Welcome back for the first official installment of “Everyday Things That Inspire,” a blog series meant to celebrate the everyday wonderful things of life! For this first post, I celebrate being halfway through the album and, more specifically, the process of progress. But first, a little bit of backstory:
Reaching my late 30s, I consider myself to be a self-diagnosed, recovering, overachieving perfectionist, which is a tough tendency to shake off when you’ve spent most of your life pursuing so-called perfection. I have learned over the years, however, that nothing robs your joy more than focusing on perfection (perfection is the enemy of good, I am told). And so when I finally learned to prioritize my happiness over perfection, I learned to recognize the power (and joy) of progress.
Producing this first album has been such a wonderful journey of progress. And I promised myself at the very beginning to take a different approach to this new path, to stay open to the process. To not expect the world of myself or others, but rather to stop and smell the roses. Yes, I am stopping to smell the roses at every available opportunity, I’m grateful to share.
For example, I truly savor these song reviews and couldn’t have asked for better comments for these songs off my first album:
On “Imagine”: “This is a lovely cover of an iconic song, and you manage to not only do it justice, but you put your own creative mark on it as well.”
https://www.jango.com/music/AnnaBelle+Swift/reviews/24067-%25E2%2580%259CImagine%25E2%2580%259D
On “Open Your Heart”: “Annabelle Swift is creating a folk tradition future, one open-hearted song at a time.”
https://www.lyricalodyssey.com/2025/06/annabelle-swift-releases-anthem-of.html
Any time that a reviewer understands both the intention behind the process and all of the hard work involved in production is such a blessing, a truly savorable moment for any indie artist.
Why is it so important to savor joy like this? From what I learned in an online Yale course on happiness and well-being, there is a phenomenon called the hedonic adaptation effect that otherwise makes us start to get used to/habituated to good things. According to Psychology Today (https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/hedonic-treadmill), we can savor positive things by focusing on what is enjoyable about the experience. And to further prevent hedonic adaptation, we can strive to mix up the positive elements of the experience so as to avoid repetition. Similar to this line of thinking, I would suggest celebrating positive things from all new angles at all different times, whenever the opportunity presents itself (e.g., I personally enjoy listening to my music from different devices in different settings, receiving much joy from the listening experience).
The power of progress is that progress not only instills joy but also begets more progress, just as positivity can beget more positivity. For this reason, “the process of progress” is the topic of this first installment of “Everyday Things That Inspire (Joy)”. Let us always prioritize and savor progress over perfection. Until next time!
Yours Truly,
AnnaBelle Swift
