Can my creative practice still grow when I don’t 'water it' often?

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View all the journal prompts inside The Intentional Reset Guide here

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I haven't given my garden much attention this year.

The pipe for the backyard hose burst this winter so to water it I had to fill a watering can 5+ times….. instead I often opted for the rain + Mother Nature to take care of it.

Last year, tending to my garden became a daily form of meditation. It was an exciting new practice for me.

And it felt simple, formulaic + basically guaranteed.

1. Plant the garden in a place with great sunlight

2. Water it often

3. Protect the garden from ‘pests’ when necessary (i.e. weeds, safe tactics to steer away “the stinker” aka our groundhog friend, and deter the deer and beetles from stopping by for a snack)

4. And boom- you’ve got food

(Don’t get me wrong- it wasn’t perfect. Not everything grew and I learned what we don’t eat as often which informed my seed buying for this year.)

But all in all- my biggest takeaway when gardening last year was “This is magic! Can my creative work be simple and straightforward like this too??”

I knew I wanted to keep gardening but this year we had other things going on.

So while I did “plant the garden in a place with great sunlight” I didn’t often water it, protect it from pests- meaning not much was harvested.

It just wasn’t my top priority- instead we were focusing on house stuff, unschooling the kids, learning how to support their emotional intelligence and big feelings and in the breaks- creating what feels good to me.

Which brings me to my creative work….

I'm not making space for my creative work everyday- or as often as I could probably create. I’m happy with my flow- that I’m not pressuring myself to create based on an arbitrary/societal schedule. And although I’m not creating in an urgent and uber frequent cadence- my creations are connecting with others (especially through passive systems- thank you Youtube + SEO!)

…. And yet I feel like I have a lot in me that I want to create. (More growth I could get out of this season’s crops if you will.)

So as I walked Henry passing by our neighbor’s beautiful garden, listening to them water it through their catchment system, I thought about the difference between their garden + ours AND how that might be mirrored in my creative practice.

Asking myself: Can my creative practice still grow when I don’t 'water it' often?

Let’s talk this out…

If my creative practice = my garden, then what would I assign as the:

• Place with great sunlight

• Water

• Pests

• Harvest

Here’s where my brain goes:

• Place with great sunlight = the spaces + people I share my creative work with

• Water = deep work time I offer to my practice

• Pests = mindset blocks

• Harvest = that “magical” feeling I get when I’m creating or I’ve birthed a creation

(*invitation to insert your own definitions here*)

Ok- now I’ve got to play this out for myself:

So if I’m asking: Can my creative practice still grow when I don’t 'water it' often?

What I’m really saying is: Can my creative practice still grow when I don’t offer deep work time to it often?

• Which then has me ask…. what is often?

  • How do I know how much or how little my creative practice needs?

We know that the online space would say: frequency… consistency…. once a week or more… that’s the pace for “a good harvest” (which to them is defined as followers, reach, money.)

But if my marker is: ‘that “magical” feeling I get when I’m creating or I’ve birthed a creation’

→ Then I think feeling satiated, like my cup is filled up in that department, is my marker.

So I guess what I’m saying is…

My garden helped me realized I’m not fully satiated right now… that this rumbling I have inside me… this desire to go away and create for a weekend. This noticing that I’m entering a new creative season. This desire to switch up my routine so I can make time for more creating- is not nothing. (Our intuition never is- right?)

Journal prompts if you’re transitioning from a ‘watering less often’ season into a ‘watering more frequently’ one: