Do you struggle with how to juggle all your passions and interests? In this episode I share how I learned to embrace my passion pluralite nature, AND how to effectively manage it, using my Stovetop Model of Life Design. [Read more…]
So you’ve decided to create your own business from your creative passions. Great — one decision down!
What do you do, though, when you’re a passion pluralite, with more than one creative skill that could be a source of income? How do you choose?
And what if, after you’ve set your course, you find yourself veering off in pursuit another one of your many creative interests? Does that make you a flake?
These questions are at the heart of this note from Jessica, which landed in my box the other day:
Hi Melissa,
I have to tell you how much I enjoy all the light you bring to the blogs you guest post on, and the wonderful advice here on Living A Creative Life.
Here’s my question to you: How did you decide which creative career path to commit to as a multi-creative person?
I love your term, “passion pluralite” because it’s the only way I can describe myself. You see, I started my own freelance writing business with the idea that I’d do some informational copywriting for businesses. Well, between holding down a crazy day job, a rambunctious toddler and husband, my life has become one big ball of stress. If you stir in the fact that I can’t narrow down a writing niche, it’s now a delicious recipe for burn-out.
In times like this, I make art. Now, I’m sneaking off and having an affair with painting—work that feels right to my soul right now. What am I getting for all of this infidelity? I’m working on a series of pieces and was asked to do a commission for an office near my home. How is that even possible? I’m supposed to be working on my writing career! I value good old fashioned “stick-to-it-ness” and this constant flux leaves me feeling more like a flake, not an empowered creative spirit.
In episode 14 of the Creative Insurgents podcast, Claudine Hellmuth says, “Don’t be afraid to pivot in your career.” Do you think this advice could be applied to a creative who’s finding her way?
Thank you for taking the time to read this. I’d be eternally grateful to hear your thoughts.
Kindest Regards,
Jessica
Dear Jessica,
The short answer to your first question, how did I decide which career path to commit to, is that I did exactly what you did: I snuck off and had an affair with making art.
The other short answer to your first question is that I’m still figuring it out!
Which leads to the short answer to your second question, do I think “Don’t be afraid to pivot in your career” is good advice for a creative who’s finding her way: yes, absolutely!
Now for the longer answers.
To be perfectly honest, back in the mid-90s when I set out to create my own business, I didn’t yet realize I was a multi-creative person. All I knew was that I wanted a purpose. Like you, my stated goal at the time was to be a writer, but writing felt hard. Too hard.
My gremlins convinced me that everything I wrote was crap, that I sucked as a writer, and I started doing arts and crafts purely as a procrastination strategy! Like you, I had an affair with the work that felt right to my soul right then.
(And in fact, for fifteen years I quit writing entirely, which, with the benefit of hindsight, I now see was simply a bad case of perfectionist paralysis led to its logical extreme. But that’s another story.)
Like you, that affair led to some commissions, and before long I was off and running with a little hobby business as a calligraphic artist, which grew (slowly, over several years) into a full-time business as a ketubah artist. All of this while I was “supposed” to be building a career as a writer.
And that is Part One of how I decided which creative career path to commit to: I followed my heart. But there is a Part Two — read on.
If I had kept following my heart, my sad and sordid history would be different (perhaps no less sad and sordid, but sad and sordid in a different way). Alas, what happened instead was that, out of fear, ignorance, self-doubt, and desperation, I stopped following my heart.
I followed the money instead.
Now, let me be quick to clarify that if you want to grow a business, of course you must follow the money! My error wasn’t that I followed the money, but that I completely ignored my heart in the process.
I succeeded in building up my business to a sustainable level, but completely cut the cord on my love affair in the process and stopped making art for me, to feed my own soul. (Who had the time? That was my excuse, anyway, which I now know was just that: an excuse.)
It was, in your words, “a delicious recipe for burn-out,” and indeed I burned myself to a right little crisp.
And then the economy tanked, and my business tanked along with it. My income took a big dive, and I panicked. I spent two full years “throwing money at the problem,” trying desperately to find the silver bullet that would bring my business back up to where it had been.
Like you, I value sticktoitiveness. And besides, I’d put so much time, energy and money into my business. It was all I’d done for over a dozen years — what else could I possibly do?
So I kept trying — even though I was burned out — and threw more money at marketing and promotion, until I found myself bowed under the weight of an Enormous Mountain of Debt (which I am still paying off, btw).
