Blog Posts
Maps are created by someone who has already done the journey. Your journey ahead is uncharted territory.
Cultivating self belief is an ongoing job well worth having as a permanent fixture on the ‘to do list’.
Ready made creative beings we are, but we require so much more than just “time” in order to create something meaningful.
My confidence grew, I began to believe in myself again and my mission became clear again and most importantly the joy and excitement to be here on my mission burst back into life. I began to laugh again and to get great pleasure out of everything. I had remembered myself.
For me, and I suspect for others too, doing the same thing day in day out feels monotonous. I want to be alive to the variety of each day. ⠀
In the process of doing this exercise, we start to see more clearly whether the ingredients on the list we have made feature in the life we are living.
When we find something hard to grasp, we tend to pay too much attention to what we are learning. Instead, we should focus on how we are learning it. This is where a creative approach comes in.
Having lots of ideas is great but turning them into something real can feel like a maze of continual traps and hurdles. In this post we explore 3 three of the most common traps that keep us stuck and look at practical ways to help us get unstuck.
This is not a post about solving your money worries overnight or doubling your income by following a magic formula. You’re clever enough to sniff out that nonsense when you see it. This is a post about getting to know where you stand with money. When you build your money picture up step by step, based on honesty and patience, you can in time start to use your creativity to redesign the canvas.
Play is absolutely fundamental to the creative process. When we play we are free to experiment and try things without judgement. Play is how we make discoveries (aka mistakes). We’re more daring, risk taking and expansive when we play.
The trouble is, when you’re doing your own thing, you are the money department AND the ideas department. And the trick is, finding a way to really separate those two departments. Mentally, emotionally and practically.
How you feel about money affects the level of comfort you have when costing your services & products, selling, chasing payments, negotiating rates... you get the picture - The feels affect the bottom line basically.
There is this script, whether we’re aware of it or not, which is always there. It works — and often succeeds — to prevent us from creating work and a life that is truly ours. It is a negative, toxic force that keeps us stuck and makes us sad. The existential crisis. The creative crisis.
As a creative person, more often than not what you are communicating will be highly nuanced and complex. It’s not a given that email communication saves time. And it’s not a given that email is the best way to communicate. Your creativity requires time because you are exchanging ideas and concepts.
We can’t nip a creative process in the bud and we can’t press fast forward on it either. We have to meet ourselves exactly where we are in the process, with honesty, patience and compassion.
People who are well seasoned in their creative practice all share something in common. They all trust their creative process.
You can’t bypass your foundations, you can’t buy them and you can’t go through the motions with them. You must invest your time and energy (which in business is money) in truly creating and embedding strong foundations.
Just knowing that she had been thinking about me filled me up with so much strength. This is what having someone in your team feels like. Someone who holds you in their thoughts.
On Friday I received a rainbow in the post. The day before I had felt a little sad (& maybe a bit jealous) that the rainbows in the window were for children and I wasn't one. Little did I know as I stared at that rainbow in the window that one was already on it's way to me.
We might not be little kids anymore but our creativity is a childish, carefree, curious spirit and we must cultivate supportive and compassionate conditions so our creative spirit can thrive.
A beginner’s mind is curious, enthusiastic and non-judgemental. It loves to experiment and explore. It gets stuck in, tries things out, asks silly questions, makes (lots of) mistakes and has a hell of a lot of fun in the process. Adopting a beginners mind will get you from A to B in a non linear way. It will activate your creativity and get you moving and expanding.
We remember who we are when we create space and simplicity. And when we remember who we are, we find peace. And it's from this place that we can really listen in to what our hearts are whispering.
The freedom of being yourself in business means getting to know and accept ALL of yourself. There’s nowhere to hide and no one to pass the buck to when the going gets tough. Without compassionate curiosity & a support network, ‘being yourself’ can be a very lonely place.
Morning Pages is a practice from Julia Cameron’s the Artists Way and one of the most powerful tools out there for unlocking your creativity.
Creativity needs space for all the ideas, problems, information and experiences to percolate. Creating space opens up the pattern spotting and dot connecting process. Just because you don’t see it in a tangible sense, does not mean that this space is not of value to you and your business.
Change of any nature stirs up resistance within us. As the temperature drops and the sun lowers, so do our energy levels. Motivation is lowering, mood is dampening, feelings of tiredness are creeping in.
Creativity isn’t something you either have or don’t have, it’s not something you go out and get either. We are creative beings and we possess all of this good stuff within us. The invitation is to activate it, to cultivate it and to start using it across ALL areas of your business (& life).
Night meets day. Dark meets light. Autumn meets Summer. Yin meets yang. We are going into dusk but are we ready to go inside yet?