There’s no denying it: cold and flu season is upon us, and boy are we feeling it! Thankfully we’ve avoided anything serious, it’s just been a seemingly constant cycle of illness and recovery in our family for the last couple of months. We have two young kids in daycare, if you can relate! So we’ve really had to reprioritize and hit pause on a few projects while we’re getting extra cuddles (and extra sleep) in!
The work, whether household or external, doesn’t sleep, though. It just waits, however impatiently. I talk a lot about balance and the importance of prioritizing creative pursuits in life and on the blog, so when I have to hit the pause button in this arena, I start to get a bit anxious.
Where has the balance gone? How do I make space for the creative life now?
It’s just a season
First, I needed a perspective shift, and I suppose what it comes down to is this: It’s just a season.
One thing I’ve had to reconcile for myself is this idea of consistent creativity. Consistency is widely encouraged to improve your skills (draw every day!), to keep generating new ideas (do your Morning Pages!), and even to get your public projects out there in front of more eyeballs (post weekly!). It keeps you showing up for yourself and reaping all the benefits that creative practices bring, and prevents you from falling back into old habits (if you have them) of devoting all of your time to others, without saving any for yourself.
The reality is that’s just not possible for all of us, all of the time. It’s a wonderful goal to have, and certainly a successful strategy. That’s until it starts to stress you out, and you start to feel guilty about not keeping up with your consistent creative practices.
It’s okay to follow the energy and work in creative seasons.
We can be prolific creators in “creative spring”, and we can hibernate in “creative winter”.
Hibernating in Creative Winter
When the environment becomes less than ideal general living, bears and other creatures go into hibernation. I’m no zoologist, but I have to imagine they find somewhere warm, cozy and safe where they can ride out those seasonal circumstances that they can’t control, and they reallocate their internal resources to make it through until spring when the weather is warmer and food is abundant.
Enter Creative Winter, which demands that we reallocate our resources and re-prioritize our activities to address our most basic concerns: hopefully our health (including but not limited to good food, connection, and rest), and probably our work to some extent since – let’s face it – it pays the bills. There’s not a whole lot of time left for creative pursuits.
That’s okay! It’s okay to rest when you’re tired, and it’s healthy to take a break. Your creativity won’t disappear if you let it rest for a bit. In fact, it might just come back with new insights for you to enjoy!
Creative Spring is just around the corner, and you want to be well-rested and ready to go when it comes around.
Oh, but I get it, fellow creative – we get a little “off” if we’re not creating, and we don’t know when this season is going to end (and sometimes it feels like it never will). It will end. In the meantime, I’m confident that if you put your mind to it, you can come up with little ways to engage your creativity, even in the depths of winter.
Making it through hibernation
I’m getting through it by just engaging in creativity “quicker” and less frequently, while reminding myself that it’s only “for now,” and I will return to my grand plans when I can.
What does “quicker” look like? It probably depends on your medium, but here’s what it looks like for me.
In the arena of blogging, I’m trying this thing tonight where I just think of something I feel like writing about, write about it, and then hit publish. (This is in contrast to painstakingly planning, researching, considering, mind-mapping, considering further, drafting, scrapping, drafting again, editing three times, and then maybe hitting post or maybe letting it sit in the archives forever. Just being honest!)
I also love to paint, and I haven’t done any painting in quite a while. Things I’ve done instead:
- Pencil doodles with quick thoughts in my art journal
- Quick thumbnail sketches that I can refer back to later for future painting ideas
- Added some short notes to my list of things I want to try later
- Changed mediums: I’ve been trying a bit of digital art since it can be done from a place of coziness with just a laptop and stylus
You know what? Now that I’m seeing it written out, I guess I really have been able to work some creativity into my day-to-day. How cathartic! If you’ve been feeling stifled by circumstance, will you give this a try and find small acts of creativity that you can do quickly and occasionally? Check back in with yourself after a month or two and see how much you were truly able to accomplish, even when you feared you couldn’t accomplish anything at all. You might be pleasantly surprised!
As they say, limitation leads to innovation.
Wishing everyone good health this season, and a cozy Creative Winter if you’re in one! 💙
P.S. I like to use images I’ve made to go along with my posts, and sometimes I talk a bit more about the painting or photograph itself over on Instagram!
Where to next?
- Are you getting the right kind of rest? Head to: The Creative’s Guide to Rest: 7 Ways to Restore Your Energy
- Your creativity is an important form of self-care: The Busy Professional’s Guide to Creative Self-Care
Finally, if you’d like some encouragement and inspiration to stay connected to your creativity, I write a monthly letter which you can join here!
