Your Creative Intentions: The Monday Post ~ April 1, 2013
If you aren’t doing your creative work as often as you’d like, recommit to a regular creativity practice. Regularity — a daily practice, if possible — is one of the best ways to stay in touch with how you make meaning.
What are your plans for creative practice this week? Given the specifics of your schedule, decide on a realistic intention or practice plan — and ink that time in your calendar. The scheduling part is important, because as you know, if you try to “fit it in” around the edges, it generally won’t happen. An intention as simple as “I will write for 20 minutes every morning after breakfast” or “I will sketch a new still life on Wednesday evening” is what it’s all about. If appropriate, use time estimates to containerize your task. (Time estimates can make a daunting project feel more accessible.)
Share your intentions or goals as a comment to this post, and let us know how things went with your creative plans for last week, if you posted to last week’s Monday Post. We use a broad brush in defining creativity, so don’t be shy. We also often include well-being practices that support creativity, such as exercise and journaling.
Putting your intentions on “paper” helps you get clear on what you want to do — and sharing those intentions with this community leverages the motivation of an accountability group. Join us!
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Studio Mothers: Life & Art 
April is our month to get our house ready for sale, and the bulk of my energy and creativity will be channeled to this end.
Considering this, I’ve had to put some of my favorite projects on hold, printing with Pam, the writer’s group. Here is what I think I can manage:
1. Daily yoga- can’t quite make do without it
2. Something creative every day, whether it’s a bit of writing, drawing, or even just taking a few pictures of something beautiful I find in the woods. I’ll be putting much of my art supplies/ hoard away, but I’ll keep out a basic drawing kit and some watercolors.
I’m making the most of spring fever this week. Working on my frame of mind more than anything else. I made a new vision board for my laptop’s desktop screen, which is helping to keep me focused on positivity and presence.
Daily writing practice streak: 110 days in a row of logging a minimum of 500 words daily in my WIP. I’m feeling stuck, though, in that I need some hard-core substantive editorial sessions to make sense of where things are at. Hoping to have a session this week, but I’m not feeling brave enough to put it in the calendar.
Last week’s creative/well-being intentions:
* Daily morning centering practice w/Morning Pages and intention journaling [yes]
* Daily writing practice [yes]
* Complete installment of short story for “5PM Friday” weekly accountability group [only sent update — nothing polished enough for sharing]
* Write blog post [yes — edited guest post]
* Start working on newsletter [yes — done]
* Yoga/walk x3 [yes]
* Daily reading [yes]
* Project Life [no]
This week’s creative/well-being intentions:
* Daily morning centering practice w/Morning Pages and intention journaling
* Daily writing practice
* One editorial session [M/T/W?]
* Read peer pieces for Thursday writers’ group [W]
* Write blog post [T/W]
* Yoga/walk x3 [M/W/Th]
* Daily reading
* Project Life [afternoons w/kids]
My biggest creative intention is to begin to curate my written body of work. I have ridiculous amounts of content & I want to organize it at a pace of roughly 1,000 words a day/5 days a week.
I’m also taking on some writing challenges in April and will participate as it feels good – I will not obsess about the variety of challenges, but I do want to show up because it does stretch me as an artist as well as an entrepreneur.
I’m not sure if this is a creative intention or not, but I want to keep my emotions on a steady, healthy pace as well. I have been tumbling into my depressive zone for the past week or so and I intend to slow that down. I allow (and actually use) my emotions to be a part of my creative process, but sometimes they are destructive. My intent is to keep my emotions as helpmates, not destructors. Make sense?
Deep sigh – nice to be here!
Wonderful, Julie! Good for you, not obsessing.
Using emotions as helpmates — easier said than done, right? One thing that works for me is to remember that whatever we focus on is what we’ll get more of. So focusing on those feelings of stress, overwhelm, and anxiety will only produce more of same. Instead, if we can focus on a few little things that we feel grateful for, and build on those positive feelings to encompass what we really do want and the ways in which we’re already moving toward those goals — that will build more positivity. Sometimes it’s just a matter of reprogramming ourselves to catch those negative thought patterns and replace them with positive affirmations. This isn’t about putting your head in the sand, but rather remembering that we really do create our own reality, in concrete ways. Even a hopeful agnostic like me can get a lot of mileage out of that mindset! xo
Miranda, thanks for reminding me to reset my priorities. Here are my intentions for April:
– write in my insights journal every day; log mini hits of brilliance throughout the day [M-F] (+ weekends when something captures my imagination)
– measure success each day by my creations – which might be writing a blog post, or a few pages in an ebook, a sales letter, or class handout. On the days I have “success” I will place a star on my calendar for that date. [M-F]
– spend 10 minutes in a.m. and 10 minutes in p.m. in silence, centering on compassion for self, others, and all thing [M-F]
So there’s my start for intentions. What do you think?
Love those intentions, Debra! Yay! Do check back and let us know how your month is unfurling. xoxo