S3 E35: How To Be Creative Again
Have you ever taken a break from your creative practice and had a hard time getting back in the habit again? Whether you've taken a long or short break, if it's feeling tough to restart again, or to regain creative momentum, it’s not hopeless!
In this episode you’ll learn some easy ways to get unstuck from the resistance and self-compassionately begin again (and again) as many times as needed.
RESOURCES DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODE:
Sign up for the free Feel Good Creativity Unchallenge (5 days of super easy creativity + wellness prompts)
TRANSCRIPT
Hello, and welcome to Episode 35 of Being A Whole Person. Welcome to new listeners. Welcome to old listeners. Welcome everyone! Before we get into today's topic, I have a few announcements.
A couple of weeks ago, I did a free coworking session, and it was really fun. People showed up and got a lot of stuff done within an hour. Even they were kind of surprised how much that they were able to get done in a short amount of time. But that's kind of the magic of showing up with people.
I thought it was great, so I'm going to do it again, on Thursday, May 20. This time, it's going to be two hours long, from 9-11am Pacific. So, if you can come the whole time, great. If you can only come for part of it, great. Hopefully the longer time span allows for a little bit more flexibility for people. There's a link in the show notes to sign up for that.
If you're into this coworking idea, I am brewing up some co-working offerings coming soon, kind of a membership style deal. So stay tuned for that for sure.
Announcement number two, I want your questions, I want your topic suggestions. I want to know what you want me to talk about. I'm going to do a Q&A episode sometime soon. I always welcome your feedback on what you want to hear about and what would be helpful to you, so let me know if you have suggestions. You can always email me at hello@rebeccahass.com, and that'll be in the show notes as well.
Lastly, my regular reminder that, if you like the show, I would be so appreciative if you would rate and review it on Apple podcasts, Apple iTunes. It helps so much to get those ratings and reviews, because it helps the podcast be found by more people, and for this message to help more people, and that's what we want. So that's a really great free way to support. Thanks in advance if you do that, you'll have my eternal gratitude.
So today's topic is how can you be creative again after a long break. I know the pandemic has really thrown a lot of us for a loop and made it so it's hard to have the bandwidth, or the personal space, or the time to do our creative practice. So this episode is for you if you've taken a long break, and it's feeling tough to restart again, or just to regain the momentum after being stuck in a state of not doing it for a while.
I also want to clarify: I strongly believe that everyone is creative, and that we use our creativity in all kinds of ways, even when we're doing things that we don't think of as creative. So I'm not saying that you've been entirely devoid of creativity if you've been taking a break from painting, or drawing or music or whatever it may be.
But maybe you're a musician, and you only play during lessons that you're teaching. That one is relatable for me for sure. Maybe you're a visual artist, and lately, you've only been doodling during zoom meetings of your day job. Maybe you haven't touched your paints in months or years. I'm not knocking any of these scenarios if they feel fine to you to take a break. But if you're feeling like something has been missing, or you're feeling a shame around not having done it for a while, that's what we're going to talk about today.
So first, remind yourself of why you love your creative practice. Why do you love making music? Why do you love writing? Whatever it is for you, remind yourself, maybe, how you first started to love it. If it has felt stale recently, remind yourself of those times when you've loved it so much. Those really triumphant experiences, times when you've been in a flow state, all that really juicy positive stuff.
Just take a second and remember that, and then ask yourself, “What is possible if I keep showing up to my creative practice?” More of the same, more bigger opportunities, perhaps? Those possibilities are endless, and it's really exciting to think about what's possible, and that's really motivating. I always like to think about the big picture first because it's so important to remember the purpose and meaning that we're creating by doing art.
Then we have to get practical. So first, try to carve out a time for creativity and make it sacred. Nothing can impinge upon it, it is only for creativity, even if that feels frivolous, even if it feels like it's taking you away from something else. It's so so important. It doesn't have to be a lot of time, what if you can only do 15 minutes at first? That's totally fine.
Ideally, this might be the same time every day, so that you can build a routine. But if that's not possible, do it when you can. I know for me, having a thing on the schedule makes it so much more likely to happen, and I think that's the case for a lot of us. Maybe you can't have a daily time, maybe it's only a weekly time at first, maybe it's only on weekdays, only on weekend days, whatever works for you and your schedule, and is going to be sustainable to stay consistent with, that's a great place to start.
