Exercise: My creative practice will be / won’t be

Trying out an exercise I designed to help get to know your creative practice and understand what challenges might exist and what can change to help work around those challenges.

Initial inspiration for this exercise was drawn from an exercise in Abby Covert’s book, How to Make Sense of Any Mess.

My creative practice will be: Structured around the needs of my family, and subject to change based on family emergencies.

That means it will not be: In chunks of time or energy that I would consider optimal. Even if I set time aside, it’s subject to change if someone gets sick.

Which means it will be: Flexible, nimble, arranged in ways that it’s easy to put down and return to.

I can lean into this by not: Trying to do approaches to productivity that involve rigid timeblocking or elaborate rituals.

And by:

• Making it easy to stop and start (for example, by leaving the word processor open and making notes about the next thing I was going to do.)
• Creating as many options for “anytime, anywhere” writing that I can (thinking about the moments I have available to write and what stops me from using them, then addressing those things.)
• Focusing on what I got done each week, not on daily goals.
• Setting myself up with a menu of tasks and “assignments” that take various amounts of time and can be done with various energy levels.

My creative aspirations are: Writing many nonfiction books and growing an audience.

When I think about these, I feel: Energized but daunted; wanting to get started and/or go faster but not quite sure how; wanting success but also afraid of it.

That means they will not be: Achieved while I stay within my current comfort zone; it will not be a realistic expectation for me to achieve these goals without feeling scared or overwhelmed (including the ways fear and overwhelm can manifest, such as through procrastination or self-sabotage.)

Which means it will be: Hard for me at times, and the fact that it feels hard doesn’t mean anything is wrong. Achieving my goals means creating some systems to support myself knowing that this will be hard at times—feeling overwhelmed will be a feature, not a bug.

I can lean into this by not: Getting frustrated when myself when I exhibit signs of feeling overwhelmed, like procrastination or self-sabotage.

And by:

• Proactively identifying some people who can be supports for me when the challenging things come up.
• Not expecting a linear process of achievement; reminding myself not to expect this even when things feel like they are going well (attending to continuously resetting expectations.)
• Actively noticing and celebrating ways that I have grown out of my comfort zone during the process.
• Making note of what I learn during this process, both technical things and what I learn about myself.

Some thoughts or narratives I have about my creative aspirations and creative process that I suspect may not be true or helpful are:

• I need to have everything together before I can write. How dare I even think about writing when there’s unopened mail?
• I’d be happier if I lowered my expectations or goals for myself. Why can’t I be happy that I wrote anything at all?
• I should abandon my goals and aspirations because when I achieve them, I might not enjoy it and will certainly have a whole new set of problems anyway. What if I wish I’d never bothered?

What these tell me about myself are:

• I want everything to be comfortable and in good order, I want a sense of security in order to write.
• Sometimes my goals scare me and I’m afraid of disappointing myself and losing trust in myself.
• I have a multifaceted vision of possible futures, I worry about things that other people might never stop to consider.

What I could say to myself when I have these thoughts:

• Write now! The other work will never feel done!
• It’s okay to have goals that are big. It’s also okay not to meet them.
• That’s one possible outcome. What are some others you can imagine? And keep in mind how often reality may end up beyond your wildest imaginings.

What I could do when I have these thoughts:

• Write, wherever I am! If my desk is messy and I don’t have the energy to both clean it and then write, write on the couch! Or on the toilet! Whatever!
• Think about a time I had a big goal in the past, what I did, what scared me, and how I worked toward it. Make a note. Maybe draw a picture.
• Maybe I could restart my former practice of putting a stone in a bowl every time something didn’t turn out the way I was afraid it would.