I’m going to come right out and make an unpopular stance: I have found immense creativity in discipline.
Mind you, this is not drill sergeant discipline, but kind, firm boundaries I put in place to ensure my creative work has the time and space it needs to be supported.
“Dear God…you take care of the quality, I'll take care of the quantity.” -Julia Cameron
Julia Cameron is a master at this- and I doubt anyone on earth would deem her uncreative. She teaches NON-NEGOTIABLE morning pages as her primary creative practice. This doesn’t mean for us to do them most days. Or on days when it’s convenient. They’re non-negotiable- so we don’t allow our brains to negotiate us out of it.
“How many pages have I produced? I don’t care. Are they any good? I don’t even think about it. All that matters is I’ve put in my time and hit it with all I’ve got. All that counts is that, for this day, for this session, I have overcome Resistance.” ― Steven Pressfield
I’ve found immense freedom in scheduling many different parts of my life, creativity included. I’ve found that it gives me freedom and playfulness I couldn’t access before, and here’s why:
I stopped making so many decisions every day, and now I make them ahead of time, thus eliminating a huge portion of decision fatigue I had before, and freeing my mind up for creativity.
I used to begin every day with hundreds of questions before me: would I write first thing, or breakfast? Should I make tea? Do I get to the chores first, or head back to writing? Oh, here's an email I need to answer, and a call from a friend. Now it's noon. Do I write the morning off as a “non-writing” day, or do I try to fit some time into my already busy afternoon? Do I write before bedtime, when I know I'll be tired and not my best self, just to get my writing done?
In every area of my life where I've created discipline for myself, boundaries that allow me to take the decision away and simply do the work, I've found greater joy, inspiration, and focus. I have a schedule now that I follow regarding other areas of my life besides creativity, and it's immensely freeing.
“Success is nothing more than a few disciplines, practiced every single day.” — Mel Robbins
How to Have Creative Discipline:
- Decide on ONE thing you're going to do, every day. Make it absolutely doable for you. You first want to form the habit, to make it automatic and subconscious, before you make it huge. Maybe it's one page a day, at the kitchen table right before or after you eat breakfast. Maybe it's ten minutes before you even get out of bed.
- Decide that it is a line you WILL NOT cross. You will do that thing, every day, whether you have family talking your ear off or you're in the hospital having your appendix removed or you were up until 3am the night before.
- Keep going. That's it. Just keep doing it, every single day. Show yourself integrity by sticking to this ONE little choice. Before you know it, you'll find yourself bringing in discipline in other areas. But start with this one first.
What are your creative disciplines? Let me know below.
Much love,
Crystal
