I love December. The traditions surrounding Christmas are lovely, but even more than the holiday itself, I love the days after, when the big celebration is over. In those days between the holiday rush and the energy of beginning a new year, there's a little gap I like to spend in retreat from the world.

I hide out at home with great leftovers of food, candy and cookies, I take walks in the snow if there is any, I sniff our Christmas tree and sink deep into my books. And I create.

Our creative dreams are often deeply important to us, creative longings of the heart that just won't leave us alone. They are the things formed out of love for a craft and from who we want to be and what life we want to live.

And yet, dreams can be hard to work on. Hard to prioritize in a life filled with other things you want and must do, things with a shorter time frame and a closer connection to your everyday life. 

Dreams can go unrealized because they are so big and your weeks only have so many hours. So how do we do it? How do we match the priorities of our day to day life with our big and scary dreams?

There are times when I know that I've created something that just isn't good. A blog post that is more words than meaning, a scene without any tension or a photo that has no composition at all. It's frustrating, when you're trying and failing to make something meaningful.

It happens that I share those frustrations with the world and sometimes kind-hearted people respond with

I don't think there are any bad creations. All that we create have value.

I feel invincible. Everything seems to go right. The muse loves me and I love the muse. My energy seems to never end. I walk around longing to create every day. 

I'm at the top of a wave in the stormy sea of creativity. Nothing can beat me up here. I let the feeling rage through me, because I know it won't last forever. We can't stay on top of the wave forever.

It's only a matter of time until it's time to go down again. 
Before I start feeling sluggish and doubtful. 

And down we go again. 

Some say you don't need confidence. 

In a way, you don't. You can be scared and do things anyway. But at the same time, if you don't believe you can make your dream come true, it's likely to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Even if you decide to try despite your lack of confidence, you're going to mess up for yourself along the way.

At least, that's what I did.

A bit over a year ago, me painting anything was unthinkable. I was the typical writer, firmly convinced I lacked the ability to make anything that could come close to be called art. But I had proclaimed 2016 to be a year for facing my creative fears, so I ended up buying color and brushes anyway.

It didn't take long for me to realize that most of my inability was in my head, and in lack of practice. So during last year, I painted and in the name of facing my creative fears, I started selling what I barely dared to call my art.

Sometimes things happen that changes you.
Changes your creativity. 

It could be the simplest thing, propelling you in a new direction. A book, a dream, a new tool. A little push making you leap because you were ready to move on.

It could be that your life is shook to the very core by something life-changing. A sickness, a new life, a move. Your identity shifts and your creativity with it.

Or it could be that someone is forcing you to ask questions of your creativity that you haven't asked before. Questions making you question everything.

That's what happened to Taylor Lee. 

I'd written too much on my to do-list, as usual. In my heart, I knew it was more than I could handle and I went with it anyway.

I worked with stress as my companion. I flipped from moment to moment, never stopping. Dragging my creativity behind me, trying to force it to speed up. 

My creativity whining, me not listening. 

It was the beginning of the summer, and I was overwhelmed. For a while now, I've been searching for a clear direction in my creative life, for this blog, over and over again listing all the different things I'm working on. Blog, novel, book club, Etsy shop, photography. 

Structuring and scattering. Finding my focus and losing it again. 

I have tried to live my creative life with a big flaw. 
I have tried to do everything I want to do.

It may sound like living the dream, to do everything you want to do. But the reality is that it often interferes with your dreams, turning you into a stressed person half-assing many projects at once.

I don't know about you, but that's neither how I want to live nor create.

Creativity break ruts, but still we fall into ruts in our creativity. 

We find something that works and stick to it. Nothing wrong with that, often that's how we develop a recognizable style others enjoy.

But sometimes, we need to grow in our craft and then we need to break those ruts.

The creative life can be overwhelming. Being driven by inspiration, creativity and dreams, it's easy to want to do everything. We run hither and dither, creating all over the place. There are multiple projects, developing your craft, social media and all the things to figure out.

We end up feeling scattered, not sure how to choose between our inspiring ideas. Time is constantly running out but little gets finished.

It's unavoidable if you're a person who share your creativity with the world. You share something with certain hopes and those hopes get smashed down. There you are, being all brave and you get no credit for it.

Common symptoms include sharp embarrassment, diffuse pain a little here and there, overwhelming shame, distrust in your creativity, an urge to delete your work, strong longing to hide or run away and sudden lack of self-confidence. 

Let's have a look at the treatment!

This past weekend, I turned 28. It was a great birthday, with chocolate cake and sunshine. But I still have a wishlist, and it's not the regular one. It's a wishlist for what I want for this 28th year of my life. And the only one who can make my wishes come true - is me.

So here's what I wish for - and what I'm generously giving myself.

Opening an Etsy shop is one of those things. You know, like starting a blog or sending out a book proposal.

It feels like a milestone. It's a start of something, something that could potentially be big. Or not big at all. It could be significant, or entirely insignificant.

Therein lies the fear.

If it wasn't for one book in particular, I might never have started this blog. 

Maybe I'd eventually started a blog, likely a different blog, but that book gave me the idea of doing a Fear Year. And so, I started to share the adventures of facing my creative fears last year. Which then lead me to understand how much my mindset had been holding me back and what a huge difference some good strategies can have on your creative life.

I've not always been myself. I've neglected parts of who I am and hidden my true self from the world. I've feared showing up as I am, because being rejected would hurt so much more if I was truly myself.

When I started this blog, I knew I wanted to be honest.

At first, I didn't want to take a break. I had so many plans, so many dreams, my 2017 laid out in a spreadsheet. I didn't have time for a break. 

But it's when we feel like we don't have time that we need a break the most. 

I tried to ignore the little voice in my head that kept whispering that I needed to stop, to rethink and reconsider, but I couldn't.