Torn between all the creative things and learning how to focus on the doing.
“Something tells me that it’s okay to take breaks but when I do I still feel niggle of guilt and stress for not achieving all the things I set out. From paintings taking longer than I expect to unfinished textiles projects sitting on the shelf and me lying down staring at them wondering when the motivation will kick in.. ”
The creativity inside me wants to do every single thing now and I am also wanting to be horizontal. I had a huge headache writing this after attempting to film making something. I started about three things this week and after I went for a nap to ease the heady headache that’s been making me feel sorry for myself and I finally got round to filming and finishing one of the coolest pieces I have ever made, and it will be in the weekly vlog that will be in the next post.
But for now I wanted to write something for energy that is inside me that wants to be translated into something that will keep my creativity going strong. Something tells me that it’s okay to take breaks but when I do I still feel niggle of guilt and stress for not achieving all the things I set out. From paintings taking longer than I expect, to unfinished textiles projects sitting on the shelf and me lying down staring at them wondering when the motivation will kick in.
The thing is, the way I see it is that the motivation is there already. Sometimes putting deadlines on projects is a good thing for creativity but its also not something that needs to be done all the time. And I am trying to work out the balance of choice with this.
“I want to start, work through and finish projects quickly and I think that can be good for certain things but troublesome for my energy. Especially when I am trying to adopt a slow living lifestyle. I gotta be sustainable for the right tasks. And as someone who has been used to working to time scales its a difficult pattern to break. ”
I’ll elaborate because it needs to be said and I need to break it down so that I personally know that I don’t need to feel guilty for lying down and napping instead of forcing myself to finish something that could be easily finished at a later time. I think this is something I do when I feel overwhelmed with inspiration and lacking in the right energy to actually work on a project. I want to start, work through and finish projects quickly and I think that can be good for certain things but troublesome for my energy and stress levels. Especially when I am trying to adopt a slow living lifestyle. I gotta be sustainable for the right tasks. And as someone who has been used to working to time scales its a difficult pattern to break.
I’m literally sat here at 5:08 in the morning, feeling the need to do all the things again. It subsided earlier and I felt really good finishing the project I was working on but I still feel it linger with the unfinished tasks I have set myself. I could of sat down and finished this blog post hours ago, but in that time instead, I napped, made food, ate, made a garment (which I managed to finish but because of distraction, filmed most of it with my head cut off so need to work some of that out for the weekly vlog wew) napped again, and started writing another blog post then decided to repot a plant, and also set up my space for finishing a dress that is needing to be finished for in the later part of the morning. So when it’s light enough, I’ll attempt that. But now I will embrace my weirdness and write this post.
So here are a few things that I have been doing to stop feeling guilty and stressed for old habitual patterns that I have been working through for the past little while. First of all, I’ll kind of expand where I am at, where I’ve been, where I want to go, what I have been doing and probably most importantly what I am going to do.
Where I’m at: I get stressed and feel overwhelmed with the feeling of not doing enough in the most efficient time scale. I realise I am still learning and this is something that I know is where the frustration stems from most of the time. Drawing energy from a cup of creativity is a beautiful thing but sometimes I feel like it does overflow and I start too many projects at once and don’t work efficiently to my actual standards of practice. I am still in a development phase so I know my true self is being a little nervous because I want things done well. Which takes time. Something I have plenty of. Even when I think I don’t.
Where I’ve been: Working full time with other businesses to working on my own business is a huge change. I got used to the ‘auto pilot effect’ of knowing how to be a barista really well which was easy eventually for me, working to a routine and having definitive times to keep and working on hardly any of my projects which made me creatively uninspired for a while until I decided to work on them again. That lead me to a place where I worked on my projects and business a whole lot whilst working with other companies as a job that I managed to burn myself out and feel a whole lot of a little lost in where I was at with my creative projects. So I decided to work on my creative projects and business ideas full time and I built a working routine that used to work for me then life changed and I don’t know what to do without that routine.
Where I want to go: Following on from the previous mention of the routine, I’m going to create the time and space to give myself a safety of building a new one that includes enough flexibility to compensate for life changes. How I will do this is a work in progress. I basically do have the benefit of knowing when I am creative and when I am not. For example this is my typical day: I know that painting is good for me early in the morning from when the sun is up from about 6am till about 11am, after that I get hungry and make food, eat and Coffee gets the zoomies so I tend to spend some time with him and also tend to crave a morning walk. This I can use, it’s part of my pattern, so I can work that in. Then once I am back from my walk around 12.30pm/1pm I start feeling creative again, usually around 2pm I start to work again on a different project, because my hand/eye coordination is not completely strong for painting now I might just sew or edit or write, usually until I get hungry again around 6pm. Then I eat and want to be creative again until about 10pm then ideally id like to go to sleep but I know that if for example I am editing a video I will literally stay up until its finished which I realise is potentially where my problem is because I’ve ruined my natural sleeping pattern and I struggle with setting creative and work boundaries.
What I have been doing: Simple things have been worked on such as I’ve been giving myself a lot less shit for not doing the dishes and working more on creative projects which seems like a small thing, but the anxiety I used to have with mess had me so stressed that I had to do this, I am learning to choose which parts of my life I am feeling anything for and teaching myself to switch off stress responses to certain things like not doing the dishes and vacuuming everyday. I let my flat get into a bit of a mess and allowed myself to experience it from a different perspective, a choice to live my life in a less stressful way. And I still haven’t got to that clean pile of washing, its moved a few times and my intentions are to finally get round to it later today. I’ve been using my creative inspiration recently to gain momentum with motivation to create when it strikes, which after a break It feels good to be back at it though I’d like to approach it more mindfully.
What I am going to do:
I’m going to write out a new routine and rota, adapt elements that worked for me such as a cleaning schedule and incorporate what I learned to adapt to, to make my life a little bit more auto pilot rather than having to think so much. I feel like this is a mindful approach. I’m going to dedicate time to rest with intention, including meditate even if its 5 minutes of meditation I feel as though this would benefit me since I lost this from having little to no routine.
Incorporate a few flexible guidelines to living life in a slower way, because sometimes I get so hyped up for a creative project I go from 80% awake to 10% awake just talking about it in five minutes and I will learn to preserve my energy for the long run rather than having to nap because I’ve tired myself out by being too excited (this has happened too many times for my ADHD being.)
I give myself permission to be messier sometimes and also give myself permission to feel absolutely no stress because of it. I deserve to feel safe in the sense that no one is going to judge me in my own home for leaving the dishes to be washed, or having a laundry pile to be done, I am alive and I am living. This is allowed and I will get round to it eventually.
I can have time off to rest and feel good doing it. I know I’ve not really had a chance to feel as though it’s okay to calm myself and just lie down for the joy of being restful. This is needed for being productive and I need to remind myself of that.
I can take my time to work on projects that don’t need a deadline. I have given myself three years to start my shop and get some products designed and made. So there doesn’t particularly need to be a million deadlines, perhaps just one rule, work slow to finish well.
I love you all with love and light stay groovy!