A Habit of Practice - Episode 22
Alright, today is July 1st and I don’t know about you but I simply a struggling with the reality that we are halfway through another year. There are some things about this that I love and some things about it that I am truly saddened over. I mean, Fall and all its pumpkin spice beauty, as well as the holiday season is all less than 6 months away (I keep reminding myself of that when I walk outside right now and it is 100+ degrees with 60% humidity – we do love the monsoons in the desert, but they are brutal). Another good thing, this podcast, and the blog will be a year old at the end of August and we will begin Season 2. Something that makes me sad, we are a week away from the 6-month mark of having Covid and I still have no taste or smell, I still battle headaches and fatigue daily and the Rocket Scientist is still battling exercise intolerance (his is brought on by the virus, not like my intolerance simply because I don’t like to exercise!)
All that to say, there have been some amazing things and some not so amazing things that have happened in the past six months, and I look forward to the next six months – but that doesn’t mean I don’t wish that my perception of the speed of time was a little slower! I guess this is what ‘over the hill’ looks like, because time picks up speed when you crest that hill and head down the other side.
I have been thinking about the topic of today’s episode for a while. Habits. In particular, I have been thinking about my relationship with habits in my life. Or really, the lack thereof. Don’t get me wrong, if I have developed anything over the past 18 months it is a series of good habits in some areas of my life. Most notably my morning rhythms. I have worked very intentionally to develop a good morning routine that has become such a sweet practice for me. So much so that if any part of it gets off kilter or I am unable to partake in it, my day doesn’t seem to go quite as smoothly – or I simply feel ‘off’ as it were.
What I really wanted to talk about in this episode are the habits it takes to grow in skill.
I am going to share something about myself that can bog me down in shame if I let it. I am fearful of failure. And not necessarily failure in a big stage kind of way, more like failure of not meeting my own expectations. And because of that, I am stifled when it comes to the practice of learning a new art medium. I know there are some of you listening to this that are probably scratching your heads in confusion. But this is truth, the unrealistic expectations I have of myself, and my fear of not being good at something stops me from developing a habit of practice in order to actually learn and get better and a particular skill.
Do you know what that is called? Pride. Plain and simple – pride and ego. And do you know what is a creativity killer as an artist? Yep, pride and ego. Enter the shame. It is a vicious cycle.
Last month I was meeting with a leadership group I’m in where my co-leader is a piano & voice teacher, and we were talking about this very thing. About how my desire is to get better at something, or to learn something, but the only way to do that is to practice. To develop a habit of practice. Yet, somehow in my head I want to simply just be good at the thing that I feel led to do. Ultimately, that means I want to take the easy way. Oh, my goodness – even as I say that I can feel the arrogance and pride dripping out! Ugh!
This is where I want to speak truth to myself and to you. God didn’t create us, and call us to create, only to have us be bogged down with our own ego and expectations of self and not do what he has called each of us to do. He has not called me to be a creative only for me to trip myself up in my own web of shame and horrible self-talk. If he has called us to do something: be it art, engineering, music, teaching, writing, etc. then he has also called us to establish a rhythm of practice – to develop habits to grow the skill of whatever we have been called to create. So, lets talk about some ways we can create rhythms of practice (or habits if you will).
These are some of the rhythms I am going to choose to step into in order to improve a few areas in my call to create. Some are of my own making and other are habits from other creatives.
Habit Number 1: Solitude. And not solitude for the sake of silence, but solitude for the sake of listening to my own thoughts about what God has called me to create. To hear HIS voice in those thoughts. Creativity blossoms when we can actually look deep inside and focus. My plan is to add to my morning rhythm of current solitude to be creative in the morning. That may mean I get up a few minutes earlier, but I desire to do one creative thing before starting my day (writing a paragraph, doodling, creative lettering, etc.). I may even try to find some quiet moments – scheduled if need be – in the middle of the day simply to just be quiet, instead of only creating this habit in the beginning of the day, and then running through the day and collapsing into bed at night with no brain capacity left for anything other than staring at the back of my eyelids, this allows space for creativity to fill my brain cells.
Additionally, I don’t create art well outside of solitude. My mind, soul and body need to be a part of the writing or the painting or the drawing. And while it is sometimes fun to have a group fun day being creative, when I want to pour my heart out on paper, the computer screen, or a canvas, I cannot do that with others around. If you think solitude is something for only today’s creatives, let me share a few creatives you might have heard of who thrived in their calling, from art, to literature, to music, to science, because of solitude: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Franz Kofka, Einstein, Nikola Tesla, Joseph Haydn, Pablo Picasso, Johann von Goethe, Carl Sandburg and one of my favorite artists and writers of today, Makoto Fujimura (I have read his latest book, Art & Faith twice in the past few months because he is just that wonderful. And his book Culture Care is amazing as well.)
