Whistle While You Hustle
Friends, I swear after my last Wild Minds post on September 19th, all I did was blink and now it is January. The last few months have been all-consuming. I will spare you the list of everything going on in my life (but if you’re interested in the deep dish, my next e-newsletter is going out next week and you can sign up here!), but I am happy to summarize it with the word “bonkers.”
(For the most part, it’s a very good kind of bonkers! But also a tree fell across our backyard and damaged all kinds of things? So there is a cosmic balance.)
This bonkers period has consisted of non-stop work to push my projects as far up the Big Hill of Success as I can get them—and creating new projects at the same time. I’m constantly re-learning that the creative life can have different energetic phases. While it’s nice to imagine a consistent life where you do X amount of creative career work every day, sometimes everything just moves all at once, and you’re required to stay in the driver’s seat if you want all of that movement going in the right direction.
Being really busy is my jam, don’t get me wrong, but the last few months really pushed me to reflect on how important self-care is when you’re in the throes of bonkersdom. I tend to think of self-care as something a future me will do when I have the time for it. But self-care has to be part of everything we do as creators, especially when the journey starts going full-speed ahead.
This can be a hard idea to grasp, but it’s (ideally) true: You are your biggest priority. Full stop.
It’s that whole “put your own oxygen mask on before helping others” thing. You simply can’t work well if you’re falling apart, so don’t let yourself fall apart! But how can we do this when everything feels So Very Busy And Stressful And All The Things Need Oxygen Masks Right Now?
I’m far from a self-care expert, but these are some things that have become important to me in the last few months. If you need more immediate assistance, I also created an Emergency Self-Care Support Kit that you can download and use on your own days of chaos, because this stressed-out lady needed something a lil’ crafty to do over her winter break.
Set Down the Glass of Water
Have we all seen or heard of the glass-of-water metaphor for stress? (It’s here if you haven’t.) Basically, if you hold onto your stress all day every day, it’s going to hurt.
It’s natural for stuff to feel stressful, like a deadline looming (or sailing by!), or a story problem you can’t figure out, or a mountain of career-related research that must be climbed, or having more things to do than you have time for, but it’s important to step away from that stress whenever you can. It’s similar to piano technique: when your fingers are moving all over the keys, you still want your hand to find a relaxed closed position whenever possible, even if it’s for little split seconds at a time. If you never let it relax for those little split seconds, you’ll feel tense by the end of the piece—which also makes the piece harder to play.
So, take breaks. Set down the glass of water. This is a hard concept for me, the idea that I can step away from my stress without actually “completing” whatever needs to get done. So, what do we do?
The meditative winter view from my un-meditative desk.
Sleep, Clean, Walk
These three things always make me feel at least a little calmer: sleeping (is the world imploding or do you just need to close your eyes for twenty minutes?), cleaning (your physical space is something you can control, and focusing on it can be meditative and calming), and walking (even a quick spin around the block can get your blood flowing and take you out of your own head).
And there’s another thing that helps 100% of the time:
Exercise!
I have never gone for a run or survived a hot yoga class and said, “Wow, I really wish I had not done that.” I’m sure I don’t need to tell you why exercise is good for your physical and mental health. But you know what I love about exercise? It changes my sense of time. Whenever I feel like I have a lot to do and no time to do it, exercise is easy to cut from my schedule. I don’t view it as urgent or as necessary as the other things I have to do, and really nobody will care if I went to yoga, right?
But when I stick to the exercise plan—even if my To Do list is raining fire on me—I come out on the other side feeling like I have more time and space than I had previously (even though, technically, I have less). This helps me feel more calm and capable. Isn’t that wild? It’s magic. Do it.
Congratulate Yourself
Here’s the funny thing about building a creative career: you sort of think that the further you go, the easier it will get and the better it will feel. You think you’ll reach this point of, “Great! I have accomplished this major step that five years ago I hadn’t even dared to dream of, so now I am Totally Good With Everything.” But it’s not like that! As it turns out, it’s just like practicing piano to become a better pianist. How often do my students express dismay that their music is only getting harder, not easier?
The more progress you make at something, the more work it is to keep going (I know, so unfair). And the more you know about something, the more you know how much you don’t know (the worst!). This means that moving forward can actually feel like moving backwards, which is unsettling. But you’re growing stronger and stronger as you go, so congratulate yourself on your efforts! If you’re like me, you focus more on what you have not accomplished than what you have. It might be helpful to reflect on what you’ve achieved at the end of each day to train your brain to focus on the progress you’re making—because we typically don’t feel stressed when we’re celebrating.
Make “To Do” Lists Your Friend
I love “To Do” lists. My “To Do” lists are never completely checked off. However, if I didn’t make them I’d feel like I’m holding everything in my brain which I simply cannot do. Writing things down that I need to remember to do—even if it doesn’t need to be done for months!—helps me clear space in my head and trust that I’ve got it.
Do Things That Don’t Matter At All
I’ve written about this on Wild Minds before: it can feel so good to engage in an activity that literally nobody cares about besides you. For me, this is practicing my ukulele and working on Czech language learning (both things that I’ve completely dropped the ball on in the past few months). Nobody cares if I can play ukulele. Nobody cares if I can speak Czech. I’m not planning a trip to Prague and there isn’t anyone in my life I can speak it with. So when I’m doing either of these activities, I’m doing them only because I want to, and this gives me a feeling of having agency over my life instead of letting my work control me.
Remember: People Don’t Care That Much About You
A wise therapist once told my people-pleasing self, “People just don’t care that much about you.” This isn’t supposed to be a mean thought (I care about you!); it’s freeing. If you’re stressed that you haven’t responded to an email in a few days or you owe somebody a draft of something or you told people about an idea you had six months ago and you still haven’t followed through on it, they more than likely are not thinking about it!
People mostly think about themselves; not you. Isn’t that great news? You can just carry on and get to them when you can get to them. (But definitely still get to them if it’s a thing that matters. Literary citizenship—and whatever other kinds of citizenships apply to your life and industry—is important.)
Journal
I can’t recommend journaling enough. Write every day, write when you need to, write when you don’t need to. Just put it all on a page and spend some quiet time with your own self in the world. Easy.
Emergency Self-Care
As I mentioned above, I created a list of Emergency Self-Care Instructions for anyone who needs to be told what to do in moments of stress and panic. You can download it at this link. These are only short-term self-care ideas; if you’re feeling a bigger weight on your shoulders, be sure to get the corresponding support you need.
Until soon, readers—I swear! In the meantime, create lovely things, get lots of sleep, and don’t forget to drink water.
I have yet to read Jenny Odell’s How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy, but I hear it’s an inspiring book on living a life that’s about more than measured productivity, and I should probably read it.
A reminder that being too busy is actually a hindrance to creativity. “Simply put, creativity happens when your mind is unfocused, daydreaming or idle.”
I wasn’t going to choose this post’s title and not link you to this cheerful ode to hard work. Happy whistling!