Even if you're starting smaller than what seems ideal, even if you're starting way smaller than what seems ideal, it doesn't matter - you're starting, and you're doing it, and it can always build and grow from there. Doing anything is always better than doing nothing. But of course, don't beat yourself up if you do nothing, sometimes that happens, too. Even if you pick a short amount of time, it can be really motivating to stop for the day, and then be wanting more. It might help you be excited about returning to it the next day to continue.
If you're having resistance around creating, notice that. Notice what feelings are coming up, what negative messages you're hearing from your brain. Brains can be really mean sometimes, thank it for coming: “Thanks for trying to protect me.” Brains really like to keep us in our comfort zone, and are trying to keep us safe, but we can override that. We can say “Thanks, negative message, you are not needed right now. I'm trying to do a thing, and it's important.”
If your fears are around, “What if I'm not any good at this anymore?” That's real. A lot of us worry about that when we take a break. You could try planning on making something bad on purpose. You're imperfect, right? Because you're human. So commit to the imperfection. We know that not everything we make is good, right? We have to make a bunch of bad stuff, too.
Good and bad is such an arbitrary way to talk about this, and you don't have to put those hard and fast labels on it. But I know sometimes these are the words that come up in our head, so that's why I'm using them here.
The truth is, like we're not going to love everything that we make, and that's fine. The more stuff we make, though, the more good stuff is gonna come out. It's a numbers game when it comes down to it. If you make 100 things, you're way more likely to have something you like than 10 things. If 100 things sounds really overwhelming, just ignore that I said that. Don't worry about it. Eventually, it'll be 100 things, once you stay consistent, but you don't have to do 100 things at once. You're just thinking about the first thing on the first day to show up.
Another note about the word good: I like to reserve the meaning of that word to mean, I like what I'm making. It's not somebody else's arbitrary standard that I'm trying to live up to. Critical teachers' voices often pop in there, you hear them commenting up, your self doubt takes on their form. Also, same deal as before, tell them to kindly go away - “Thank you, thank you for trying to help, but I won't be needing you right now.” Then you send them on their way.
So when you come back to any habit, but your creative practice especially, because there's so much emotion wrapped up in it sometimes, make sure that you're setting realistic expectations for what is going to come out of it. I think a great expectation on the first day back is just that you showed up and you did something. If you're feeling out of practice, it might not be amazing the first day back. If it does, that's awesome, but a lot of times, day one feels kind of terrible, because you're just not at your normal level. You're not as connected. Your skills are a little bit rusty.
Day two is going to feel better though. Just observe how you feel about your first day back, but don't get too attached to those feelings, and don't let that stop you from continuing. We just have to get through that uncomfortable getting back into it phase. You don't have to show what you make to anyone, you can throw it away afterwards if you want to. The point is that you just do something, and if you're not satisfied with the work that you make, try to use that as a motivating reason to show up again tomorrow, the excitement of there being more to learn and more to improve at.
I know a lot of us use that as a reason to hate ourselves or to shame ourselves. But we don't have to do that. My favorite exercise, when I'm in one of those moments, where I'm feeling really self critical, or, you know, saying mean things to myself in my head is: talking to myself like I would to a child who I care about, or any person that I care about. If someone you love was going through the same hard thing, you wouldn't be shaming them or saying mean things to them, you would be encouraging them and saying loving things. So hopefully, you can do the same thing for yourself.
On that first day back, make it as easy as possible to do the thing. Remove any obstacles that are in your way, whatever the mental equivalent is of having the training wheels on your bike, that's totally fine. You want to bridge that gap and make it as easy to start as possible, so that you actually take action and show up and create, set up your environment so that it feels the best to you for comfortable creative work. I know a lot of us are still at home and in weird pandemic living configurations. If that's the case, you know, maybe it's not the ideal environment, but it's the best one you can create with what you have.
