Creative Calling.
By Chase Jarvis
Establish a daily practice, infuse your world with meaning, and succeed in work and life.
This was a wonderfully timed read for me – I found it to be creatively inspiring and entirely do-able to implement. We come up with endless excuses to delay the exploration and enjoyment of our creativity, from perceived time constraints to inner fear constraints and just general procrastination of things that require effort. But once we get past all of that and actually get to doing the work, the journey, and its various rewards, begins. This book isn’t just about how to be creative – it’s about how to live. It’s about being authentic to yourself and your dreams, structuring your days, doing the work that calls to you, and making the choices (easy and hard) that get you to where you want to go. This is double the length of my usual book summaries, and it’s because I just found so much that resonated with me.
Key take-outs for me:
· Maya Angelou was spot on when she said: “You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.”
· A good life is designed. Created. By no-one else, but you.
· Creativity is as essential to health and wellbeing as exercise, nutrition and mindfulness. When you are creatively fulfilled and doing work you believe in, you become a better spouse, parent, sibling, employee.
· When we make something, our vast inner resource gets activated – and if we keep using that energy daily, we feel awake, fulfilled and whole. If creativity is a boundless source of energy, then stifled creativity is an enormous energy drain.
· Chase’s definition of Creativity is the practice of combining or rearranging two or more likely things in new and useful ways. For me, you can also substitute the word “useful” with “interesting/exciting/different/practical/unique”.
· No effort is every wasted. Ever. It’s a step. So, take the next!
· Each of us must take responsibility for our own lives. Our creative calling is our highest calling.
· Creativity is generous, life-changing, mild-altering and practical. By creating in small ways every day we come to understand that we can create big changes in our lives when we desire or need them most.
Three important things to learn about Creativity:
1. You are creative by nature, endowed with a near limitless capacity to make and grow new things.
2. Accessing this capacity requires a creative muscle that must be strengthened to activate your full potential.
3. By identifying as a creative person, accepting the world around you as your canvas, and manifesting your ideas regularly, you will intuitively create the life you truly want for yourself.
STEP 1: IMAGINE
Imagine what you want to create, without limitation.
Chapter 1: Hear your Call
We have been trained to avoid creative obstacles rather than risk trying to surmount them. What do you want to make? Who or what do you want to be? How your creative life will manifest is up to you. Don’t fake it till you make it – make it till you make it. Creators create!
Action is identity - you become what you do. You’ve got to do the verb, to be the noun. I love this – you have to garden to be a gardener, write to be a writer, lead to be a leader, run to be a runner. When you feel fear, your brain is just rehearsing from old scripts and the more you listen, the louder it gets. Write your own new script! Creative lives are built deliberately and strategically. You can decide to design a fulfilling creative life for yourself. Every aspect of you is (unique) fuel for your creative fire. The greater the separation between your ego and your creative efforts, the happier and more productive you will be. You don’t have to be good yet – you can learn. What would you be excited to try? The question is not “Where will I end up?” but rather “Where should I begin?”. Listening to your call will point you towards your path. It’s your job to choose to walk it.
Chapter 2: Walk your Path
On YOUR path, nothing you do is perfect, but all of it is right. Once you take action to follow your own path, you’ll feel a new power – swimming with the current, instead of against it. Life is about choices – choose slowly, carefully and achievably. What matters is that you START. All you’re deciding to do us try. Start with fear, with uncertainty, before you feel ready. Just, start.
Deconstruct. Emulate. Analyze. Repeat.
Two things happen when you stop holding back and start pursuing goals you actually want to achieve:
· People want to help you.
· The path will pull you.
You may encounter challenges with money, or creative control, or the company you keep; but in the end, you decide. Be there hero of your own life, and choose to walk your own path.
Chapter 3: You Stand Out
What is truly possible for you? (We all think too small and safe at first!) To rise up, you must stand out – be truly and completely authentic to yourself. Follow the fears, and listen to the wake-up calls. Zero in by narrowing your creative focus. You’ll find your focus by doing the work, and putting in the time. Your life has two big arcs: Acquisition (how to meet your needs) and Contribution (how you can serve others and what impression you leave). A creative mindset is one of abundance, resilience, and realizing your potential. Pursue your values, and make meaning, not money. Let go of the negative labels you’ve attached to yourself over the years. A judgement or prognosis is forever only if you choose to accept it. Take risks to keep growing by tackling meaningful challenges and being willing to face rejection. Assess risks and anticipate problems – it is often the smaller risk taken that can lead to success. Develop your personal style, and always look for ways to bring yourself into your work. Work, and work, and work, and your style will arise naturally and organically. Be willing to be misunderstood for periods of time.
