Part II: The Cycle of Doom

You know this loop.

Hell — you’ve probably lived it.

It’s the productivity trap that looks like progress… but slowly bleeds your momentum dry. No matter what they try to make you believe, you’re not lazy and you’re not broken. You’re just caught in a system that was never built for you.

And without a model that fits the way you actually work, you end up spinning in circles — trying harder, burning out faster, wondering why nothing sticks.

Here’s how the doom spiral goes down:

1. The To-Do List Illusion (Where it all begins)

You start with a big list.

Tasks. Projects. Emails. Errands. That thing someone DM’d you about two weeks ago.

And you think: “If I can just knock these out, I’ll feel productive.” So you hustle. You check boxes. You feel busy.

But deep down? You’re not actually moving. You’re nibbling at the edges while your real goals sit untouched.

Cue the frustration. So you reach for something stronger...

2. The Discipline Fantasy (Forcing the system)

Time to get serious.

You Google productivity hacks. You set up a new planner. You build a Notion dashboard with more color coding than a kindergarten art room.

Pomodoro. GTD. Time-blocking.

You try them all. Because this time… structure will save you.

But pretty soon? It starts to feel like you’re living under a regime. Your calendar becomes a cage. Your schedule becomes a guilt trip. And suddenly, the freedom you went solo for feels like micromanagement with a prettier font.

You ditch the system. Time to find a better one...

3. The Tool-Hopping Spiral

You start switching.

Apps. Planners. Methods. Templates.

Trello? No — ClickUp.

Wait — Notion.

Maybe Tana.

(Actually maybe I need a second brain.)

You convince yourself the right tool will solve the problem. But let’s be real... You’re spending more time organizing your work than doing it. And every switch promises clarity… only to leave you even more scattered.

So now what? You try to grind through it...

4. Willpower Overdrive (Right back to the beginning)

You ditch the tools. You ditch the structure. You tell yourself: “Screw it. I just need to push harder.”

So you go full beast mode. Late nights. Coffee highs. Motivational playlists.

You run on fumes. Until you don’t.

Because when your energy dips (and it will) — everything stalls. Momentum dies. And you’re left staring at another half-finished project and a half-burnt nervous system.

And guess what? You go right back to the to-do list. Back to square one.

The cycle begins all over again.

Sound familiar?

Yeah. Me too.

The creative burnout spiral: Christina Greve’s photographic paralysis

Photographer Christina Greve built a life around teaching others how to see —with presence, with soul, with a camera as an extension of intuition.

But in the winter of 2024, standing alone in her Danish countryside studio, the woman who once captured intimacy with a click found herself staring blankly at a still-life scene… and seeing nothing.

Her Leica hung limp from her hand. The vintage teacup she’d styled for a mindfulness course promo whispered cozy authenticity — but to her, it screamed fraud.

She knew the steps: adjust the aperture. Meter the light. Frame the shot.

But her body wouldn’t follow.

Her vision had gone quiet. Her energy, unresponsive.

“My vibrant ideas... seemed distant and inaccessible, as if the creative well within me had dried up.”

This moment — raw, hormonal, human — marked the collision of two worlds:

The world of relentless optimization... vs the very real rhythms of a body asking for something else.

The Burnout Behind the Beauty

Greve’s schedule from 2021–2023 reads like a solopreneur’s dream… on paper:

• 5:30 AM: Meditation + journaling
• 7:00 AM: Client coaching
• 10:00 AM: Shoots
• 2:00 PM: Podcast recording
• 6:00 PM: Course development
• 9:00 PM: Social media engagement

Disciplined. Structured. High-output.

But under the surface, sleep was fragmented. Her creativity no longer pulsed in the “peak” windows. And the camera she once adored felt… heavy.

The more she tried to keep the rhythm going, the more it turned into a metronome with no music.

“I was gaslighting my own body. I mistook depletion for lack of discipline.”

This is the echo we’re still living in.

Let’s name it.

We’ve inherited a mindset about work — a deep, baked-in operating system—that was never designed for us.

It’s an echo. And we’re still living in it.

Traditional productivity?

As I mentioned before, it was born in factories. Built to count parts, control workers, and extract output. But somewhere along the way, we swallowed it whole. We internalized the rules. The scripts. The metrics. The guilt.

And now we measure ourselves with the wrong damn yardstick.

This old model worships at the altar of:

• Volume — more tasks, more checkboxes, more noise
• Speed — faster = better, even when it costs your clarity
• Visibility — perform your productivity so others see you “crushing it”
• Control — choke the creative process until it submits
• Dopamine — click, swipe, reward, repeat

It all feels like movement. But it’s not momentum. It’s just a loop.

