A year ago, I offered an alternative to making new year’s resolutions when it comes to creative practice. If you weren’t with me at that time, do take a read. Yet it can be difficult to not start a new year out without contemplating some goals for the coming year. So, this year, I’d like to offer another way to think about changing things up by using imagery to contemplate a different way of approaching the creative process this year.

What would it look like if…

You accept that not every day is going to be full of passion. Sometimes you have to clean the brushes, prep the canvas, file your taxes, update your website, do the laundry, walk the dog, or deal with things that seemingly have nothing to do with what you love about creating but are just as necessary to your process and life. They may not be the things that feed your soul, but they can feed your life, contain hidden opportunities for creative reflection, and give you a chance to appreciate the time you can spend on your art even more.

You stop kicking yourself for what you haven’t done. Storytime. I had a lot of goals over the holidays including get my art room stuff unpacked and set up in a house I moved into eight months earlier. Guess what? Not only did I not complete this goal. I didn’t even start it. I spent New Years Day practically in tears over what I characterized as slothfulness on my part. Sometimes tears happen. The next day I translated my to do list into a new notebook for the new year and realized I had gotten much more done than I realized, even if I did not get the art room completely set up. I would make time for it the following weekend. As the old Yiddish rhyme goes, “Mann Tracht, Un Gott Lacht” (“Man plans and God laughs”). A few days later, what started as a backache got diagnosed as shingles. What I really need to kick myself about was why I hadn’t got the shingles vaccine. Actually I need to stop kicking myself at all. This is my body’s way of saying this is the season for rest. No apologies. Healing must taken precedence over everything else. And healing time is also an opportunity for the creative process. I started writing this blog while in the waiting room at urgent care and am now completing it from my bed. A weekend spent reading, writing, watching films, and resting is not the same as idle time.

You became more aware of comparisons. Humans are social animals and I think it would be too much to expect that we are never going to compare ourselves to others. But what is behind the comparison? Are we inspired by others? Are we putting them up on a pedestal? Are we envious or making false comparisons? Are we aware that others may also be comparing themselves to us? Does comparison drive us to be our best? Or does it drive

You put yourself in spaces where you can find inspiration. There’s no way to predict what may inspire us. On the day before I was bemoaning the fact I didn’t get done what I wanted to get done, I took four photos of the scene from my backyard. Beautiful golden clouds. The moon on its last hours that morning. A woodpecker doing his thing in the tree above. All I did was walk out on my back porch. You never know where inspiration will hit you but you do have the power to stop, breathe, and notice. Whether you travel across the world, go someplace new near you, or just stop and notice what is around you, you’d be surprised where inspiration might come from.

You embraced the meh. As I reviewed this blog, I thought it’s not necessarily my best writing ever, but that’s OK. Heck, I’m writing it while I am tired and in some physical pain. Does it need to be the best ever? The blog has become a space for musings about what I’m thinking about currently when it comes to the creative process. On a meta level, the blog also reflects my own process. Indeed I could let many of these thoughts simmer and edit and re-edit, but it’s perhaps more important to get my thoughts down, share them, see how they resonate with others, and move on. This can be a real challenge for those of us who tend towards perfectionism. Yet, if we never embrace the meh, we might never get to the wow. So yeah meh.

What else could you look at differently when it comes to your own process?

P.S. If you are in the Washington DC area, join me and some of the artists featured in the Creative Resilience book on Wednesday, January 17 at Docs In Progress in downtown Silver Spring. Learn more.

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