Art

Do the Creative Work First

Confession: Sometimes I feel guilty for making time to just draw or sketch. This is especially true when I’ve got projects lined up, am busy with work or my side hustle, simply because it’s paid work. Anyone else as an artist or designer or creative, ever feel this? Let me know in the comments below!
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The irony is, your creative work is the work that you need to do most. Being torn between what we should be doing and the creative work we must be doing is what Elle Luna talks about in “The Crossroads of Should and Must.” I sketched this reminder to myself while listening to Cynthia Morris on This Epic Life Podcast with Kristoffer “KC” Carter. As a creative coach, Cynthia talks about how her creative practice, and how tapping into it, gives her vitality. She urges other creatives to “do the creative work first.” More times than not, we feel like we should cross off those to-dos on our list, thinking we’ll feel more energized to do our creative work. But it’s often the opposite, and doing your creative work is much like a workout: you might dread it, especially on your off days, but afterwards you don’t regret it, and you actually feel a lot better after.
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Leaving you with more words of wisdom from Cynthia Morris:

“Stop with the battle, because the actual (creative) work is difficult enough. So I’m here to help remove all of the ways we make it more difficult. I want everyone to know, like, and trust their own creative process. So I know what works for me, I trust that even if I didn’t have a great writing day, I will write more tomorrow. And you know I actually like it. When I’m done with my writing or whatever my creative practice is, I feel good, I feel my vitality, because I think that when we are creating, we tap into our vitality, and we generate more… What’ I’ve noticed is, when we do our creative work first, that generates a bunch of really great energy… It’s not the same on the flipside. When we get our busywork or our tasks done, we’re not like ‘Yeah I’m charged up now to write!’”