What makes a creative process sustainable?
The process you go through when making something will, more or less, determine whether you finish “the thing”.
That is the experience of my creative coaching clients, as well as my own experience, and it makes your creative process kind of a big deal. So, how to make your creative process sustainable?
Coaching clients come to me because they are stuck in their process of creating a project, or stuck before they have actually started.
My work as a creativity coach is about helping my clients build a sustainable creative process, and then give her tools to gently work through her blocks, one small step at a time.
This looks different for each coaching client.
The opposite of quick fixes, hacks and hustle, a sustainable creative process is one that works for as long as it takes to finish your project, and make you want to begin another creative process over and over.
A sustainable creative process is a process you can rely on for getting one small step further along, consistently.
It’s a process that works for you in the long-term.
What makes a creative process sustainable?
What makes a creative process sustainable is highly personal, and at the same time, I see patterns in what tends to work for most of my clients that I have been coaching for the last 10 Years.
You’ll engage in many types of processes in your work, life and business if you have one, some long, some short. Some will be for a project that means a lot to you, some not so much.
Your creative process can only be personal to you. It literally can only be this way, since what you make is coming through you.
This is a fundamental awareness that can be missed in the bombardment of “hacks” we see e.v.e.r.y.w.h.e.r.e on the internet and social.
Once this truth, that your creative process is personal to you, is deeply under your skin, it makes it a little more difficult for comparison to get hold of you. Simply because our processes for being creator makers cannot be compared. I am not you, you are not me.
Let’s say 2 creators had been given the task of making a chair that had to be comfortable. Even deciding which chair is most comfortable would be hard, as people’s comfort depends on physical size and ability, but we could maybe say 7 out of 10 picked chair no 1. That would be a result that could be compared. But the process of how the creators built each chair cannot.
Sustainable creative process tip 1: Make your time for creating deeply personal.
No matter whether you have 15 minutes a week, or 10 hours, the time you get to spend with yourself and your creativity can be your emotional and mental safety net for dealing with life, set-backs and struggles. It doesn’t mean you have to engage in art therapy, it can simply be a little breather.
I like the idea of finding comfort in my creative process as much as I can. This looks different depending on the day, but I try and think of my writing/creating as the place where I meet myself with understanding and gentle kindness.
I worry about the kids, work, hubby, the dog, house, garden, health… you name it… but when I step into the space of writing - this blog post for example - I’m imperfectly and gently trying to bring words on the screen, or paper. That’s all.
It’s sitting with myself in quiet stillness. I’m introvert, so this works for me. You might want music on, or something else to make your creative time deeply personal to you.
Another reason I recommend making your creative process a comfort blanket, is that making and sharing work is vulnerable and scary, and we need to have our own backs here.
I know it’s a popular belief to push yourself out of your comfort zone, but many of us live outside our comfort zone daily, and need a comfort zone we can step into that feels safe and warm.
Again, creating your own sustainable process for creating work is personal to you.
Hygge, calm, and comfort will attract me to write more. You might be more attracted to being in an environment with background noise and other people around.
Sustainable creative process tip 2: Plan your creative time
I have sooo much resistance to this advice, as do many of my clients, but I also know, unless I say “ok, Monday I’m going to sit my arse down and write this blog post”, I won’t do it.
So I give myself some slack, and create loose structure.
It doesn’t work for me to have a back-to-back plan and schedule, and I know I’m a slow writer, so I allow a whole day to write a blog post, as an example. And then if I begin earlier, like write down thoughts over the weekend for the post, I feel I’m ahead of myself. Win!
It’s just one of those things, our brain tend to respect an appointment that is written down in a calendar, like a dentist or doctors appointment, more than if we just think “yeah, I’ll get to it when I feel like it.”
Some of the creative barriers you might come to as you create:
It makes sense to focus on making your creative process your own, a lovely comfortable and safe space for you to hang out, because creativity naturally bring up fears for us, as it’s a little window into who we are at this moment. For many of us, that’s a little unnerving, to say the least.
Some creative blocks you might come across in your pursue of doing creative work could be:
Doubt.
You doubt yourself. Can I do it? Will anyone respond? What is even the point?
Overwhelm.
Where to begin? There’s too much to do. I don’t have the time.
Fear.
Afraid of what other people think (perfectionism). Afraid of being seen. Afraid of putting yourself out there, maybe you’ll get ignored or criticized.
How to deal with these creative blocks, is
Sustainable creative process tip 3: Thinking and doing small is your friend
When you’re having a hard time getting started on your creative intention and procrastination pulls you in all other directions, your phone, the sweet cupboard, even the cleaning cupboard, leaning into a tiny, small step is your friend.
You don’t need 10 minutes, you don’t even need 5 minutes, you just need 30 seconds to think about your project.
A nonjudgmental small step connecting with “doing” creativity, is how you move gently forward.
Examples of small steps:
sharpening a pencil
Finding a notebook
Opening your computer
Taking the guitar out of the case
Thinking about what to do next
Picking the first color
Getting the camera ready
As a kaizen-muse creativity coach, kaizen is the biggest tool - along with self-kindness - in my personal creative block toolbox.
If I am struggling to get any writing done, I come back to just writing one sentence in my notebook or diary. That’s it.
This little step gets me started and I might write 3 sentences. It’s not a whole blog post but it’s a start, and because my creative process is where I practice understanding and self-kindness, that’s enough.
Small steps are super useful to get anything done. That one sentence makes me focus on the here and now, and not the drama in my heard about the whole post, or whatever might be the thing I’m making.
Know that just starting builds self-respect. It collects evidence that you’re capable of starting again and again, and doing that is how a creative habit is formed.
Here’s a quote by Robert Maurer, who is part of the kaizen-muse creativity coaching training.
“Small actions are at the heart of kaizen. By taking steps so tiny that they seem trivial or even laughable, you’ll sail calmly past obstacles that have defeated you before.
Slowly - but painlessly - you’ll cultivate an appetite for continued success and lay down a permanent new route to change.”
Having a back-up plan for kickstarting inspiration
Ok, sometimes we need a little kick-start to get the inspiration going. My writing gets easier when I actually sit down and write. :D I still try and write notes before I sit down and open the computer, and between those two actions is where my procrastination sits.
If I’m in a total slump and uninspired place, I go through my trusted stacks of magazines I’ve collected over the years. I look for photos to cut out that speak to me, and that process somehow gets me moving.
Do you have a back-up thing you do to kickstart inspiration?
I wish we would spend more time focusing on having a process for creative we absolutely adore. A process we find comfort in when life, and the work around us is hard. A process that will catch us safely and gently every time. This is where we are truly seen.
I’ll end this with a question for you, dear reader:
What small thing would make it sustainably easier for you to engage in your creative dream?
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