1677: Listen to the curious nudges
Today I'm sharing something that's really helping my creative resistance, and I think it might really help yours too!
Episode transcript:
Good morning, Daily Peppers, and a very happy Wednesday to you. So one of the things I've wanted to work on for quite some time now is my writing. I want to get sharper at it, I want to do it more, and believe me when I tell you I've got the books, I've got the courses and I know what to do. But oftentimes having what we need to have and knowing what we need to do does not make the thing done. And I want to share with you something that I'm doing this week that has just cracked a lot of things wide open as a reminder to leave room for the unexpected. So this weekend I was randomly just scrolling through Substack. It's not really important where I was looking, and I came across this series of writing prompts that the writer was releasing every week. And there was just simply part of my brain that thought, hmm, that looks interesting.
So this week I just decided, fuck it, let's give it a go. And I've probably done more work on my actual writing this week in terms of the craft than I have in a long time, even though I haven't actually spent that much time doing it. And I think what really helped is finding something that didn't already have existing pressure. It wasn't a course that I'd already put huge high hopes on. It wasn't a book or something from a writer that is absolutely on a pedestal for me, and it was enough curiosity to just think, do you know what, I'll just give this a go. And I think that's often what we need. I know I can put so much pressure on stuff, and my creative resistance often looks like perfectionism, and I get caught up in the best thing that I could learn from. But if you can catch your brain off guard a little bit And maybe if you leave a bit of room for the unexpected, you might find exactly what you've been looking for, and that doesn't come with all of the weighted stuff that other things sometimes can.
I know for a fact that if I was to look up a kind of guided year-long writing thing with prompts, I would probably still be trying to figure out which was the best one come next Christmas. But because my brain was half interested, because I hadn't planned it, And because there's a huge part of me that knows I really do want to work on this stuff, it just took away a lot of the self-sabotage and a lot of the creative resistance. So this is to say, keep an eye out for opportunities that you might not have considered, lean into those curious nudges, and know that whatever gets you started is what gets you started.
Now don't get me wrong, there is part of my brain, definitely my inner dreamshitter, which is jumping 50 steps ahead and wondering whether this is going to be something I stick to, whether it's sustainable, whether it's just going to be something else I forget, etc., etc., etc. But what I have to remember is that right now it doesn't fucking matter. What matters is I'm doing the thing that I wanted to do, and that I'm enjoying it, and that gets to be enough. So here's to finding something weird and wonderful that's to do with something you wanted to do, That allows you to do it without the pressure, that invites the fun back in, and also remembering you don't need to know how it turns out, and you can go with how it feels in the moment. Happy hump day, and I'll see you tomorrow.
Transcription automatically produced by Castmagic.io
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The Daily Pep! is the rebel-rousing, daily podcast for couragemakers, creative, multi-passionate and unconventional women.
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Every weekday, your host - writer, coach and professional rebel-rouser - Meg Kissack helps you build a creative and wholehearted life, one day at a time. Through short and snappy insights, reminders and stories, The Daily Pep! is here to remind you you’re not alone, and that everything changes when you believe you matter. Each episode is short and snappy, designed to fit in with (or help you start) your habits and routines.
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