Burnout + money stress = Not Good.
To cut to the chase, a series of personal crises finally led to a breakdown, in February of 2010, and it was then that I realized I’d been wearing blinders for the past decade.
The beautiful thing about breakdowns is that they have the potential to lead to breakthroughs. (Click to tweet!)
When we’re really stuck in a rut, a breakdown might, in fact, be the only thing that will shake us out of our complacency. That’s what happened with me: my breakdown helped me to see that of course there were infinite possibilities open to me! I didn’t have to be just a ketubah artist for the rest of my life! There were all sorts of things I could do!
My breakdown helped me start following my heart again. I still have the ketubah business, and meanwhile I’ve developed other income streams that feed my soul while also feeding my belly. And I make time for creative passions that don’t bring in a penny, but pay me in spades in energy and joy.
Had I been able to take off my blinders a few years earlier, I might have saved myself a lot of stress, misery, and debt. Making time to feed my creative hungers could have helped cool my burnout, and I might have identified an alternate income source sooner, too.
The upshot? Not only do I agree with Claudine Hellmuth’s statement, “Don’t be afraid to pivot in your career,” but I’d go one further: for a creative who’s finding her way (and aren’t we all, ultimately?), pivoting is our imperative!
So is following your heart, at the same time as you follow the money.
There are countless ways to make this work, mostly some variation on one of the following:
You could grow a business from your passions, ideally finding the intersection between what you love and adore doing, what you’re really good at, and what people will happily pay for.Whatever option you choose, an ability to pivot will keep you more empowered over the long haul than a dogged sticktoitiveness that chains you to a sinking ship. The most successful creative business owners I know have achieved their success because they were willing and able to change course, in order to better align the joint goals of following their heart and following the money.
Ultimately, if I could go back in time to mentor my younger self, I’d advise her to find that blessed intersection between what makes her light up with joy, and what people are excited to pay her money for (which is, in fact, what I did at the start).
That’s only part of the formula, though. The other, equally important part, is to keep checking that you haven’t veered from that intersection! (That’s the part I skipped, to my detriment.)
Is what you’re offering still profitable? And just as important, are you still passionate about it?
Remember that the path will probably be a curvy one, so be prepared to pivot! And always, always, always pay attention to what feels right to your soul.
In other words, though I’m a big believer in fidelity in human relationships, when it comes to your creative passions, keep having those affairs, Jessica!
PS — Pssst! Know someone who might benefit from seeing this today? Pass it on!
I think the biggest gift of this year’s Create & Incubate Retreat (aside from the priceless connections and community), was coming back to my painting practice, which I’d allowed to lapse while I focused on clutterbusting my studio and rejuvenating my writing practice.
(Being a passion pluralite is hard sometimes!)
At the retreat I had the luxury of painting for hours each day. Now that I’m home, I do not have that luxury, and it’s all-too easy to slip back into not painting at all…
Because I’m a passion pluralite, I even have a genuine “excuse”: I have lots of creative passions, and although I do get to do all of them, I don’t get to do all of them at the same time.
I have to pick and choose.
Even so, even though I can honestly say I’m doing my creative thing even on days when I’m not painting, the truth is, I really want painting to be a regular part of my life.
I get to change my mind about that anytime, but right now, I want to be making art in my Creative Sandbox, and doing so regularly. I want painting to occupy one of the burners on my passion pluralite stovetop.
The retreat helped me remember how important painting is to me, and how good it makes me feel!
So today I decided to dedicate at least 15 minutes of my daily morning work sessions to PAINTING! This morning I “made a mess in the Creative Sandbox” with the 4×6 work-in-progress shown above, and it felt GREAT!
Alas, this means less writing time, but that’s the hard reality of life: we have to pick and choose.
And again, I get to change my mind anytime. 🙂
I feel the weight of my choices every day. Back in October I committed to a crazy, year-long project, 3x5x365, in which I fill a 3×5 card to a one-word prompt every day, post the pic here, and send it out in a newsletter.
I confess I’m often tempted to quit. Often.
