Part 3: How to Make Self-Imposed Deadlines Stick
SO HOW DO I STICK TO SELF-IMPOSED DEADLINES?
Well, first of all, I don’t. 😂 Or at least, I haven’t historically. I have a history of making all these grand plans to make artwork and then never even starting. 😭
To use my 2026 wall calendar as an example, I was working on an illustration job for a freelance client at the same time as I was designing the art for the calendar. Long story short, I originally thought that said client project would be completed a full 3 weeks earlier than it ended up taking. Delays due to miscommunication, more revisions than expected, my client being out of the office for a week in the middle of the project, etc. To be clear, they were super kind and understanding, and it all turned out okay in the end, but y’all?
I was stressed about my calendar getting finished on time. As I write this blog post, it still is not fully completed. 😅 (But it’s close!)
My original launch date was Wednesday, October 14th, 2026, but I had to push it back to Wednesday, October 21st, 2026 because, as I mentioned, I accidentally overbooked myself and literally, physically could not finish it in time for the OG October dates (unless I lost sleep over it, which I am not willing to do, haha—sleep is too precious to me, okay!).
But the worst part was that I had already announced the dates to my newsletter subscribers. Big whoops! 😅 Luckily, it was only the one time, and I apologized and clarified in my next email to them. (Many of you know this already because you came here from my newsletter. Hi! 👋🏼 😂)
All this to say, there was a hot minute there when I wanted to bail on this whole pre-holiday calendar launch.
Want to know what stopped me?
The calendar launch marketing plan that I'd spent days writing and scheduling before I had even drawn the first sketch. Between the accountability of announcing it to my subscribers and the hours I'd already invested in planning and admin work?
That was enough to push through.
It worked better than anything else I have ever tried to get myself to stick to a self-imposed deadline. 😆
Past Melissa would never—and I mean never ever—have done this much drawing work in such a short amount of time. All put together, I drew 21 black-and-white illustrations for my client project AND the 13 drawings for my calendar in less than a month.😱 The 13 calendar drawings were my second-pass rough designs only, not including inking and coloring, BUT STILL. That’s a lot for me.
Sometimes, you gotta put the pressure on yourself, my dudes.
But what’s really cool is that I still had so much fun doing it! The pressure was on, but the drawing didn’t feel like work because it’s what I love doing. And this experience has built up some much-needed confidence in my abilities as an illustrator. I’ve always just assumed I’m an artist who is cursed to take 5ever and a day to finish anything, but I’ve proven to myself that I can finish work on a tight deadline. I can push myself to work faster and not sacrifice quality.
My takeaway from this: self-imposed deadlines work when they actually mean something. Not arbitrary dates (*), but commitments you've already made public and invested time into. I think at least for me that's the sort of motivation that really sticks.
Turns out I'm not cursed. I was just never pushing myself hard enough to find out what I was actually capable of. And that's a pretty cool thing to discover about yourself. 🤓🌟
xoxo,