Alright, I could say more about solitude, but onward we go.
Habit Number 2: Participation. Now, I don’t mean activity per se, but more like participation of learning from others. Like I mentioned before – I love Mako Fujimura. He is an incredible artist and I love looking at his paintings, I love reading his words and hearing his heart. I am not called to create like him, but because he is an artist, I want to learn about his process. I also follow and read several authors who style I like. As I put my words on the screen and I data mine my previously written words, I want to learn the voice of those who write in ways that touch my heart and move me. Whoever it may be in the arena to which you feel called, read what they write, follow them on social media, find out what makes them tick and what their practices of habit are. Seek inspiration from music, from art, from books, from nature, from magazines – inspiration can even be found in a beautiful meal, whether you are a good cook or not.
Habit Number 3: Be ruthless with your schedule. (Hey Stacy – are you listening to yourself!?) Yes, be so ruthless with your schedule, at least for a few days a week, that you set time limits for each thing on your to-do list. Set a timer if you must. You can even put the things that you know you need to do simply for your body’s sake. Things like “drink 3 glasses of water by noon.” Or “take a 30-minute walk.” On those days that you are the master of your tasks, make sure to schedule time to create. Thirty minutes to write. And hour to paint. Forty-five minutes to draw something in Procreate. That discipline will create a sense of control. Even if it is only for a few days a week that you are that rigid, there is a sweetness to knowing that you are in control of your day and that you will get to do something different in the next time block.
Habit Number 4: Be a note taker. This might not be for everyone. For me, I take notes all the time, I have post-it pads and note pads in every room. I use the notes app on my phone when I’m not near paper or I am out running errands. I must physically write notes for things to stick in my head. No joke, the brain fog that Covid has left behind is brutal and combined with my thoughts continually idling in high gear, I will forget an idea or thought in less time than it takes to walk from the kitchen to the living room (which is less than 12 feet). I take all my notes and put them in my office and at the end of the day I go through all of them and see what I need to do immediately, what was already done and what needs to be prioritized on another list for the future. Often these notes spark creativity for current or future podcast episodes, blog and social media posts, or for art projects.
Here are a few more habit ideas from Chase Jarvis, a photographer who runs one of the education platforms I take classes on, CreativeLive:
Live a creative life every day. Do creative stuff every day. Take photos or videos every day. It doesn’t matter the camera. Use your phone to take at least one creative photo every day. Just taking photos can keep you in a creative headspace. Heck, you can play with your food and draw and doodle.
Moderate Expectations. Make it a habit not to judge yourself on your creative output. Sometimes your creativity is on fire. Great news. Other times, it’s not. It’s hard sometimes, but you’ll save yourself a lot of grief if you make it a habit to be kind to yourself when your creative mojo isn’t firing on all cylinders.
Shake Your Tree. If you are starting to feel stale, make a habit of getting into adventures. Break molds. Drive home from work a different way. Stir up your routine. Get active and shake your tree.
Find fun. Doing what you love inspires you to be more creative. Make time and space for having fun. All work and no play make Jane a dull girl.
If you have read anything at all about effective people and their habits, you will know that it takes an average of doing something 21 times to create a habit. To repeat something over and over until you create a neural pathway in your brain. That isn’t mumbo jumbo, it is actual science. Just like driving your car on the same dirt road over and over makes a rut in the road, so repeating a task over and over creates a ‘brain rut’. Habits of creativity birth rhythms of a creative life. And these daily rhythms will grow your skills. They will make you better and when entered to in humility, your ego will be removed from the process and the true beauty of what you have been called to create will shine in a way it never has before.
So, there you have it, my thoughts, or at least some of them, about habits. There is one thing I know for certain, the call to create does not have room for shame. And because of that, I am going to be intentional about establishing healthy habits of practice. I will not get to the end of the day and beat myself up because I’m not a better speaker, writer, artist or cook. What I will do is seek to find a way each day to make space for creative thoughts that will lead to creative action.
I hope that this post has been helpful to you. That you have been challenged to think about some ways to create habits of practice for whatever you are called to create.
And until next time, go out and find a creative way to make someone smile.
Photo by Prophsee Journals on Unsplash
