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What Unstuck People Do and Think
Since the 1990s, Julia Cameron has dominated the bookshelves, bookstores, and church basements with her “The Artist Way” series of writings. At the center of each work is Cameron’s two regular exercises for Creatives—the artist date and morning pages. The artist date is not a date with an artist, though that would be good too,…
Everyone talks about visions and goals. Each is tremendously important for anyone who wants to move forward towards a goal. But lurking right under our nose, not off in some vision of the future or long list of goals is something else. Here are some clues to its identity. It is: something that runs on its…
Sure, we have New Year’s resolutions but what about mid-year declarations? Try making these and others of your own devising, your declaration of independence: I declare that I will begin again, this coming week, in small ways to more fully develop my commitment to myself to bring my creativity into the world. I will start…
Regardless of who we are or what our project is, we will get “no!” as an answer more often than “yes!”. Right now, sit back and consider how many nos you are likely to face about your work. Be honest and be in reality. Twenty? Fifty? More? Now double that number. Got 20? You got…
The downside of not losing weight is having excess weight. Hard to hide that. The visible downside of not stopping smoking is smoking and worse. Can’t hide that. Visible and even dire downsides can be motivating. Worrying and painful, but motivating nonetheless. Most people reading this post are working on creative projects outside the daily…
There are two types of roads: narrow and wide. The narrow road assumes that your journey will require little sideways movement or much movement at all other than straight ahead. A narrow road is fine for that, getting a person from point A to point B. We all want the fast way to our envisioned…
If we show up to our work space and if we show up consistently and if we make an earnest effort while there, something happens. A hook appears. The hook is a special type of motivating power that people who don’t consistently show up fail to experience.They never dream that it is there. One hook…
If you are just getting started or stalled out, find a blueprint and run with it. Blueprint? Yes, look for a blueprint that covers the next steps for you. For instance, if you want to write your first novel, get one of those books that tell people how to write a novel in 30 days, 90…
Painful. Beginner’s mind is painful. We are swamped with self-doubt, uncertainty if we are doing things right, uncertain if we even know what to do next. But that is just the way things go. Being a beginner is being a beginner. We feel out of sorts most of the time, whether we are doing things…
I learned recently from Suzy, a student in one of my The Stuck Creative classes, that all quilters try to push the thought of U.F.O.s out of their minds. Otherwise, going on would just be too disturbing. U.F.O.s , as quilters know them, are Un Finished Objects. Yes, unfinished objects can truly haunt us. There…
We all face a host of inner troublemakers that include: The Inner Critic The Inner Type A Personality Self-Doubt Low Frustration Tolerance Fear Worry Psychotherapy gives us a method to get a grip on these guys when they come up and stop us from working: Take a deep belly breath – That’s right (how simple),…
You are being bombarded with all sorts of things that have little direct relationship to your Creative life, right? You really get knocked off your path when things come along. Sound familiar? We previously defined some of these forces as distractions, dips, and dives. Today we go beyond definitions to actual practices for bouncing back…
Let’s say you have all the intention in the world to paint 45 minutes, 6 days a week. You hit this target just fine for a few days but by the fourth day, some distraction (big or small) comes up and you just can’t get your work done. When we don’t meet our creative daily…
I give credit to A. from Alexandria who suggested this at a recent The Stuck Creative Meetup. Even when A. is at her busiest and life is crazy with demands from other people, she makes sure she is scheduled to take a workshop a few times each year. Once she is off at the workshop,…
There are two major ways to get somewhere: leave most of your options open and stumble forward or narrow your options and move forward at a good pace. While there are plenty good arguments for leaving your options open (i.e. discovery), we will save that approach for a later post. To move forward at a…