How I'm Discovering What My Creative Work Is Truly About
Everyone who has worked on a creative project knows that there isn’t one way to describe it. You can look at it from many perspectives, describe it long or short, detailed or in broad terms. You may have one way you describe it to creative friends, another to potential customers, and a third to your family.
Yet so often, we search for that description that feels just right. That makes things flow and connect and that blows your mind a little. Recently, I found a description like that for what I do in my coaching and in my creative work. Today I want to share that story and give you a tip if you’re searching for that right description too.
A suggestion came my way
In my experience, we go through a couple of descriptions in any project. We may start out with an idea, realise halfway through that’s not quite it and change how we think about it. When we’re done we may find a third way to describe it that makes us go yes - this is what it’s about.
I recently had one of these moments about my coaching, business and creative work in general. I had booked a one off conversation with a coach (because coaches need coaches too), and I was describing to her what I do and how I help creatives in my coaching. I was rambling a bit, searching for a clear way of explaining what tied it all together.
She suggested: so you could say you help creatives get moving in their projects.
I paused, considered it. I hadn’t thought about it that way, not exactly. I have described what I do as helping creatives bring their ideas to life, and before then as helping creative make ideas happen. It wasn’t a big stretch, not at all. But it was just enough of a tweak that it shifted my perspective.
How it ties everything together
The longer I think about it, the more it feels so very true. I did my Fear Year back in 2016 because my creative fears were holding me back from moving forward with my novel. I started exploring slow living because I wanted to find a sustainable pace forward in my creative life. In a broader sense, I’ve always been quite future oriented and intrigued by how we make change happen.
My coaching clients are at different stages in their creative projects - some in the very beginning, others halfway through. Their projects are very different, and so are their strengths and experiences. But one thing connects them all. They want to get moving with whatever step is next and they need some help to do it.
When I look at what I want to focus on in my blog and my videos, it comes back to what I believe helps us get moving. Not the productivity hacks and waking up at 5am, but the things that helps us deal with whatever is holding us back, both on a more process focused level and in the deeper questions.
An outside perspective
It’s interesting how much easier it can be for someone else to identify the ways we stand out and what connects everything we do. We’re so close to our own work that we struggle to step back and see it from the outside - we can’t see the forest for all the trees. If you’ve taken a break from a project and come back to it, you may have experienced a certain sense of clarity that wasn’t there before. Like you’re seeing everything with new eyes.
If you’re searching for a way of thinking about and describing your creative work or project, I suggest explaining it to someone else and have them explain it back to you, in their own words and trying to highlight what it’s all about. I have found this to be very helpful when working with coaching clients as well, if they’re a little unclear on what their work is really about.
In case that doesn’t help or feel good to you, ask yourself what connects the work that you do - especially the work that feels true and meaningful. Write down the different ways it ties together and explore each with an open mind. Don’t reach for the broadest, most all-encompassing description but the one that drills in and highlights the core in a clear way.
Going deeper
With a new, clear focus comes the opportunity to dig deeper. When we’re clear on the overarching focus, it becomes clearer how we can go deeper as well. What the different avenues and strands are. This is one of the reasons I believe it’s so helpful to clearly understand your project - yes, it helps you move forward.
Over the next couple of weeks and months, I will explore and share what I believe helps us get moving in our projects, when we feel stuck. How I think it all fits together.
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