Last week, I came across a model that explained the exact moment I'm living in very well: the emotional cycle of change, created by Don Kelley and Daryl Conner in 1979.

This model describes the emotional phases of voluntary change. Applying this model to my life, it looks something like this:

From February until September, I didn't know, but I was uninformed optimism. At the end of September, or perhaps sometime in October, informed pessimism kicked in. That's when I realized how much more complex things were, the work I would have to put in, the things I needed to learn and the skills I still needed to develop. Life also started to get busier outside the blog, so my focus was lost and, little by little, I lost my rhythm.

The point is: creating a creative professional life from scratch wasn't as easy as I thought it would be. However, I'm glad I started without knowing that, because I probably wouldn't have started at all! So being naive and simply putting my heart into something unknown was enough to start the journey.

And then, in November, I entered the valley of despair. Resistance increased, the creative block became more real than a toothache, procrastination became ridiculously paralyzing, my beloved perfectionism stopped me again, self-confidence plummeted and I was drowning in tasks without knowing where to start. Basically, I was stretching the hours to do the smallest thing.

But don't be fooled - I still love it all! I just need to get through this phase.

That's when I found this model that gave my moment its name, and it made me think: if what I was doing before no longer works for me, what should I do now to continue?

I was reminded of the work of neuroscientist Anne-Laure Le Cunff, which I discovered this year. She has a book called Tiny Experiments, Ness Labs, which presents a framework for replacing rigid, linear goals with a flexible, curiosity-driven approach - viewing life as a series of small, low-risk experiments. And since September I've been part of her community, called Ness Labs.

People there share all sorts of experiments they're trying in their lives, which is fascinating, but until now I hadn't felt the urge to create my own, since what I was doing still seemed to work.

That, of course, has changed...

Thinking about my question above, I realized that... this was my moment to try my first tiny experiment to regain my momentum.

So my tiny experiment will be to write every day for 21 consecutive days here on the blog, starting on December 11 and running until December 31. These will be short, light posts with a photo I take that day.

Simple.

Well... simple, but not easy - not for me. And for a few reasons.

First: doing this in the last days of December, the busiest time of the year, is... difficult. My focus is on everything but sitting down to write. My father arrives in less than two weeks, so that puts the icing on the cake.

Secondly: kill perfectionism. I'm terrible at it, I'm definitely not proud of it. I want to go too deep, do too much research, think too much before publishing, feel too awkard, filter myself too much... too much of “too much”! And it gets worse because my internal growth is ahead of my ability to articulate it, so I realized that the only way to catch up is to practice.

That reminded me of this table:

It shows that even the greatest artists in history have created thousands of works, and only a small fraction have become famous. Proof that mastery comes from quantity, not from waiting for perfection.

Third: I doubt myself a lot before I press “publish”. That's not going to change any time soon. Being creative means, by nature, expressing yourself - and with that comes exposure and, consequently, praise and judgment, and consequently learning to let go of my self-judgment. That's it. No shortcuts. This tiny experiment is perfect for working on that.

Fourth: I'm learning to show up even when I'm uninspired, and especially when my feelings pull me away from what I know I need to do. This tiny experiment will reinforce that learning.

Fifth: sharing my intentions with you increases my accountability and gives me extra motivation not to drop the ball. Feel free to watch me walk through this valley.

Happy days!