Today I started reading a new book, The Practice: Shipping Creative Work by Seth Godin, the bestselling author of This Is Marketing.
I’m only a little way into it, but already I feel as though someone is telling me everything I’ve wanted to hear. Or perhaps everything I’ve needed to hear for quite some time.
I’ve been stuck.
Not necessarily stuck for ideas. I’ve got plenty of those. But stuck in this strange place where I’m constantly thinking about being creative, wanting to be creative, planning to be creative, yet somehow not actually doing very much creating.
And I think I’m beginning to realise something.
I’ve spent so much time looking at what everyone else is doing, trying to figure out what works for them, what sells, what gets attention, and what I should be doing, that somewhere along the way I’ve stopped listening to myself.
I’ve been trying to follow everyone else’s path instead of making my own.
And quite frankly, it’s not working.
Finding My Way Back to Art
I want to paint more. I want to explore my art, experiment, make mistakes and create things simply because I want to create them. Not because they fit a trend, might sell or look good on social media.
But right now, I feel exhausted.
Physically tired. Mentally tired. Creatively tired.
I feel as though I’m constantly doing something, constantly trying to move forward, yet somehow getting nowhere.
It’s frustrating because I know there’s more I want to do. More I want to make. More I want from my life.
And I know something has to change.
Where Do I Begin?
The problem is, I don’t quite know what that change looks like yet.
I don’t know where to begin, what to stop doing or how to find that creative spark that seems to have become buried beneath everything else.
Maybe that’s why this book has struck such a chord with me already.
Maybe I’ve been waiting to feel inspired before I start, when perhaps I need to start before the inspiration comes.
I don’t have some wonderful revelation to finish today’s thoughts with. I haven’t suddenly worked everything out.
All I know is that I can’t keep doing the same things and expecting to feel differently.
I need to make a change.
And I think I need to make it soon.
Maybe writing this is the beginning.