STEP 2: DESIGN
Design a strategy to make your dream a new reality.
Chapter 4: Develop your Systems
Establishing a consistent creative practice and sticking to it, is what gets results. Don’t wait for “one day” – begin! Your mindset matters most. To achieve a new mindset, you have to believe that your situation is changeable for the better, and that you are capable of making that change happen. Being out of alignment with your goals and your purpose drains the energy needed to make and share creative work. Cultivate activities that resonate with you, and figure out what works for you (and what doesn’t). Goals with a meaningful why behind them energize us. Write them down, and refer to them every day. Set few in number – 3 or 4 sizeable ones at most, so you can focus; and assign each a window of time. Habits are the path to achieving your goals – positive behaviours that become automatic through repetition and reward. Combine the right positive mindset, with the correct supportive habits, and you’ll achieve your desired outcomes. Watch out for creativity zappers: bad medicine (alcohol, poor food, sugar, etc.); aimless social media; too much news; over checking email; overwork; the wrong type of work. Be deliberate with all of these. Put serious effort into staying on track, and you’ll develop a greater creative capacity.
Creativity Boosters:
· Craft – learning the technical stuff is essential.
· Creative Cross Training – stay creatively fit and develop a strong sense of your own agency.
· Meditation – for clarity, perspective and awareness.
· Gratitude and Visualization – powerful mindfulness.
· Movement – move your body, and your brain will follow.
· Cold Therapy – invigorating and energy giving.
· Good nutrition – foundational to feel good.
· Proper hydration.
· Creating before consuming – for increased focus and less distracted output.
· Good organization.
· Adventure and play – embrace new experiences!
· Art – creative inspiration.
· Quiet – create space in your mind for ideas.
· Sleep – smarter, happier, more energy.
Chapter 5: Make your Space
Safeguard your creative time from life’s other demands – your schedule is your friend. Be intentional about the space you create to play, to think, to dream, to make. Identify what actions move the needle, and allocate your time to those. Being effective is about using time thoughtfully and mindfully as you make steady progress towards your dream. Conduct on audit to understand where your time goes, to identify wasted energy and gaps for creativity. Batch similar tasks – it’s a masterful way to protect creative work from day-to-day interruptions. Plan to be creative – aim for one solid push per day, between 30 and 180 minutes. Set a cadence and a duration, and work when you are most effective – be aware of energy levels and utilize them. Create a positive headspace by clearing psychological clutter, often through conversation. Do what you can with what you have today – begin the work! Reduce friction by making your space clean and orderly – either set up at home or have a kit that can be easily transported. Choose your sound, or lack of it; and create efficient storage – supplies and archives. Don’t let the perceived lack of ideal conditions stop, hinder or delay you. Creating your space is important, but it is not the same as doing the work. Stick to your created creative routine, regardless of how you feel. If you want to keep your job but it’s impairing your creative practice, look at ways to constrain its impact. Transition gradually if you need to. External circumstances happen, but clear values and a clear point of view will get you through anything with your creative practice intact.
Chapter 6: Do your Best Work
Whenever we have a significant pause, or perspective shift, it occurs to us that our (dreamt about and longed for) creative work, or even the life you want to be living, is still there, on hold, until “some day”. Why? Somehow that deep and meaningful work that feels central to our ambitions is the one thing we don’t get around to doing.
· Thinking of a master plan: It all starts with the volume of your work. Repetition is the mother of skill. You’ll get better only once you stop fiddling and start making. Give yourself assignments, deadlines and challenges.
· Start at the start: What is the smallest thing you could possibly finish and share in some form?
· Plan your work sessions: Direction helps – don’t work too aimlessly. No insecurity work (research, tidying, scrolling).
· Beware of inspiration: A fresh idea may be more appealing than the grind of what you already have underway. Get the new idea down on paper and then go back to finishing what you started.
· Establish a starting ritual: Rituals help to settle doen the conscious mind, and marshal our subconscious creative ower. Customize your ritual to get yourself into the creative zone (visualize, sound, clear distractions, log and clock).
· Be accountable: Accountability separates professionals from amateurs.
· Pump up the volume: Brown water out the tap first is normal, and the most important thing you can do is lots more work.
· Permission to suck: Recognize the inner criticism as a defensive reflex – plug your ears, and keep going.
STEP 3: EXECUTE
Execute your strategy and smash through obstacles.
