Have you signed up for too many classes?

If you’re like me, you’re smiling to yourself and thinking, “Is there really such a thing as too many classes?”

And then, about a moment later, you find yourself noticing that you feel a bit heavier and that your thoughts are running through all the classes you’ve signed up for that are just waiting for you, all that inspiration and possibility just sitting there ignored and incomplete. Maybe you feel a familiar twinge of guilt, not only at the money you’ve spent but also at how you let the excitement you had at the beginning fizzle out. Maybe you feel a whole lot of frustration, like you really, really, really want to do those classes but just haven’t managed to find the time. Maybe you simply laugh at yourself thinking, “Oh, look, there I go again. I just do that. Signing up for classes and then not doing them? Yep, that’s me!”

I get it. As a creative, an instructor and a lifelong learner, I am always taking classes. I love immersing myself in creative inspiration, new techniques and fresh perspectives. It enriches my creative life and my creative work. Plus, I hate missing out on anything. When I see a new class by a teacher I love or on a topic that fascinates me, I’m all over it! Right now, off the top of my head, I can think of 11 classes I have enrolled in that are incomplete and 2 more that I want to sign up for right now.

(Psst… I am not here to tell you to stop registering for classes or to finish what you have before you sign up for more.)

What I want to focus in is how do we get the most out of our learning experience?

1. Choose One Class to Make Your Priority

Every work of art needs a focal point and this principle can apply to your array of classes too! When you choose one class as your top priority, you can stop that repeated stress of choosing which project from which course you should do. It’s much simpler when your priority class is always your go-to. In any given week, if you have more time, you can cherry pick from the smorgasbord that remains!

You might be thinking, hey, if I could choose one then I wouldn’t have this whole pile of classes waiting for my attention! I hear you but let me also assure you that choosing one “for now” is a lot easier than choosing one “for always.” You can decide which class is going to be your priority this week, this summer or this year. You can switch it up whenever you like, as long as that switch gets you creating and moving forward, not avoiding and feeling frustrated.

2. Let Your “Why” Be Your Guide

Choosing your top priority and making it work for you is much easier when you are clear on why you are taking these classes in the first place. Are you taking class for a sense of community? If so, prioritize one that’s happening live over one that is self-paced. Are you taking classes to learn a new skill? Which of the classes does the best job at teaching the skill you most want to learn. Are you in class to have some fun?  Which of the classes brings you that delight?  

Let your motivation guide your prioritization.

3. Define “Complete” (Yes, you get to decide what’s complete!)

You don’t have to finish everything you start.

Whaaaa???

Yep, that’s right. You don’t have to finish everything you start, including every class you sign up for. Those early years in school really ingrain in us that progress and success is predicated on a level-up curriculum; you must complete grade 1 in order to get to grade 2. In non-academic life, it doesn’t necessarily work that way. You get to define your own curriculum and determine your own path.

If you start a class and quickly determine it isn’t for you, figure out what you now know about yourself as a student so you can make strong course choices in the future. Is this teacher not for you? This format? This topic? What do you know now that you didn’t know before? Let that be the learning and then let it go. Next time you’ll know that you need videos as a part of a class, not just text, or that self-paced classes work better for you than time-sensitive ones. Great!

Also, if you’re taking a class and you’ve already received great skills or inspiration from it but you haven’t done every single last thing, it’s okay to decide that you have received enough value from that class and call it complete. Think of it like going out to a restaurant and you’re served an amazing but wildly generous meal. It may not actually serve you to try and eat every, single last bite, especially if you are so full that you’re no longer enjoying it! If you sign up for a class that has 20 lessons and 14 teachers and bonus exercises etc and you are feeling blessedly done after 7, acknowledge all the value you received from the experience and call it complete.

4. Remember the Love

When I was finishing up high school, a grown-up asked me what I wanted to study in university. I explained that I was thinking English, because I loved it so much. He said, “Oh, you really don’t want to study something you love. School will suck the love right out of it.”

