How to Start Showing Up For Yourself
Creative me time always falls to the bottom of the list. It's like, when I have deadlines for an editor, I find a way to get shit done but when it's a deadline for my personal stuff, something else always takes priority. How do you make space to put your work first?
Putting your work first is a process you’ll have to negotiate again and again.
Most working artists are making a living while also making art–thus, having two or even three careers. I’ve heard tons of writers say they’ve solved the dilemma of finding time to write by getting up early–the butt in chair at 5 a.m. approach. It worked for them by providing time to think and write when their family members and their jobs could not intervene. If you are not a morning person, though, it can seem wildly unachievable.
I was recently telling my wife that sometimes I missed my 7-3 bakery shifts. I am no morning person, so I’d roll out of bed with enough time to take the dog out and head to work with coffee and a donut grabbed from the corner bakery. I’d wake up while I worked; physical labor is easier for me to handle in the morning than thinking. Then I’d be off work in the middle of the afternoon when most of the people I knew were still working and there were hours left in the day.
That was the last time I remember feeling an abundance of time.
I found in that time a sense of spaciousness and freedom that would have mapped well to creative tasks, if I’d been inclined to use that time to write. Mostly, though, I spent those afternoons wandering around Golden Gate Park on long walks with my dog.
Why I bring this up in answer to your question is that I was able to recognize those long, unstructured afternoons as a container of sorts.
Your deadlines are another container. You know how to break apart the assignment and get the work done around the deadline. You haven’t yet learned how to take your creative goals and accordion them into something that will fill the containers you have–the time in which you want to dedicate to chasing your goals.
This is a process.
Part of it is knowing what you want to work on. If it’s a novel draft, you could set a daily word count goal, if your goal is to work every day. If it’s more realistic that you’d find time twice a week to dig into your artistic goal, you might aim to complete one chapter a week on those days or simply do as much work as you can for the amount of time you have available. Start small and work up; you’ll feel better if you achieve a modest goal than fail to meet an ambitious one.
The other part is the part where people start to drop off, which is about being consistent. Your butt in the chair doesn’t need to happen at five a.m., but it needs to happen consistently. Setting the alarm five days a week and getting up builds consistency, but it isn’t the only way. The magic isn’t a 5 a.m. writing date or a 7-3 work schedule, it’s in overcoming the series of obstacles that collude to keep you from centering your work. I’ve found creative accountability, which has helped with the consistency part of things, in books like The Artist’s Way or The War of Art –Do the Work, one of Pressfield’s other books, has been my creativity motto for several years now.
I understand, from many paycheck-to-paycheck years, that even when there is willingness, it is not always feasible to spend as much time as we would like on our art. If the constraints are financial, improving your financial position (making more money, paying down debt, decreasing expenses, etc) may help free up time and resources for creative thinking.
I can’t tell you what specific habit shifts or emotional work will help you understand why you avoid showing up for your work and how you can begin to work with that. That’s a puzzle you’re going to have to pick apart for yourself.
I recently started hosting a monthly accountability space for writers who want to spend more time submitting their work. If that sounds like something that would be of use to you, I invite you to get on the list.
Read those books, or others like them. Do some deep thinking on your schedule, your time commitments, and where you can shift things to gain leverage to show up more often for yourself. The rewards of putting your work first compound so once you get a taste of how it feels, I bet you’ll be hooked.
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