How Do I Create Consistently?

Posted on August 01, 2024 by Sean Self, One of Thousands of Life Coaches on Noomii.

Struggle With Consistency?
Many creatives struggle with consistency. They will get bursts of inspiration and create amazing amounts of COOL STUFF, but then the creative spark dies out and they find themselves “art blocked.” I’m going to show you how to overcome this.

The Organism of Creativity
My hypothesis is that creativity is like a living organism. It has certain amount of energy but without replenishment those energy reserves will inevitably run out. Take a human being for instance. You can go go go but eventually you need to replenish yourself with food, water, & sleep or else you will run out of energy. It’s exactly the same with creativity. But if that’s the case then what is it that creativity eats? Inspiration. Lots of artists will create create create but they don’t take the time needed to consume art that inspires them. It doesn’t even necessarily have to be art. Inspiration can come from anywhere. For instance, I wasn’t feeling the spark of writing these anymore, but then I found this platform and all of a sudden there was a roaring flame.

Amanda Palmer describes this phenomenon as “collecting, connecting, and sharing” in her book “The Art of Asking.” She describes this as the creative process. The idea being that you first have to go out into the world and collect ideas and inspiration. Then you start to connect those things together in new ways and that’s what makes art. Finally the last step is sharing that art with the world. But you’ll notice that the first necessary step in the creative process that Amanda Palmer describes is collecting AKA finding inspiration.

Content Farm
Make intentional time in your creative process to seek out inspiration and your creativity will remain well fed. To make this process even easier for yourself, establish what I like to call a content farm. This is a group of artists, content creators, etc. that regularly produce work or regularly inspire you and whenever your creativity is hungry go and check on your content farm and eat your fill. When you’re all full you’ll be ready to start creating again. IMPORTANT: This is very different than a “For You” page on your social media of choice. The “For You” is a collection of content curated for you by an algorithm. It is designed to keep you on the site for as long as it can. It does not care about inspiration.

Don’t Spend it All in One Place
Another common pitfall is that when people feel inspired they use up all their creativity right then. It would be like if every time you got energy you tried to clean your entire house. You would be constantly ping ponging between being super energized and exhausted! This behavior makes sense. People are worried that if they don’t use all their creative energy right when they get it then they are going to lose it. It is counter intuitive, but if you are able to hold back your creative energy—spread it out—it will last longer. There is a yogic concept that things that are held inside grow stronger and things that are vented out grow weaker. This is one the reasons why things like coaching are effective. In venting the bad stuff out it helps it to have less power over you. It is also why if you suppress your feelings they just end up blowing up on you eventually. So the more that you are able to hold that creative energy inside the more it will grow. So I know it is tempting to run when you get that creative burst, but give walking a try and see how it feels.

A Balanced Diet
Now sometimes, even this doesn’t work. You use the creative energy, you replenish it with things that inspire you, and yet, you still just don’t feel that creative spark for the thing that you’re trying to work on. This is the equivalent of eating the same food every day. Of course you eventually get sick of it. You need variety. If you’re a musician this doesn’t necessarily mean you have to go audition to be an actor in a play, but it might mean, trying to work on a different song, a different style of music, maybe even a different instrument. Establish multiple creative projects that you can bounce between. That way when one isn’t satisfying your craving, you can switch to another one. In establishing this rotation it will keep your “diet” exciting and interesting.