Creativity Is a Relationship, Not a Résumé

If you’re a creative, you’re likely familiar with questions from friends, family, co-workers, strangers etc. that are well-meaning but feel like they’re probing your projects and experience. 

What are you working on now?

What inspires you?

What are your goals with this?

Where do you see this in five years?

While often coming from a place of trying to connect and understand, they can feel like an interrogation. A push to justify your practice into something quantifiable, professional, productive and meaningful (in a ‘business’ context).

And if you haven’t spent years trying to make others understand the value of creating just to create — to enhance your life overall and not necessarily parlay your skill into a commodity (or even if you do, why not choose stable, sensible work like an analyst, doctor, lawyer, etc.) — you may struggle to ‘prove’ value to others.  Experience this enough and you may struggle to believe in the value for yourself. 

The value in creating is intrinsic. It isn’t an item on a list of skills and statistics of your life, professional or otherwise. 

Creativity is a relationship with yourself. There’s no linear trajectory. No C-suite position to achieve. No analysis needed to show ROI.

Relationships, even the best ones, get messy. They are full of emotion, of mental gymnastics, of trying and failing again and again. They can occasionally be toxic, even when you want them to be fulfilling. They require attention, care, communication and yes, work. 

Sometimes you need a break. A reset. That’s not failure. It usually means something shifted: capacity, safety, understanding, energy… acceptance. 

A creative practice or endeavor can stop or shift as we change because we are changing. What interested, inspired, or motivated you at fifteen may not at thirty, and what you dedicate years of learning and exploring to at thirty may be physically or mentally draining at fifty. 

Creativity isn’t fueled by pushing through when you’re strained, ill, exhausted. You can discipline yourself to still explore creativity in these times, but eventually you have to adjust. 

A lot of advice on building creative practices focuses on consistency, inflexibility, and driving yourself to produce more, learn more, become an expert. 

That’s not how we find our best selves, creatively or generally. 

We need time to explore. To learn not through pushing beyond our capacity but by understanding and working with it. 

The relationship requires nurturing and understanding. Not justification, an ultimate achievement or quantifiable output. 

Your creative practice may never be perfect. It may never be profitable. But you get to decide your working conditions, your deadlines, your goals, and your start date. 

You can start, or restart, anytime. BUT you might have to develop trust and understanding. You’ll need to be vulnerable.

It’s alright to ask for help, too. What you create may be alone in a corner of your room, but creativity thrives with community. You don’t have to share what you make. But finding fellow creatives who understand all of the above, who nurture and uplift the practice itself, can bolster you in fallow and stressful times. 

There’s the evergreen advice of ‘just start’ — whether you’re a beginner or a burned out professional or anyone in between. Sometimes that’s easier said than done. 

So we’re going to reframe it: 

How do you feel about starting?

What is holding you back from doing five minutes of creative exploration twice a week?

How can you feel supported in starting and, hopefully, continuing a creative practice?

If answering these feels daunting, or exciting, or wondering what’s next… reach out. Let’s see what you need to build a healthy creative relationship with yourself.