Three steps to a Creativity-Forward Life.

For years, people have been telling me that I am worth more than my productivity.

I’ve been laughing, saying, “Oh yes, I know,” then dutifully getting back to crushing my productivity goals.

However, when life gets in the way, as it often does, my ability to use productivity to outrun my emotions grinds to a screeching halt, leaving me with nothing but a lengthy to-do list and a trail of broken dreams. As dramatic as it sounds, it is a part of my creative life cycle that I’ve long-since accepted. At this very moment, I am struggling with a time of deep personal grief, in addition to the global pandemic we are all attempting to survive. Expecting ourselves to continue our as-normal processes in the face of abnormal circumstances lacks compassion for our creative selves.

As a partner to my creative self, my spiritual self has always been drawn to the idea of the new year. I love carefully selecting a word of the year to hone my focus, as well as choosing new year’s resolutions to gently guide my path at least through the earliest months of the coming year. As 2022 approached, I kept hearing the phrase “creativity-forward life” echoing back to me in my mind. After the drama- and productivity-intense 2021, I knew I needed to instill some stillness and growth into my path for the upcoming year. I needed rest. I needed to heal. I needed to create. I knew my resolution for 2022.

I will live a creativity-forward life –not a productivity-forward life.

What does that mean?

Productivity, for me--and for a lot of us--is often the end result of creativity, but it is also its opposite. Focusing on what you can get out of a creative endeavor is steeped in capitalism, not creative expression.

Imagine back to being a child. When children sit down with crayons and the big dreams inside their heads, very little of their thought processes are devoted to turning their masterpieces into side hustles. They create because they have it in their heads and their hearts to create.

Children create because they have it in their heads and their hearts to create, not because they can turn their masterpieces into side hustles.

As we get older, it’s natural to want to find “the point” to everything we do, and in a capitalist society, the point is usually to make money. If you find yourself talented in one or more creative field, you may find that the only time you engage in creative play is when you are making something that you can sell or turn into something that can be sold, until there’s no play in any of it anymore.

When we lose our sense of play, we lose a lot of the point of creativity, and everything that that little kid sitting on the floor with crayons was going for all those years ago.

To embrace the essence of my resolution this year, I am creating a fertile environment for creative ideas to grow without the expectation that those ideas will turn into “something.” I don’t have to turn my creativity into finished products, into income streams, or into future collaborations. My creativity gets to exist for the pure sake of creation. But after an entire adulthood spent hustling, how?

3 Steps the a Creativity-Forward Life

1. Little Notebooks Everywhere

I made a list of every place in my house that I might have an idea, given enough time. Some places were easy:

• my favorite chair
• the dining table
• the bed

Some areas took a little more thought:

• the bathtub
• the kitchen sink
• the place where I lay out my yoga mat.

Once I had a list of all the places where I have ideas, I placed a small notebook and pen in each of these places. For the sink and bathtub locations, I swung out and got notebooks that could be written in even if the paper got wet and got pens that could write in all weather conditions and underwater. That was probably overkill, but I wanted to set myself up for success. I also scribbled a sentence or two in each notebook as I set it in place to get past the fear of the blank page.

When I have ideas, I am never more than a few steps from being able to write them down. On Sundays, I transfer the ideas from my idea notebooks to my computer.

2. I always have music playing

I am very connected to music. In fact, if I don’t have any playing, I’ll usually have a song stuck in my head anyway, so I’m never really without music in my life. I find I can really influence the tone of my day through curated Spotify playlists or by using the Endel app to keep a constant flow of ambient music to keep me relaxed or on track throughout the day. Music adds rich texture to my creativity and creates an environment where ideas can flourish amidst all the little clicks, hums, and mouth sounds that make up modern life that would otherwise make it impossible to stay in attuned to my creative flow.

3. Slowing Down

This is the hardest one for me, but the most rewarding. I have always prided myself on the ability to work quickly. I can dissociate into my tasks (some people call it a flow state, I call it a productivity fugue) and come out the other side with work produced and usually a slightly more cramped neck and back than I started with. In my current state of grief, it is even more tempting to do this, because it would be time that I wouldn’t be able to think about anything other than the work … but that is not what my grief deserves, nor is it what my creativity deserves. So when I find myself wishing to rush through the creative process to the other side, I very intentionally slow myself down to half speed. I go more slowly. I focus on how my hands feel holding my drawing utensils. How the water sounds in its little glass yogurt cup that I use for rinsing my brushes. How the paper smells. I focus on the music playing in my house and how it makes me feel in my heart space. And sometimes, if I can, I try to slow down even a little more.

Working slowly has allowed me a deeper connection to my ideas and to what I make with those ideas, while also making sure that I don’t make as big a deal out of how many things I can make. It’s so easy to get lost as a creator in feeling like you need to create so much work to be visible in the online space. That may be true. But to spend a bit of time being true to myself and to my creative self rather than to my productive self is enriching and restorative.

I hope you consider examining where your focus is in your creativity and productivity balance. There isn’t a wrong answer, but it always worth exploring and recalibrating to find your more authentic center.

I wish you well in the new year, and always.