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I have been struggling with re-writing a manuscript for our press here at Apple Barn. And I wanted to write to you about it today because one of the things that I realised whilst doing it is that I have created an obstacle to its success based on something seemingly positive: goal-making.
So this post is about exploring the nuances of our goals and how to bring gentleness to them and to our practice as creatives. I want to share with you the antidote I have come up with to, if not make progress on my goal, then to move on, and find some way of continuing my creative conversation, even when it’s not what I planned to be doing with my time.
I’m as imperfect as everyone else so I offer these words in the spirit of being in this creative and oh-so-human struggle together. To that end, there are three elements that are live questions for me at the moment: how to move from scarcity to abundance, how to navigate distraction culture, and how to focus on small goals. I want to touch on each of these things briefly today, but I am curious if folks would like to hear more about this process as it unfolds. Let us know.
Let’s dig in
From Scarcity to Abundance
What happens if we listened to the world already around us? What would happen if we listened to the signals within us, to our wellbeing?
I don’t know about you, but I often feel that my own sense of abundance is scrambled by news headlines, family dynamics, life admin, expectations around productivity and work. Personally, I’ve grown up worshiping at the feet of self-improvement and “hustle culture”. In the past, it’s made me feel validated and even given me a sense of purpose.
But as time goes on I am unravelling some of those expectations. Do these expectations accurately reflect what I want to offer in my work? Is self-improvement really a guise for a world view in which I can never fully accept my flaws and imperfect creative process?
Distraction Culture
Like all creative processes, the challenge lies where the proverbial rubber meets the road. In our distraction culture, the danger is that sometimes not being goal-oriented can mean avoidance. It can mean that I am consuming content instead of accepting the spaciousness of my own practice.
I know all the sage advice and these strategies — like leaving your phone in another room or going to work elsewhere — all work for some time. However, they seem to be like natural processes that all have seasons and are appropriate for some time and ineffective at others.
I’m still exploring how to navigate this endless distraction loop, but for now I’m attempting to paradoxically put fewer guardrails around my phone, because at the moment, those guardrails seem to imply for me that the phone is so powerful I need continuous protection from its presence.
Like the compost in the garden, I know this strategy will soon breakdown, but today I am taking my attention away from my usual guardrails, and instead putting my attention in self-trust. I’ll let you know how it goes.
The Small Things
You know the feeling when you wake up in the morning with “the list”? My list includes small stepping stones toward big, lofty goals. Sounds good, right? But recently I have become suspicious of my big goals.
Now I’m asking myself, are the small decisions actually the big decisions? Maybe choosing something that fills my senses with something memorable, the scent of tea, a soft wool jumper. What if these preferences make up the true metric of “success”?
Our culture tells us that it’s the big things. But each day I write down what I’m grateful for, and inevitably, they are the small moments — they are the texture of my life, the rituals and routines. And while sometimes you have take control of the way your life is heading, often not doing can be valuable too.
Sometimes, not acting on your desires creates the opportunity to discover new ways of being. The way I stumbled into my season of explorations in the studio was through this humble non-doing. When I realised I no longer could sustain my big energy, I began to explore smaller creative choices. It’s possible it may not lead to the same outcomes I had prescribed for myself, but it has a sensibility of joy about it that invites new notions of success that I’m curious about.
What I’m Doing Now
So for the next few months, I’m going to be here in the Apple Barn studio and I’m going to be going with my flow. Some days that might look like writing a post, some days it might be sweeping the floors, and some days it might be writing a letter. It might even be watching content online! I want to give myself a container to work without expectation, or rather, to discover what my intrinsic expectations are. I have my manuscript here in the studio and I have plans for it, I have ideas of how to make notes and how to elevate it. But I know now that the way to get to that is to give myself some time to stretch, to deviate, to bring in new ideas, and be open to new pathways; This is a season to use my time less like an oil painter and more like a sketch book artist.
We are a brand new business and every reader and workshop participant really does matter to us, so if you’d like the chance to practice your writing in gentle, exploratory ways please consider joining us for our new two-day online workshop Listening and Writing in May.