And I could quit. I have the right to change my mind. But I’m sticking with it for two reasons:
1) I want to experience following through on a challenge for a full year. Sure, I have feelings about it now, but those feelings have ebbed and flowed. I have no way of knowing what it feels like to stick with something like this for a year until I’ve done it. So I’ll do it.
and
2) The feedback I’ve gotten from a handful of people for whom my efforts are meaningful. Not many people email me about 3x5x365, but the few who have really inspire me to keep going. When you know you’re making a difference, it motivates you to stick with it.
Yesterday Cory and I interviewed Jolie Guillebeau for the Creative Insurgents Podcast (watch for that episode to air in August, or better yet, subscribe in iTunes [and be sure to leave a review!]). I was so inspired by her story, and by the 100-day painting challenges she set for herself.
With an initial mailing list of only 40-some-odd friends and family, Jolie started emailing a pic of a new painting every day for 100 days. The painting on day 1 was priced at just $1; day 2 was $2; day 3 was $3, etc.
It doesn’t seem like much, but in 100 days Jolie had not just made 100 new paintings, she’d sold over 80 of them, earned $5,000, and grown her mailing list to 270 — that’s like 6+ times its original size!
When she finished with this original 100-day challenge, she set herself another one, this time pricing the paintings at “Name Your Own Price.” And when that challenge was done, she took on another one — each challenge carefully designed to shatter a particular self-installed glass ceiling. This ongoing experiment, quite brilliantly, also helped her learn how to price her work.
In the four+ years since she started, Jolie has painted over 2,000 paintings, and is now earning a sustainable income as an artist.
Part of me really wants to take a page from Jolie’s book.
Back in 2011/2012 I had an almost-daily painting newsletter, my not-quite-daily ArtSpark, and part of me is tempted to bring it back from its hiatus. I’m tempted to take on new creative challenges, and to try crazy selling experiments, like Jolie’s.
And I also know that adding one more thing to my already very-full plate is not in alignment with my other goal of excellent self-care and self-compassion.
So I will mull and process, and perhaps when Project 3x5x365 is done I’ll take on a different (shorter!) challenge.
Stay tuned…
Oh, and meanwhile, to see process pics of whatever I’m painting, subscribe to my Instagram feed here, or follow my Facebook page.
And for some behind-the-scenes views of last weekend’s retreat, click here.
Now go get creating!
PS — Pssst! Know someone who might benefit from seeing this today? Pass it on!
Sometimes all you need is a change of scene. MB and I got just that last weekend on a trip to Seattle to visit his family.
When we planned the trip a few months back I knew I’d have a good time (it helps when you really like your significant other’s family), but I didn’t expect to come home so inspired to create! Much to my delight, my mind is abuzz with ideas for getting myself back in the creative sandbox with my art-making.
See, I’d kind of fallen out of the creative sandbox for awhile, at least with my visual art.
Over the past year and a half, I’ve been more focused on writing, and art has taken a back seat.
Or I should say, the back burner. As a dyed-in-the-wool passion pluralite (aka multi-passionate, multipotentialite, Renaissance soul), I never focus on one thing exclusively. I expect to rotate my creative pots around my stovetop.
After years of trying to cram my square passion pluralite peg into a round specialist hole, I’ve learned to accept and embrace that focusing on one thing is simply not how I’m wired.
I’ve learned to give myself full permission to follow whichever creative muse is calling me. Which means also giving myself full permission to not follow all my other muses at any given moment (because if there’s one thing passion pluralites need to learn, it’s that you do get to do everything, just not all at the same time.)
And yet… Despite the permission to not make art, I’ve still felt a sense of vague dissatisfaction that I haven’t been making much with my hands. Oh, I’ve sat down at my drafting table here and there, but I haven’t had that eagerness and curiosity that I look for when I’m creating.
The truth was, I was bored with making ArtSparks. I’d fallen into a rut and I hadn’t yet discovered what I wanted to make instead.
One of my Rules for the Creative Sandbox is “If you don’t know where to start, start anywhere,” and I often preach that it’s not thinking and intellectualizing that leads to creativity, you’ve got to do something. And yet pulling out my papers, brushes and paints, doing something, still wasn’t doing it for me.
This past weekend showed me that — doh! — I left something rather crucial out of my creative sandbox rules: the importance of filling the well.
Oh, yeah! I seem to be perpetually amnesiac about that…
Apparently I’m not the only one. Creativity maven Julia Cameron says that the Artist Date, one of the staples of her creativity course and best-selling book, The Artist’s Way, is the thing that generates the most resistance in people.