Now, higher education may or may not do that but we sure as shootin’ shouldn’t do that to ourselves ! As an adult, when you are studying something out of the sheer love of it, it is up to you to tend to that love.  You get to decide how much is enough. You get to decide which environment is right for you. You get to choose the teacher and set your own pace.

Remember, when all is said and done, this gorgeous plethora of courses is for you.

 

Let me take you on an inspiration journey – a trip to the Chihuly exhibit at the Royal Ontario Museum.  Chihuly is a celebrated American glass artist known for his innovation and large-scale installations. An inspiration journey is a nourishing adventure that fills your creative well. It’s the act (and the art) of intentionally engaging with the world in order to deepen understanding, expand possibilities and spark your creative response. It is an opportunity for you to be inspired in your creative life and to discover and free your artistic voice. 

When you go on an inspiration journey, you step into the world not as a passive receiver but as an active participant engaged and in conversation with what you encounter. A great first question to ask yourself is “What do I notice?”

As I turned a corner at the exhibit and encountered this installation, the first thing that struck me was its scale: the height of that wiggly white “tree”, the bulk of these bulbous white “petals”, the sheer volume of pieces that made up what, to me, looked like an underwater world. Noticing how large this installation was in height, in mass and in numbers deepened my understanding of the impact of scale.

When you see this installation, what do you notice? Take a moment before reading on. Independent of what anyone else might say, including me or the artist, what do you see?

Perhaps you noticed colour or the impact of repetition. Maybe the contrast of the straight lines of the rods and the crisscross of the logs. I immediately thought this would make an amazing theatre set (though I am sure stage managers everywhere would shudder at the idea of actors being near that glass!)

Whatever you noticed, how might that inform your own work? What would it be like to create a piece in red and white or a piece that juxtaposes man-made and natural materials?

Often when we encounter something, we don’t go much deeper than assessing whether we like it or not. If we like it, we relish it while we can. If we don’t, we move on. On an inspiration journey, we try to understand why we feel the way that we do. For example, I really like this set of pieces. Right away I know that is in part because of the monochromatic colour scheme. I love monochromatic. I find it both soothing and exciting. What else do I notice? I notice that these almost seem wet. If I imagine physically holding and swirling one of the bowls, it seems like everything within it would swish. I love that unexpected element and because it’s an illusion, my brain is hooked. It wants to keep looking at the piece as it tries to figure out what it is seeing.

Now it’s your turn. Do you like this piece or not so much? Whether you do or you don’t, what is it that attracts you or repels you from this piece? What does that tell you about your own aesthetic? How might that inform what you are creating?

One thing I noticed in all of Chihuly’s work was the many iterations of a particular idea. We saw dozens of expressions of a particular shape or technique and that was within the limitations of one exhibit! Chihuly and the people who work with him sometimes make hundreds of creations within a particular format.

I found great inspiration in this. When I’m exploring something new, I tend to make it again and again and sometimes I judge that instead of recognizing it as a way of developing an idea, a body of work and a set of skills.  In fact, Chihuly’s approach assured me that repetition is simply a part of the journey. We create, create, create in order to discover, gain experience and eventually mastery. This exhibit also showed how that volume of creation can open up amazing possibilities of combination and contrast, that works grouped together can become something more and different than they might be on their own.

This process of actively taking inspiration from one another  and from the world around us is a part of the creative process. Chihuly did this himself when he created his series of glass baskets. Inspired by Northwest Coast Indian baskets that he had seen at a museum, particularly the way they slouched and folded after having been stored, he recreated the effect in glass, which was a revolutionary shift from the tall standing structures that glass had been in the past.

