Hi!!!! Just a quick love note from your friendly neighborhood creative coach reminding you that just because you make something, doesn’t mean you have to display or share it with the public right away or hell, ever! Your satisfaction and appreciation are always enough. In fact, if you are new to a medium or recovering from a creative injury I highly recommend you proceed with gentle loving caution when it comes to sharing new work with an audience.
Why would I tell you this? Because your creative work is a sweet tiny newborn baby. You wouldn’t go handing your baby off to a group of chain smoking strangers and hope for the best, would you? No. You would wait for that baby to grow up a little bit. You would wait until you felt fairly comfortable (I say fairly because no one is ever 100% comfortable sharing their work. And if you are, maybe you can become my creative coach?) before letting that little turkey toddle out into the great unknown.
Now you might ask, “What should I do if my baby is a giant toddler and I’m still not comfortable sharing it with the world but I need feedback?!” Find yourself a Creative Midwife. This is someone who loves you and has the ability to see the potential your baby can grow into. This second part is super duper important so I’m going to type it again: Choose someone who has the ability to see the potential your creative work can grow into. If you share your creative baby with your partner who is an optometrist that loves Coldplay and has never made art in their life, well they might love you but they probably won’t be able to see your creativity’s potential. Sharing your newborn freshy fresh work with this person is a form of self-sabotage. Please don’t do it. Your baby deserves better than that.
Now, how do you know if someone can see your baby’s potential? Welp, their feedback will make you go “Ahhhh! Great fucking idea!” Or if you weren’t raised by sailors, you might omit the word fucking. Do you. All I know is a true Creative Midwife’s feedback won’t make you feel like shit. Because as Julia Cameron says, “True criticism liberates.” I don’t know about you, but I sure do love me some freedom.
If you want to dive deeper into your creative process, join me Saturday, November 14th for Calming The Inner Critic-An Online Workshop. Register here. And as always, join me for my monthly Creative Power Hour on November 7th. This month's theme is Healing. Snag your ticket here!
Want to talk about 1:1 or group coaching? Schedule your free 20 minute consultation here.