Although our trip to Seattle wasn’t technically an Artist Date, since according to Cameron’s requirements one needs to be alone on an Artist Date and I was surrounded by other people all weekend, it accomplished the same purpose: filling my well.
As I said, sometimes all you need is a change of scene.
The beauty of the Pacific Northwest is inspiring all on its own, but against that backdrop there were a couple of unexpected highlights: the Ballard farmer’s market, and empty-handed visits to two yarn shops.
Read on for two slices of my Seattle weekend…
Note to self: next time you’re feeling uninspired, head to a farmer’s market!
And be sure to bring your iPhone camera. Even if you have nothing to draw or write with, if you’ve got a smartphone there’s a creative play device always in your pocket.
I’ve never thought of myself as much of a photographer, but my iPhone makes it easy to play and zero pressure (no film to worry about wasting). The filters and cropping in Instagram make it extra fun — a perfect creative sandbox tool. Even those of us with no “professional” aspirations can feed our creative hungers with snapshots, and the farmer’s market offers a luscious palette to play with.
You’ll find fruits, veggies and flowers galore…
And naturally, you’ll also find lots of street musicians…
But if you’re at the Ballard farmer’s market in Seattle, the real treasure trove is the dogs. Seattle is a dog-watching paradise!
At the Ballard market, these signs are everywhere:
And the dogs, oh, the dogs! Wiener dogs…
Cute little dogs…
And big dogs…
The sweetest pit bull you ever did see …
(Here she is in close-up…)
And tail-waggy, blue-ribbon mutt dogs…
Fast-moving dogs who won’t stand still for their portrait shoot…
And of course, at least one happy corgi!
Furry fun!
My other well-filling escapade in Seattle also had to do with fur… sort of. Of the sheep and llama variety, plus all sorts of plant “furs.”
In grad school, I spent more time knitting than I did studying, but it had been ages since I’d been in a really nice knitting store. MB’s sister-in-law took me and MB’s mom to two really high-end shops this weekend, and I was in heaven!
(I only wish I’d thought to take more pictures, but I was so busy caressing the glorious yarns, it didn’t occur to me until afterwards… oh, well. Next time…)
I absolutely fell in love with two scarves and was sorely tempted to buy the yarn to make them, but in the end it was probably a good thing that the skeins I wanted were out of stock. Let’s face it — I already have more yarn than I’ll probably ever use, and much as I would love wearing the scarves, is knitting a scarf really how I want to spend my limited time right now?
Um, probably not…
(Remember what I said about passion pluralites getting to do everything, just not all at the same time? Prioritizing is perhaps a passion pluralite’s greatest challenge, but I’m getting better at it!)
Although the yarn store excursions may not have filled my yarn coffers, they absolutely filled my well. Not only were the colors and textures a visual and tactile feast, but I came home revved up with creative sandbox ideas.
All that yarn in my hope chest? All those UFO’s* in my closet? All of a sudden I’m afire to incorporate them into my artwork.
Here’s a shot of an in-progress experiment, in which I’m in the process of knitting together two pieces of paper:
Oh, and there’s even a bonus to all of this: My recent change of scene is helping with my clutterbusting efforts in an unexpected way. Instead of “sweaters I’ll never finish” (the kind of thing that I have the darnedest time getting rid of), my change of scene helped me transmogrify my “what do I do with this?” stash into “art projects-in-the-making.”
I don’t know what they will turn into, but for the first time in a long while I’m excited to experiment, and this is a good thing.
Thanks, Seattle, for helping to cure my Artist Date amnesia and refill my well! I look forward to my next visit.
PS – Pssst! Know someone who might benefit from seeing this today? Pass it on!
*Un-Finished Objects
Last week I sent a survey out to my subscribers and clients, soliciting their feedback in order to learn how I can best help my audience members to live their own creative lives.
Included in the survey was a list of challenges that can get in the way of living the life of your dreams.
On a scale of 1 (“Not an issue for me”) to 5 (“YES! I could TOTALLY use help with this!”), fully half of those who have responded so far rated “I don’t have enough white space in my day” as either 4 (29%) or 5 (21%).
That’s half of my audience (at least of those who took the time to respond) who find the lack of “white space” as either a challenge, or a really big challenge.
I can totally relate.
