Keeping Your Creative North Star Lit
Even When You Feel Far From Creative
First, a Bit of Honesty
I had an article planned for this week all around exercises to help vision cast your creative life, but if I’m honest I’m not feeling very creative at the moment and it felt a little bit insincere. So, I’ve scrapped that and I’m writing about how to keep moving when you feel ridiculously uncreative, blocked, stressed, overwhelmed or all of the above (like I do right now).
Because honestly, that’s what I need reminding of at the moment.
And, I’m telling you this to be entirely honest about the realities of living a creative life and building a creative business. I don’t believe in only sharing the good parts of life, because that’s not how real life works. It isn’t all smooth sailing and fun. Sometimes it gets hard and even with all my training and experience, I still go through periods of doubt and feeling down; and right now I’m in the middle of this.
So, if you’re feeling a bit like me and are distracted, tired and finding life a bit heavy, I want you to know you’re not failing (and neither am I) even though it feels like we are right now.
It’s a normal part of the the creative process and it’s the main reason we need to have a North Star. Because, we need that steady, small light you can come back to when energy levels feel off and confidence is wobbly at best.
So, let’s get into how we keep a vision alive right in the middle of that messy fog that feels endless and let’s find a way through together.
A Kinder Definition of Vision
Your creative vision isn’t a five-year plan and I’ve always found the idea of planning for five years in the future very difficult to do practically.
Instead, I think of a vision as a reminder of:
What’s most important
What I’m building (slowly, imperfectly)
What I want to come back to when everything feels loud
For me, I’m feeling like I’m at capacity in my personal, family and work life, so there doesn’t seem to be room left. If you’re feeling like you’re at capacity too you (like me) need to remember that a vision doesn’t need to be bigger, it just needs to be simpler and more manageable.
Step 1: Choose One Root (A 2-Minute Values Exercise)
When you’re feeling overwhelmed and your creativity has disappeared into a box, you don’t need more ideas, you need something solid to build on.
So, let’s start by picking one value or feeling that you want your creative life to be rooted in this year. I’m going to do this with you, so let’s choose together:
Calm
Courage
Consistency
Ease
Depth
Curiosity
Joy
Freedom
Simplicity
Connection
Once we’ve picked our word we’re going to then finish the sentence below. My word for this year is depth. What’s yours?
Next finish the sentence:
*My creative life is rooted in [value], which means I want more…
So for me this would be
My creative life is rooted in depth, which means I want to connect deeper with my work and tap into a deep rooted emotional undercurrent.
Other examples to help you could be:
My creative life is rooted in calm, which means I want more space and less rushing.
My creative life is rooted in courage, which means I want to keep showing up even when I don’t feel like it.
My creative life is rooted in simplicity, which means I want fewer projects, finished more often.
Come back tomorrow or later today to do the next step, don’t overload everything all in one go.
Step 2: Create a Low-Energy Vision (Because Real Life Happens)
I find most visioning exercises assume you’re already motivated, which is great for those times when you’re inspired and enthusiastic, but this doesn’t work when you’re feeling the opposite of this.
We need a version of this vision that works on the days when we’re feeling overwhelmed and uninspired.
So, let’s answer these prompts and again, I’m going to do this with you:
When I’m not feeling creative, I still want to be the kind of person who…
The smallest sign I’m still connected to my creative life is…
If I can only do one thing, it will be…
Okay so, for me this looks like:
When I’m not feeling creative, I still want to be the kind of person who can do small things like consider my book narrative or characters in my head, or just crochet and knit something.
The smallest sign I’m still connected to my creative life is when my thoughts stray to imagining my next scene, a character development or the craft project I’m half way through.
If I can only do one thing, it will be knitting or crochet as a way to bring a kind of prescribed creativity (following a pattern) and allow inspiration to flow back to writing.
Other examples for you to draw inspiration from could be:
I still want to be the kind of person who keeps a thread of creativity running through my week.
The smallest sign I’m still connected is writing one sentence, or collecting one idea.
If I can only do one thing, it will be ten minutes with my notebook.
If we allow ourselves these small wins, we can then allow ourselves to heal and get over whatever trouble is making the overwhelm and block appear in the first place. This is how we stay creative without forcing it.
Step 3: Pick Your Minimum Viable Creative Day
Next, we’re going to pick a safety net. This is our “I can still be me, even today” plan.
First we’re going to choose one option (or make our own) and again, I’m going to do this too:
Write for 10 minutes
Write one sentence (yes, just one)
Brain-dump three messy ideas
Read two pages and highlight what you love
Do one small edit
Make a note of one image/line/scene you want to return to
Tidy your creative space for 60 seconds
So, I am going to choose one of my own. I am going to choose to crochet some of the cardigan I have in progress as it allows me to be creative, it’s relaxing, I can do it for just 10 minutes and it’s following a pattern so it doesn’t take too much heavy thought process or deep emotional energy like writing does.
Your minimum is not a downgrade. Instead it’s just a bridge.
What did you choose?
Step 4: Keep Your North Star Visible (Without Turning it into Pressure)
What we need to remember is that when we’re struggling, our goal isn’t to stay inspired all the time, it’s to make it easy for us to remember what we care about.
So, let’s try one of these anchors:
Put your one-word root somewhere visible (phone lock screen, notebook cover, desk)
A weekly check-in question:
What helped me feel 1% more like myself this week?
What drained me, and what do I need more of?
What’s one small choice that brings me back home?
A two-minute ritual: tea + notebook, candle, one song, a short walk before you start
So, my answers look like this:
1. My root word is on a post-it on my desk where I’ll see it every day.
2. Weekly check-in:
What helped me feel 1% more like myself this week? I spent time reading fiction, I did some knitting and crochet and allowed down-time.
What drained me, and what do I need more of? I found forcing myself to write draining, so I stopped everything and am taking a pause. I need to allow more of these times when I don’t let guilt stop me from taking time off to rest.
What’s one small choice that brings me back home? Choosing to not push myself and feel guilty, as this has the opposite effect to what I want, and picking up alternative creative activities like crochet, knitting and reading to help bring back myself.
3. I’ve started going out walking on an evening again with my husband, daughter and the dog. We stopped doing this as much due to cold weather, but I’ve missed this massively so, despite the cold, I’m joining my husband again on these cold walks.
We’re not aiming to become a productivity machine. Instead, we’re building a creative life we can actually live inside.
A Valentines Week Reminder for the Hard Days
Falling in love with your creative vision doesn’t mean you have to feel passionate every day.
Sometimes it looks like loyalty.
Sometimes it looks like gentleness.
Sometimes it looks like keeping the tiniest promise to yourself, even when everything else feels loud or wrong.
Your Turn
What’s one feeling or value you want your creative life to be rooted in this year, especially on the days you’re not feeling creative?
Hit reply and tell me. I’d love to hear.
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