An art gallery or a museum is the perfect place for an Inspiration Journey like the one we’ve shared today but the choices for your journeys are endless! Consider neighbourhoods you’ve never visited, botanical gardens, the library, even the grocery store. And though it’s always wonderful to go somewhere in person, you can also explore places online, like Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum  or a beautiful blog or a favourite Pinterest board. My sister Shannon and I recently went on an Inspiration Journey together in a children’s book! We sat and turned the pages and noticed the colours, the lines, what we loved about the creation of the characters. Wherever you go, the process remains the same – a simple act of intention, awareness and wondering that can inspire your creative work and your creative life.

Thank you for taking this journey with me today.

Take Yourself on an Inspiration Journey

• Choose Your Journey
• Encounter the place/the work/the content
• Ask yourself:
  • “What do I notice?”
  • “What else?”
  • “What is it that attracts me or repels me from this work?”
  • “How can what I have noticed inform my own creative life and work?
• Make use of what you have learned

May your Inspiration Journeys wake up your creative heart, challenge your creative mind and open up creative possibilities in your creative work and life.

I’m going to tell you something shocking. I don’t care if you make money at your art. I don’t care if you make six-figures working two days a week and have a kick-ass brand, a million followers and build passive income so you can bask on the beaches of Spain.

I don’t care.

What I care about is that you don’t die with your art inside you.

I care that at the end of your days you look back on your life, your experience and your body of work and feel proud.

I care that the world gets to see who you are and what you are capable of.

I care that you bring to life what is in you waiting to be born.

I care that you express the unique and precious perspective that only you bring to this world.

I care that you love your life.

I care that you are creatively fulfilled.

I care that your creative spark becomes a fire.

I care that you shine.

I want that for you no matter what.

No matter what your circumstances, no matter who or where you are, no matter how much time you have, no matter how much money you have, no matter how much energy you have I care that in this lifetime, in this body, in this moment, you create. That you take what is in your heart and mind and turn it into something. That you make your creative magic. That you bring what is in you to life and in so doing bring yourself to life too.

Not because you get paid.

Not because someone is watching.

Not because you need to prove something to someone, including yourself.

But because you have a song to sing, a poem to write, a dance to dance and you love it.

Because you are an artist. That is all.

Don’t let anything stop you. Not even something that looks like a dream.

We all get behind. It’s inevitable. Our laundry piles up. Our inbox overflows. Those classes we were so excited about transform into undone projects.

And not only do we get behind, we beat ourselves up over it too. We judge our inability to juggle, blame our lack of focus and get discouraged when, in fact, often it’s that there are simply too many demands.

So what do we do when there is so much to catch up on?

Do we book off a week and tackle it top to bottom? Do we chip away at it bit by bit? Do we hit delete and cut our losses? I’ll always remember interviewing Jill Badonsky and her saying that when all of the papers pile too high, she puts them in a box and tucks them away. There’s a creative solution!

What had me thinking about this is that at my gym they book in what they call a Recovery Week whenever there is a month that has 5 weeks in it. This is a chance to take a deep rest, to shift your routine, to go out for walks and get a massage, to come back refreshed and ready to go.

And years ago, in one of my day jobs, we worked an extra half hour every day so that on the third Friday of every month we had the day off. This was a huge blessing. All of us need to do things that are more easily done during the day – doctor’s appointments, haircuts and, in those days, banking.

What do these two examples have in common?

A break in the schedule is a part of the plan!

How could you make this idea work for you?

How can you create some time for that inevitable catch-up, a time when you can muster your forces and get back on track?

First: Create Everyday Ease

Do you know that when you design a garment it is essential that you build in ease? Ease is what allows you to actually move in that pair of pants or skirt. (I won’t tell you about the time I wore a pencil skirt and tried to step up onto the bus! Let’s just say, um, I could have used more ease!)

As you fill your schedule with to-dos, appointments and commitments build in ease. Build space in, around and between what you have booked. Prepare for the unexpected. Allow for movement. You will breathe easier when things go according to plan and have a better ability to manage when things pop off the rails.

