Create For You
From a young age, I’ve been someone who loves getting things done. I’m a list maker. I love the satisfaction of checking something off - especially when it’s quick to complete. But projects that stretch on for days, months, or years? Those feel overwhelming.
Maybe that’s why writing these newsletters feels so much more doable to me than writing the book I’ve always dreamed of. A book feels like a massive, never-ending project that can’t be neatly checked off a list. But really, it’s not so different from writing this newsletter each week. Both are about sitting down and putting words on the page.
Lately, I’ve been creating more simply for the sake of creating. Maybe it’s because I have been reading The Artist’s Way, because I had more time over the summer, or because I have simply found joy in it, but it’s been so refreshing.
I’ve been filling my morning pages with dreams and ideas - just for me.
I’ve picked up my guitar and sung songs just for the four walls of my bedroom.
I’ve started making scrapbook pages for each month of the year in a little digital journal.
And there’s something freeing about creating just for yourself.
It takes the pressure away.
It doesn’t have to be perfect.
It just has to be authentic to you.
Create to Create
In The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron talks about how “we are more the conduit than the creator of what we express.” She says, “it’s not about thinking something up. It’s about the opposite - getting something down.”
A lot of being creative is noticing and listening. The rest is acting on all the things you notice, think, hear, and feel.
I once heard someone say, “You don’t need a million ideas. You just need to execute on the one good idea you already have.”
I know I can get stuck in the ideation, dreaming, and planning stage. Starting can feel scary. What if I fail? What if it isn’t how I imagined?
But what I have learned is if you are waiting to do if perfectly, you will never start.
Maybe we need to stop getting in our own way.
Create just to create. Don’t worry about the outcome. It might be the best thing you’ve ever created or the worst. It doesn’t really matter! The point is creating.
I’ll leave you with a question I was presented with this week:
If you didn’t have to do it perfectly, what would you try?
Go create something this week. You are an artist!
Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this newsletter, it would mean so much to me if you would share it with a friend!
Take care,
Caroline
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