Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

Mary Oliver

When you tally up the hours in your day or week, where are you spending your time? Do you have good work-life balance? Do your daily activities reflect your values and goals?

Are you creating?
Making time for art is a universal problem for creatives. We struggle to prioritize art in our daily lives, to confront fear of the blank canvas, to deal with internal and external expectations. In order to move beyond creative block, it’s important to Find Your Why. Your why is the motivation behind your art. Do you write to process big ideas? Do you paint to capture a feeling? Do you compose because it’s therapeutic? Today we’re sharing three tips on tapping into creativity by finding your why.

  • Your why is beyond publishing/perfection/fame. Accolades are nice, but they aren’t the heart of your work. Worrying about audience reception will alter your art. Remember: Your why is enough. Creating is an end in itself; it stretches your imagination and is therapeutic.
  • Your why is beyond a fear of failure. You are allowed to make bad art. It’s ok for your trashcan to be full of crumpled sketches and stilted poetry. Behind every book are meandering drafts and piles of rejection papers. Failing allows you to learn and move forward. Failing is not your enemy, stagnancy is.
  • Distractions are always there. Always. If you don’t understand your why and actively pursue it, you will always find mowing, laundry, meal prep, or another task. There are other, less productive distractions as well. Endless entertainment creates relentless consumption – of news, TV, social media. If you are spending the majority of your time consuming the creative output of others, you need to realign your schedule with your values. You can use a journal like Zinnia to schedule time for your creativity.

Finding your why means finding the essence and driving force behind your creativity. Ultimately, it should allow you to create without expectation beyond the sensation and fulfillment of creating.

At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter that you succeed. It matters that you do. Because the alternative is that there is nothing.

Florent Farges