Second: Schedule Muster Time

Considering your rhythm, your schedule and your propensity for needing to catch-up, what would be a great way for you to create a regularly scheduled catch-up time? A half-hour every Friday morning to clear those outstanding to-dos? Imagine how much nicer your weekend would feel! Leaving one Saturday morning every month completely unbooked so that if you need to catch-up on things you can and if you don’t have to – wooohooo coffee shop time! Using one of your vacation days each season for big tasks you struggle to get done piecemeal? What would work for you?

Each of us is different and what will work for our personality and our lifestyle is unique but one thing is for sure with some ease we’ll be able to move much more readily through all that catch-up with muster!

Let me know what you are going to try and how it works for you!

The Situation: You’ve got no inspiration or ideas.

You sit down to write a blog post and find yourself staring at that blinking cursor.

You’re doing creative work, which you love, but you’re facing a deadline and nothing is coming.

You’ve finally got some time to create and now that you’re here you don’t have a clue what to do.

In these moments it’s so easy to turn in on ourselves, to let the Inner Critic take over with an authoritative, “See? I told you so. What you were thinking? You’re not creative at all! Creative people have tons of ideas, too many ideas even. And look at you. You’ve got nothing. You know what that means? You are nothing.”

Ouch!

The good news is your inner critic is wrong. (Even if your dialogue sounds quite different , I guarantee you s/he is wrong.) Having these blank moments is a normal part of the creative process. An uncomfortable part, sure. A frustrating part? You bet. But a part of the creative process none the less.

So, what do you do when you have no ideas?

First Check In: Is your well empty?

Often we hit this blank wall when we’re trying to dive in too quickly after something else that has taken up all of our resources. Did you just finish a major project? Is there something in your life that’s taxing you hardcore? Are you exhausted? If so, take a break!

Sometimes it is simply not the time for generation; it’s the time for restoration. We creatives tend to resist that because we want so badly to be in the doing, in the making, the in the joy of creating. Learning to love the fallow times too will enhance your life, your work and your energy. Catch your breath. Go to the movies. Take a class. Read a book. Let your creative well fill up again.

And yes, I haven’t forgotten about that deadline situation. Sometimes we simply must produce. This is a good time to draw on your body of work and see how what you have already created can support you. Have you done some sketches that you could develop further? Have you written a piece that might work or offer up some key points? Can you bring it down to the simplest demands of the project and get it done? Do what you need to do to get to the other side and then find somewhere to write in big bold letters this reminder to yourself, “Book downtime after every project!!” If you are in this creative game for the long haul (and I hope you are), work with a healthy creative rhythm, not against it.

Now, assuming you are rested and ready for the upswing, how do you generate ideas?

7 Ways to Get Ideas Going and Creative Energy Flowing

1. Flush Your System

For 10-15 minutes write, paint, draw, dance, sing, sew.  Just go. Let it be utter crap.  Just get yourself moving. Pour out all the mess from your mind. Fling out all the stagnant energy. Expend all the overcharged energy. Just move that stuff and get it gone. You’ll be opening the space for something new and wonderful.

Plus here’s a secret about having no ideas: sometimes you actually have too many crammed in too tightly!

You might, in fact, have so many ideas clamouring for attention that their voices have melded into white noise. This happens to me all the time. When I get stuck writing a blog post, more often than not, I’m struggling because there are actually several blog posts all wanting to come out at once.

This Gordian creative knot can happen especially when it’s been a long time since we’ve given ourselves creative time. Ideas have percolated and because they haven’t been expressed, they’ve become stuck. Inspirations have arrived and been kept waiting at the door. Letting go of any attempt to focus or create product and giving yourself time to dump all and sundry out can help you see more clearly tidbits of the ideas that have been waiting for your attention. (PS Developing  a regular creative practice is one of the eways you can guard against this particular form of stuck)

2. Pick a Thread and Follow It

Don’t look for the whole piece. Just look for a place to begin. When you look at your paints, what colour catches your eye? Start with that. What are you experiencing right here in this moment? Are you a bit warm? Do you hear birds outside your window? Start with that. Is your inner critic screaming? Start with that.  Every road takes you somewhere. Once you get started, your creative instincts will know where to go.