A loop that fragments your focus, burns your energy, and kills your love for the work.

And look — it’s not that these systems don’t function.

They do.

They’re just not designed for the kind of work we’re doing. They weren’t made for creators. They weren’t made for solopreneurs navigating complexity. They weren’t made for building something from scratch, with soul.

We’re trying to make art with factory tools. (No wonder we feel broken.) But we’re not. We’re just playing the wrong game.

This industrial echo shows up everywhere:

• In the to-do list you hate but can’t let go of.
• In the guilt you feel when you rest.
• In the speed that always feels wrong, but always wins.
• It’s in the part of you that asks, “Did I do enough today?”

Even though you know that’s never really been the question.

Here’s the truth: We don’t need more hacks.

We need a new relationship to the way we work. One that’s rhythmic. One that’s spiraling, not linear. One that breathes with us instead of boxing us in.

We need systems that flex with our seasons, tools that support our energy, and rhythms that keep us engaged without burning us out.

We don’t need to get more done.

We need to feel alive inside the work.

You need a different model.

Let’s me repeat it: this is not about laziness. It’s not because you lack grit. Or structure. Or accountability.

You’re not broken. You’ve just been trying to run flow-based work through a factory-shaped pipe.

You’ve been told to hustle harder, to rebuild the funnel to refine the system. Try another habit stack. Push through.

But pushing is not the problem.

The model is.

You don’t need tighter routines. You need a system that knows how to move with your energy — not against it. A system that bends. Loops. Returns. Builds. Layers. Breathes. A system that knows creation doesn’t happen in straight lines — and that real work takes rhythm, not rigidity.

And that brings us to the shift.

The Shift: From Linear Execution to Intuitive Momentum

If the old model treated solopreneurship like a factory… the new model treats it like a studio.

It's a place for catching fire. Where your work moves with rhythm, not rigidity. Where what matters isn’t how fast you check off steps A through Z — but whether you’re still in it.

Still showing up. Still breathing with the work. Still connected.

This is the shift.

We stop forcing. We start flowing.

Orson Welles is often called the greatest filmmaker of all time.

Citizen Kane redefined cinema. His storytelling, his vision — everything he created was years ahead of its time.

But there was one film he never got to finish.

For decades, Welles worked on The Other Side of the Wind, a film he believed would be his final masterpiece. He shot footage. He edited scenes. He poured his genius into it.

But it never reached completion.

The Other Side of the Wind sat in post-production for 48 years.

By the time it was finally completed in 2018 — long after his death — the world had moved on.

The industry had changed. The cultural moment that would have made the film revolutionary had passed.

The film wasn’t just late.

It was irrelevant.

And it wasn’t because the idea wasn’t good enough. It wasn’t because Welles lacked talent or vision.

It was because he ran out of time before he could channel his momentum into a finished piece of work.

We don't need a better to-do list. We need a better groove.

The problem isn’t disorganization.

It’s disconnection from your energy, from your timing, and from the thing you set out to build in the first place.

There's a way to reconnect that cord. It closes the loop between vision and action, between how you feel and what you choose, so you’re not constantly starting over. Not fighting your own rhythms. Not grinding through resistance like a machine.

Instead, you're flowing with presence. Working from alignment. Staying in the pocket long enough to finish something that actually matters.

Most importantly, to start tapping into something far more sustainable:

Intuitive Momentum.

What is Intuitive Momentum?

It’s what happens when movement becomes natural and progress doesn’t demand punishment.

When you’re not grinding — you’re gliding.

It’s the felt sense that something is unfolding — even when you’re not micromanaging every second of it.

It’s knowing when to go all-in and when to pause. When to walk away for the afternoon without guilt — because the work is still alive inside you.

Don’t confuse it for passivity. Intuitive Momentum is engaged. It’s directional. It’s awake. It’s what happens when your system is tuning you in to where your energy wants to go.

It’s not structure-free. It’s structure that breathes with you. It comes from knowing intrinsically that your best work doesn't come from control.

Be honest. Think back to the work that lit you up. The stuff that still makes you proud when you reread it. Replay it in your mind. Tell the story.

Did it come from a rigid plan? From box-checking discipline? Or did it come from something more raw… more alive?

Were you on the clock — or in the zone?

Because that’s what intuitive momentum unlocks. Not just task completion — but creative ignition.

And once you’ve felt it? You’ll never want to grind again.

You won’t need motivation tricks. You won’t need permission to rest. You’ll have something better:

A deep inner signal that tells you when to move.

The best part is that signal never runs out.

Continue to Part III: Optimizing for Intuitive Momentum →