It's Halloween season, which is my favorite time of year. Every year I celebrate by watching Sandra Bullock in Practical Magic and eating candy corn until I can't feel my mouth. This is usually one of my favorite seasonal activities. But this year it had about half of the impact it normally does.
I'm noticing this with many of the things I do I to fill my 'creative well.' Whether it's going on walks, listening to podcasts, or checking out art books - many of the activities that would normally fuel me are just maintaining me instead. It's like my tank can only be filled up to about half of what it could be in a pre-pandemic world. And if our tanks are only running at 50%, this makes us incredibly vulnerable to burnout.
Last week on the podcast, I talked about this idea in Lowering the Bar. One common mistake I see creative people make is setting very high expectations of their creative output. The pledge to write 30 pages per week or spend 10 hours painting each weekend quickly becomes unsustainable. These are hard habits to maintain. So why do we keep setting the bar so high?
We think by setting high expectations for ourselves, we'll demonstrate how committed we are to our work - how serious we are about making it.
I argue the opposite is true.
We demonstrate our commitment to our work by setting the lowest bar possible.
By setting very realistic goals (i.e. 20 minutes of studio time a week vs. 10 hours) and maintaining that habit, you build confidence and take care of yourself at the same time. You make it so you WANT to do the work - it feels good and accessible vs. a massive, punishing task. From a small, steady habit you can build something larger in the long term. We need to lower the bar BIG TIME for ourselves right now. Myself included. So give this a try:
Got a to-do list for today? Cut it in half. Expectations for a project? Cut them in half. List of emails to send? Cut it in half.
It will be absolutely painful at first. But remember, your little creative engine has half as much fuel as it used to. And it probably won't get back to full for a very long time. In the mean time, we just gotta take it real slow.