3. Release the Pressure

I learned this when I was the movement director for a theatre production. One night at rehearsal the director unexpectedly called on me for some choreography.

“Jamie, why don’t you go ahead and work with the soldiers choreography now?”

“Um… sure…”

I looked up at the three actors on stage, each looking at me with open, expectant faces.

I had nothing for them. Nothing at all. I had a moment of panic. I searched my mind, my heart, my body for something. Anything! I didn’t want to let everyone down and I certainly didn’t want to look like I couldn’t do the job but I had nothing.

I turned to the director and said, “Sorry, Jess, I’ve got nothing right now.”

“Okay, no problem.”

I turned around to go back to my seat and….

“Wait. I’ve got it.”

As soon as I braved taking the pressure off, the ideas came. Ideas just don’t seem to love being forced to do anything but give them a moment and they just might show up.

4. Try a Different Medium

At a loss for what to do in your art journal? Choose fabrics for a quilt. No ideas for your poetry? Sing. No idea how to end your play? Make a collage. Can’t come up with a theme for your event? Take your camera on an outing.

Creative mojo is cross-disciplinary. Before you know it, the ideas that showed up in one medium will inspire some fresh thoughts in the other!

5. Have a Creative Chat

For some of us, extroverts particularly, having a quick creative chat with a friend or colleague can make all the difference. When you’ve found yourself for quite some time sitting alone generated nothing, give a friend a call and you may just find yourself sharing what you’ve been thinking about lately or taking a stand for something you find important and suddenly tumbling right out of your mouth are the seeds of your next creative project without any effort at all! (By the way, this happens to me all the time with the Behind the Scenes!)

6. Be Still

Sometimes the conversation we need to have is with ourselves. We need to get quiet enough to hear our own creative intuition. Give yourself 10 minutes to chair and stare. Don’t try to come up with ideas or move the project forward. Look out your window. Listen to the sounds around you. Breathe. Let your body and your mind relax. Then just listen. No pressure. No demands. Just listen. Promise yourself that you will explore at least one of the ideas that crosses your mind during this time.

7. Have a Shower.

It’s not an accident that so many people talk about having their best ideas in the shower. It may be the quiet. It may be the privacy. What I think it is , well, it’s kind of woo. I believe that the water pouring down over us helps us wash away all that excess energy and worry, all the remains of the day, leaving us fresh and open and ready to receive the ideas and inspirations that are meant for us.  Yes, I am saying that taking a shower is a creative practice.

Learning These Block-Obliterating Skills Matters

When these moments of frustrating blankness show up in your creative life, and they will, take it as a time to hone first your skill in discernment so that you can figure out whether now is time to keep working or to take a rest and then to practice these block-obliterating, idea-generating strategies and discover which ones serve you best.

Develop these skills so that your ideas can flow into your body of work. The world needs your gifts.

We creatives love ideas. We like them almost as much as art and stationary supplies! We collect them in journals and lists and voice memos to ourselves. We gather them like bundles of gorgeous spring blooms in our outstretched arms,  our faces beaming as bright as the sun. Oh, the joy of an abundance of ideas! Yum!

And then we sit down to write a blog post or a book chapter… we get ready to compose a song or a poem… we get set for our next knitting project or dance piece, our e-course or business venture and we look at that whole slew of ideas and we are overwhelmed.

How do we pick from this pile of beauty and possibility?

What if we pick the blue and then we see that someone else had great success with the red?

What if we go right and all of our dreams are left?

What if we miss out or get it wrong or lose?

How do we choose?

First, know that whatever is meant for you is there for you down all roads. If you are a creative heart then every path that calls to you will lead you on a creative adventure. Choose one to answer.  Say yes and begin.

