ideas and not knowing where to start.
• Never finishing projects.
• Blaming circumstances or other people for interfering with your process.
• Believing a certain mood or state is necessary to do your best work.
• Distractibility and procrastination.
• Impatience.
• Thinking anything that’s out of your control is in your way.
Thinking Space 