BTW, this question was not by any means the one on my survey with the most 4 and 5 ratings. Other higher scorers were the following:
and the grand winner:
I’m working right now on an offer to help with that last one, btw, which I’ll roll out for my subscribers in the next few weeks. If they snap up the available openings, I may never open it up to the wider public. So if that interests you and you’re not already a subscriber, sign yourself up right now using the form at the top right of this page.
And if you are already a subscriber but you haven’t filled out the survey yet, check your inbox for the email with the link to do so (or email me if you can’t find it, and I’ll be happy to send it again.)
But back to the problem of white space.
This is a particular challenge in my own life. As a Passion Pluralite, and one with “Achiever” in my top 5 Strengthsfinder 2.0 strengths, the fact is I’m hard-wired to always want to be doing something, pursuing mastery, and juggling a lot of balls.
John T. Unger once tweeted something about juggling so many balls that he couldn’t see the sky. It was a great visual, one that has stuck with me (and also led me to believe we were separated at birth).
The thing is, I’ve come to realize that I like juggling a lot of balls. Just not always quite as many as I’ve usually got in the air.
I dream of days with wider margins, but creating those margins is an ongoing challenge for me. Just as nature abhors a vacuum and will always seek to fill it, apparently I abhor a vacuum in my day.
Or at least part of me does — the part that keeps adding balls to those already flying around overhead.
So.
As I endeavor to follow the Way of the Peaceful Entrepreneur, I’m on the lookout for what I can take off of my plate to make space for all the stuff I really, really want. Yet so much of what’s on my plate already is stuff I really, really want!
And yet I just seem to keep piling it on…
This Passion Pluralite learned long ago a Truth of Truths for anyone with a bazillion Blisses that they want, oh-so-eagerly to follow:
You really can do everything you want, just not all at the same time.
This hit me especially hard this week, as I realized that my #12in12 commitment for February, to write a minimum of 750 words/day on my Book-Like Project*, was, in fact, preventing me from doing some of the other Really Important writing I’m committed to.
(Overly detailed note: In reality, my daily word-count has averaged around 1200 words, but I’m keeping the official commitment to 750 so I’m more assured of feeling successful!)
*(“Book-Like Project,” btw, is what I’ve taken to calling it, instead of “my book,” in an attempt to shut up my Inner Critic, who was incessantly snapping at me that I’m not up to the task of writing a book, that I’ll fail, and who am I to even think I could take on such an audacious project, anyway? It seems to be helping. A “Book-Like Project” is much less audacious-sounding than a “Book,” and the term is confusing my Inner Critic just enough that it makes her a bit dizzy (she’s a grey-haired, pinch-lipped senior citizen, and newfangled stuff tends to bamboozle her), and she toddles off to Starbucks for a latte. This is good.)
Much as I wanted (want!) to write daily on my Book-Like Project, it was keeping me from other stuff I also want:
Like my blog posts (which, yes, I could publish less frequently, but I’ve just got so damn much I want to say!)
And the guest posts I’ve committed to doing for other blogs.
And the eBook, which I’ve been in the final editing stages of for way too long now, and simply must finish!
So.
This week, I was reminded of the Passion Pluralite’s Truth of Truths (see above), and took a hard look at my writing commitments.
What if, I asked myself, I shifted my expectations to the side, just a tad? What if, instead of adding “write 750+ words/day on my Book-Like Project” to my already overfilled daily plate, I allowed myself to count ANY AND ALL of my “writing for (eventual) publication” toward my daily goal?
What, I asked myself, might that allow me to do? If I spent, say, 3-4 days a week on blog posts (both of the personal and guest variety), and 3-4 days a week on the eBook (first, and then once that’s done, on the Book-Like Project)?
Here are some of the answers:
Can you say “Major upping of peacefulness quotient”?
Sorry, couldn’t help myself. I’m literally still swooning from the instantaneous decrease in my stress level when I imagined a life with ONE daily word-count standard, instead of several.
Aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! [Deep, eyes-closed sigh.]
True, the Book-Like Project will have to wait to get the level of attention I’d like to devote to it. But you know what? I’m okay with that.
I still get to do everything I want. Just not all at the same time.
Life is good.
What about you? Is there something you could shift, a whole lot or just a tad, to up your own peacefulness quotient? Tell us about it in the comments below.
PS — Pssst! Know someone who might benefit from seeing this today? Pass it on!
