I have found that this past year my creative projects have largely stalled. While my day job requires creativity and I’ve been able to keep that going I haven’t had time or energy for my own creative practice. And it’s easy to blame that on COVID and the COVID lockdowns.
Truth is that while COVID may have been the catalyst the issue is more foundational. The whole experience shook my purpose and vision loose.
Having a clear vision and purpose for your creative projects is a critical pillar of creativity without that the whole project falls flat and you stall out like a car running out of fuel.
So how do you discover or rediscover your purpose and develop a vision for your project? I can only share what I did and hope that it helps you.
I was drowning in the everyday mundane. Cooking and cleaning and fixing broken things. And also wine which helped me avoid the core issue of lacking creative purpose. Step one for me was to step back and take a weekend to myself. I was able to park myself in a secluded spot for a few days in the rain where I literally had nothing to do. I did have my children with me so there was also a significant amount of time with my headphones on and music playing so I could pretend they weren’t with me. (They’re 17 & 20 so they were fine on their own).
I spent the weekend mostly journaling and reviewing my past journals. Looking for old dreams and considering what’s coming in the next few years.
As I looked at the calendar I plotted everyone’s birthdays to start. Of course my vision began with my children. I’ve been a single parent so long it’s tough to think of anything without placing it through the lens of the children. Then it dawned on me, the average age kids are leaving the nest these days is 23 years old. That means that in five years I will likely be an empty nester. Worrying about my children from a distance rather than from across the room. I’ll move from the “picking up the socks of the floor” stage of parenting to the “advice over the phone” stage of parenting. I also noticed that I have almost exactly five years left on my student loans.
Looking at the past I saw both a connection to children in general, specifically children’s literature from my time as a parent and also as a school librarian, but also a strong connection to nature.
And so by connecting the reality of my future with the dreams of my past I came up with a new project that has given me new energy, new purpose, and this new vision has gotten me putting in the time again. And the result is that even in the day job I have more energy and drive there as well.
So my advice for discovering or rediscovering your purpose and developing a vision for your creative endeavors is to roll out a calendar for the next 5 years, plot things that you don’t have control over. Birthdays (specifically with ages) loan payments, other expected life events. Then reflect on your own dreams of the past and jot them down. Go as far back as you can all the way to when you were a kid if you can. How many of these dreams are still relevant, how can they inform you on your own quest for direction? Can you connect past dreams and build a new one for yourself?
As for me, since I’m going to be alone with the cat in a few years missing my children I’ve decided to start on a series of children’s books about a cat who goes on adventures that always tend to have an environmental stewardship lesson in the end even if it’s just a sub plot. My goal is an hour of writing in the mornings and an hour of illustrating in the evenings.
And perhaps I’ll take on some environmental education projects along the way since they’d be aligned with the overall purpose and vision for my work. And of course teaching.
What about you? What insights can you pull from the future coming your way? What insights can you pull from the dreams of your past? Any connections to give you insight on where you’d like to go with your work? Any new dreams born from the exercise?