Wisdom from the First 5 Days of Creative Practice

1. Starting is what matters.

Start early. Start late. Start slowly or quickly, smoothly or awkwardly, enthusiastically or reluctantly. But START.

(How many things are not created, not enjoyed, because we didn’t actually start?)

2. Practice burns away resistance.

“I had a bit of internal resistance on Day 1 and Day 2 but I did it anyway. Here I am on day 3, and I just sat down, wrote out what I wanted to say and posted the text and image on Instagram without any internal resistance. And I posted two other images on my personal FB page, just because they spoke to me and wanted to be shared. All I can say is WOW. And thank you.”  -Jeanne Schlesinger, Photographer, Your Flower Story

Why does practice burn away resistance?

Because we learn that what we’re resisting is doable, smaller than the herculean task we imagine it to be, and to our surprise, enjoyable.

And, muscle memory: the practice begins to create new pathways in our brain, new habits for our body, habits we begin to feel more whole with and not feel complete without.

3. Bust your assumptions about what a practice {insert just about any other word} is or how and when it needs to be done.

“I couldn’t figure out what to do. But I realized what all [the things I want to do] have in common – creation. Making. So, instead of going too specific, I went broad. For 40 days I am going to Art. As a verb.” -Beth Roach, Founder, Art Food Fun

You don’t have to be as specific as you think you do. It doesn’t have to be exactly the same activity every day. You don’t have to do exactly the same meditation, exactly the same form of art. Your practice can be: time with myself or art.

And, you don’t have to engage in it at the same time every day. Pick a time that works for any given day, or steal a few minutes spontaneously, and do it. Let yourself enjoy it. Let that be good enough. (Oh, the joy of good enough…kind of contrary to my post yesterday about mastery, but just as valuable.)

And see what happens. See if, in fact, you CAN be creative, you can fully engage, you can do your best creative work, at a different time of day, despite a slow start, despite the awkwardness, despite the stiff feeling of warming up. (And oh, my gosh, read what Elizabeth Gilbert has to say in Big Magic about this: most creativity is eked out in the repetition of showing up.) What a tragedy to live the rest of your life thinking: I can only paint in the morning. The rest of the day I’m shit. (That’s a lot of time to write off. Time that could surprise you with insight, genius and delight!)

4. You have time.

Yes, you do.
Yes. You do.
Yes. You. Do.

If you don’t have time, let’s hop on the phone and find you some time.

Because if you want to make a shift in your life, your work, your business, you need to open up some time to allow that.