Second, understand that it is the very nature of ideas that there are too many – and thank goodness! Can you imagine the paltry pantry of a world filled with only enough ideas for one person to manage easily in one lifetime? What a blessing we are gifted with a world so rich that we could pluck a new idea out of the air every millisecond and there would still be millions, even billions, more.

So make peace with there being more than enough.

Then weed out the shoulds and the ought-tos. Leave only choices that call to your heart.

Then choose.

Choose one and make a start. If it feels like you’re walking in shoes a size too small or a size too big, choose again, but if it feels like, “Yeah, this is good,” even if there’s a bit of a wobble in your step, keep walking. Make friends with this idea and see where it leads. Stop looking over your shoulder at all the ones you left behind. Imagine how that gorgeous idea holding your hand feels when you keep pining and grasping and looking elsewhere.

Trust yourself.

Trust that if you choose an idea that calls to your heart, there is no way to get it wrong.

Be here in this moment with this idea and all that is ready to be created between you.

Make your choice and dance.

We’re so very busy, so very distracted and often so very tired.  When life is so demanding, who has time for creativity? How can we play when there is so much work to do? How can we pick up our paintbrush when we haven’t tidied up our home? How can we dance when we haven’t done the laundry? How can write a poem when there’s dinner to be made?

And if we do, what will other people think? Will they see us as self-indulgent, deluded, weird? Will our family resent us taking time away from them for time for our creative hearts? Will they see our desire and our dreams and support them or dash them? Have we experienced that before?

So many questions lie between us and our creative time. So we go to Pinterest and pin what inspires us. We follow creatives on Instagram, join groups on Facebook and buy books and magazines to satisfy our artistic needs – and all of that inspires us but when we least expect it, it turns in on us too. Where once we felt raised, now we feel razed. Our inner critic viciously reminds us of all that we are not. Our creative hunger doubles us over like a stomach punch. The world seems like a dark, dark place where only a few, and certainly not you, are living the life you long for.

Sometimes it is easier to numb out than to feel that pain. It’s easier to buy paints for your daughter and watch her play instead of showing up to the canvas yourself. It’s easier to criticize the phony perfect lives of all those so-called creatives and all their fans who bought the hype than to admit that you’re aching for a piece of that dream. It’s easier to write in your journal over and over again your inner secrets than to risk taking even the smallest step.

You must take that step.

You must risk the vulnerability of exposing your creative heart.

You must risk going to the water and drinking your fill even if predators lurk.

If that creative thirst is in you, you simply must drink.

So often we believe that the safest route is the one that is most taken. Everyone we know works regular hours in an office environment so probably we should too. Having a steady paycheque and health benefits is a blessing. If you have an artistic leaning than probably the safest thing you can do is teach. Or maybe you could train in a more dependable field and do your art in the evenings and on the weekends. Until you have a family, of course, but don’t worry then you can do your art when you retire.

And if that works for you, amazing!

But if you are sad, if you are empty, if you are under-expressed and overly full, if you are heartbroken, if you are suffocating, if you are crying in the washroom stall at your regular job, then step up to the creative rivers and drink.

This does not have to involve quitting.

You do not need to suddenly leave your entire world behind to become a creative entrepreneur or a full-time art student or flog your wares on Etsy.

You don’t need to make a grand gesture, move to a new town or dress boho. Though, of course, you can.

All you have to do is create.

It’s that simple.

I know that doesn’t mean it’s easy. There will be feelings for you to feel, powerful ones, light and dark. There will be judgement from you and others and that will threaten to shut you down. There will be so much to learn that you’ll wake up to a whole world of what you don’t know and that may be overwhelming.

But you will be free.

Your heart will pour right out of you once it gets going. You will fumble and you will fail and you will discover and you will delight. You will laugh and you will cry and you will breathe once again and you will be alive. Most of all, you will remember who you are.

Welcome to your creative life.