Monday Memo #32
Cultivate in-betweenness.
The Monday memo is food for thought to fuel your week.
Hi everyone,
There is a rhythm to a creative life, and it’s made up of creative projects and the spaces between them. When you’re living a creative life, you oscillate between being in a creative project and being between creative projects. It’s an infinite loop.
Being in a project: When you are working on a creative project, you have embarked on a journey into the unknown, an exploration of possibility. You have a stretch goal: something to get you up in the morning, creative energy, momentum, the joy and the pain of creation, new challenges, obstacles, new ideas, and a feeling of progress. A creative project stretches you. It’s an adventure, there’s danger, there’s risk, and there’s always a chance of failure. When you begin, you don’t know where you will end up, and that’s both scary and exhilarating.
Being in-between: When a project is finished, completed, and released — even if it was a failure — there’s a sense of relief. It’s the feeling that you’ve the top of a mountain after a long climb (or you’ve tumbled to the bottom). Either way, you can let go and take some time to rest.
In a creative life, creative projects are punctuated by in-between periods where nothing seems to be happening. But ideas are percolating in the background, in conversations, in humble daily routines, in the books you read. To a creator, everything in their life is material.
You might be surprised to hear that creators don’t feel particularly creative a lot of the time. Sometimes that “in between” period drags on for a long time and becomes a slump. Sometimes creators feel stuck. But they are always, in the back of their minds, searching for that next creative challenge.
Are you living a creative life? If you are, great. But even if you think you’re not creative, even if you don’t have a creative project you’re excited about right now, I invite you to think of yourself as “between projects.”
Exercise.
Here’s your exercise for the week: Instead of telling yourself you’re not creative, tell yourself you’re “between projects.” Imagine you have an adventure ahead, even though you don’t know what it is yet. Cultivate that feeling of creative expectancy. Pay attention. There’s treasure all around you, and adventures waiting to be had. Start collecting material even if you don’t know what you will use it for. Take photos. Take notes on your life as it unfolds. Keep a journal where you can have a conversation with yourself about your life, your needs and wants, your frustrations, your fears, your hopes and dreams.
If you don’t have open eyes and ears, a curious mind, and an open heart, you won’t hear the call when it comes. So stay open, stay curious, collect material.
Keep an eye out. There’s probably an adventure right around the corner.
Our next Collaboratory.
In our next Collaboratory, Donna Lichaw (pronounced LEE-schow) will share a mental model she uses in her leadership coaching that is truly transformational. It’s all about stories and beliefs. I’ve been using it in my personal life and it has resulted in some profound positive change. If you liked Liminal Thinking, you’ll love what Donna will be sharing in her Collaboratory on August 7th. Mark you calendar!
Become a member today to access this live, interactive session, which will happen on Wednesday, August 7, from 9 to 10:30 am Pacific time.
Project studio.
I’m also planning a change-up from our Collaboratory format in October. Starting October 16, I will run a six-week intensive I’m calling project studio. I will provide a lightweight structure within which we will work together to complete our personal creative projects, encourage and support each other, and hold each other accountable to being true to our creative selves. Project studio will meet weekly, every Wednesday, from 9 to 10:30 am, starting October 16 and wrapping up on November 20, just before Thanksgiving in the US. So mark those dates on your calendar and stay tuned for more details. Project studio will be free for members.
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