What does your creativity want from you? Don't overthink it, just do the first few things that come to your mind, whatever you instinctively are feeling. If you are a procrastinator, and you think you might use this to tidy up your space for an hour, and then use up all your creative time, just set a time limit so that you can't get carried away, and so you still have enough time to do what you're planning on doing.
Maybe you want to just throw the things on your desk somewhere else where you can't see them, if clutter bothers you. Maybe you want to light a candle, grab a cup of tea or coffee, or whatever your favorite beverage is. Maybe go outside, maybe go to a coffee shop patio, maybe the new setting is a positively stimulating thing for you. But maybe staying in the same spot and having that consistency is more helpful. You know yourself and what you need, but it's something to experiment with.
Last week, I talked a little bit more about balancing novelty and routine and how these support your creativity in that balance. That balance is always changing too. So those are factors that you can tweak, then invite your creativity out to play. I like to think about it as play, more than work. If I'm feeling a little apprehensive about what I might be producing, or whether I can really do it ,or whatever fears are coming up, play always sounds so much more accessible.
So, make it really manageable to just dip your toe in the water, what is the smallest thing that you can make that would still be fun and satisfying? You might even want to switch it up. If you are a violinist and that's what you do most of the time, maybe you' dipping back into creativity is to draw something, if you're not feeling pulled toward what you normally do, and that might inspire you to do something musical again.
Here are some ideas. You could write a letter, you could write a 4-measure song, you could doodle on a post it note, write a haiku, a micro story, you could read a page of a book aloud in different ways. You could do some cooking, play with your food, write a pep talk to somebody, make a tiny sculpture, make a tiny collage, take a beautiful photo, anything that is going to spark inspiration. Anything that feels creative to you is great. Then if your creative practice is not related to the thing, maybe that little thing will bring you back to it with some inspiration.
All that that I just mentioned about dipping your toe in the water and those ideas are part of the first day of my Feel Good Creativity Unchallenge, which is five days of little bite sized prompts to make it really easy to get back into creativity. If that sounds like something that would help you, it's totally free and there's a sign up in the show notes. People have found that really helpful.
So whenever your time is up, whether you just have that 15 minutes or an hour, whatever amount of time it is, make sure that you leave a little bit of time at the end to celebrate. I don't care if you hate what you made, or if you felt uncomfortable, or if the negative voices were trying to take over. Well, I care of course. But even if all that stuff happens, you showed up, and that is totally worth celebrating. Bonus, it's also positive reinforcement for showing up again next time.
Even if you scoff at, “A for effort”, and trophies for participation, who cares, right? Like, let's celebrate that we did something that was hard. If you were experiencing resistance to coming back to creativity, you did a hard thing, and there were a lot of feelings wrapped up in that, so it's a big deal, and it's awesome.
Lastly, you have permission to fail at this. You don't need my permission, but I'm giving it to you, in case that helps empower you to give it to yourself. You have permission to fail at showing up daily. If your goal was to show up, and you didn't for a day, that doesn't mean you have to give up, you just show up again the next day. And you might fail again. But you just show up again the next day, or whenever you can keep trying to show up. That's all that really matters is that we keep trying to show up, because eventually, we’ll show up so many times that we'll finish a song, or finish a drawing, or finish a project, or finish writing a grant. Whatever it is, it'll get done if you keep showing up.
So if you've been stuck, and away from your creativity, I hope this episode has given you some fortitude and encouragement to get back into it. I'm here for you too. I have a few spots for coaching left that are starting in May, and my rates will be going up in June. I'll have more details about that soon. But now's a great time to start. Even if you just have a call with me in May, and you don't start your sessions until later, you can still have the original rate that I have right now.
If that sounds intriguing to you, go ahead and sign up for a free discovery call. There's never any pressure to sign up for anything. I just want to chat with you, and help get you on your way. Every time, you'll leave with at least one tip probably more and some resources to start you on your way. There have been some really cool aha moments just from these short free calls. So, I'd love to talk to you, and help you get restarted and unstuck, because, I know if you're a creative person, you don't feel quite right unless you have that in your life. I want you to feel like your whole self and totally fulfilled creatively. So let's talk, if that's the case, no matter what I'm rooting for you and your creativity. Until next time, I hope you have a great week. Be well.
Pianist and composer