Chapter 7: Make it till you make it
When you have a project underway, you see the world through a different lens. You have to start actually making and creating to activate all of your senses and unlock your intuitive power. Decide where you are going, and then take the first step. And the next, and the next.
Intuit it, then do it. The better you are at delegating the right stuff to your gut, the more powerful the results will be. When the going gets tough, stay the course. The work that you do when no-one is watching is the work that matters most. Pros don’t wait until they are Pros to act like Pros. Show up (repeatedly) and do the work without approval, permission or praise. There is no “on” switch for your flow button. Realize that you can’t think your way out of a rut – choose taking action instead.
Chapter 8: YOUniversity
Learning is the lifeblood of creative work. Deepen and enrich your understanding of your craft by creating your own curriculum. (I love this – it fits with designing your days so perfectly!) We are learning machines, but to tap into that power you need to find the right interest and a purpose. When you learn how to learn, you’ll be able to transform your life at a pace you never thought possible. You’re on your own path – it’s all up to you. Your creativity gives you the capacity to design the life you want. What you need is to create, learn, repeat.
Learning How to Learn (whether how to cook, play the piano, write stories or drive traffic to your website, this applies):
· Personal phase - tuning in internally: You need to activate curiosity, trial, play and inspiration.
· Public phase - using outside resource): Scaled instruction (books, YouTube, podcasts, learning apps); Community (connect to share and learn); Individual/Group instruction (finding a teacher or instructor).
· Practice phase – honing your skills: Repetition, and DEAR (deconstruct, emulate, analyze, repeat).
Chapter 9: You must Fail to Succeed
You can’t avoid mistakes – that attitude is crippling to creativity. Its about recovery, resilience and grit. Adversity happens – so catch the next bus! Encounter a personal itch (in your area of interest) and solve it. Overcoming resistance is part of the creative process – keep pushing! Trying to avoid every possible pitfall before beginning may lead you to abandoning the project. Give your idea a chance. You can become paralyzed by all the decisions you need to make, or you can rush through then initial decisions too quickly. Find the middle ground. Your creative failures will hurt, but time passes, and there will be learnings. Show up, and embrace adversity. Failure can fuel your next success, if you allow it to. Muster courage, confidence and enthusiasm – leap in with a shout of joy! Identifying as a creator also means sitting with fear, and overcoming self-doubt – toughen those emotional calluses. We are not the voices in our heads. (And so, I think, we are our actions. I like the power in that!)
STEP 4: AMPLIFY
Amplify your vision to create the impact you seek.
Chapter 10: Find your People
Decide to do, give, be of service, be visible. Roll up your sleeves and participate, and collaborate. Be the fan you wish you had. We become more fully ourselves when we are in a community of other creatives. Choose your base camp – a welcoming community where you can learn, ask questions, and grow. Show up for a while, and you will find your place. Building and contributing to a community is a creative action in itself. Collaboration is a wonderful way to stretch yourself as an artist. Don’t tolerate criticism and doubt in your dreams from friends and family – focus on showing them rather than telling them what you are going to do.
Chapter 11: Build your Audience
Audience is the magic ingredient for getting traction. To find a home for your creative work, you need to cultivate and inspire a group of diverse but like-minded people to receive and ultimately amplify your work. Build a genuine audience that loves what you do, how you do it, and why. Stay hungry, stay humble, and keep doing the work. Audience isn’t about being famous - its size is important only relative to the nature of your calling. Your established point of view will slowly take shape through repetition and doing the work. Tell the truth. Show up. Keep your promises. Cultivate, nourish and sustain your audience. Establish authority and authenticity with a small group of people who love what you do. You are a Creator – hold to your path, and the right people will come along for the journey.
Chapter 12: Launch
When you resist sharing proudly, you are listening to shame. Focus on making work you love, and putting it where your people will find it. Responses are like weather – your work will remain. Creating and sharing work requires resilience, discipline, and attention to self-care. Start small, and be consistent. Sharing and promoting can be profoundly nourishing and necessary. The Sharing cycle: Create; Share; Promote; Cultivate Community. When you love your work, there’s a feeling that it needs to be in the world. Acknowledge your ambition, and develop the energy to share with courage, confidence and enthusiasm. Your fear is a sign that you care about the outcome.
Andy Warhol: “Don’t think about making art. Just get it done. Let everyone else decide if its good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art.”
In summary – be willing to accept that you are a Creator, responsible for designing and living your own dream. Identify and Pursue your Creative Calling!
And one of my favourite excerpts from this book: “For the love of everything holy, start. Just start.”