Season 2: Ep. 07 - On Being a Creator

(00:28)

Hello, and welcome back to Graceful Rulebreakers. I'm your host Kirsten Lee Hill. And this episode is off the cuff, let's say. It's unplanned in the sense that I am sitting in front of a microphone in my computer with no notes, no musings, no nothing, just speaking from my heart here. And that's unusual for me because while my episodes aren't scripted per se, I usually have some notes, a theme, a general idea of what I want to say. And the truth is I don't have that right now, and here's why.

(01:08)

For those of you who are avid listeners of this podcast first, thank you. I appreciate that. Second, you probably noticed that I didn't release a new episode last week, and that was hard for me because I really… I've committed to making weekly episodes. It's important for me to honor that commitment. But last week, the past two weeks I've been having a serious creative block. I kept thinking like, I'm sure I'll have an idea or know exactly what I want to speak about by Friday, it's not going to be a big deal. And as the week went on, I had no ideas. I had no ideas that I thought were good, no ideas that I felt like were worth sharing. And I panicked a little bit and I tried to force myself to record a podcast to honor my commitment and just record a podcast, and I've talked about this before, I really can't create from this place of, like, super controlling, like that's not flow, right? It was like, I have to do this and therefore it just, it wasn't authentic and it probably wasn't going to be that good. And so in my head, when I have creative blocks, the first thing I think is okay, I must be getting burnt out.

(02:36)

Burnout can stop creativity in its tracks. If you're getting burnout, how do you be creative? You don't have any energy left to give, to let those creative juices flowing because you're burnout. And so last Friday I was like, okay, no podcast episode this week, I am completely blocked. I'm just gonna up the self-care and the rest, and by next Friday, I'm going to be recharged and my creativity is going to come back, and I'm going to have lots of ideas and it's all, it's all going to be fine. And the truth is that it's Thursday night right now, June 17th, it's 9:03 PM and I have not yet had a light bulb moment of the great idea that I'm going to share on my podcast this week. And I have a list of lots of ideas and musings that I hope will one day become podcast episodes, If it's the idea’s right time. And none of those were vibing with me, and I was just like, oh my gosh, how are we still in this creative block?

(03:49)

And I've been reflecting and thinking about it and seeing what lesson I can learn from all of this. And here's what I'm coming up with, and I'm sharing this because I really value authenticity, that is like one of my most deep core values, and I don't batch content or create content ahead of time. Not that if that works for people, I think that that's great for people. There's not anything wrong with that. But for me, I really like to authentically share what's going on and how I'm thinking right in this moment. So, that is what you all are getting. And so what I started thinking about, I was like, well, you've had all these great ideas for like the past month, this is episode 33 of my podcast between season one and two - had lots of good ideas, I've had blog posts, I've been sharing way more consistently in social media. What's the deal? The deal is this: I have realized that people listen to my podcast and people read my content and watch my videos. And this might sound silly because of course, the point of creating the content is so that people see it. So, the people consume it, so the people engage with it. But I became so aware of the fact that there were people reading and listening and watching that I started to feel this incredible pressure to continue producing content that people valued, that people, like, that people felt was useful and helpful and wanted to engage with. And I just put this pressure on myself that everything has to be witty or insightful or deep and meaningful, and share lessons and make more useful videos, and make sure that your podcast is just full of these critical lessons and amazing, brilliant insights.

(06:04)

And that pressure that I was putting on myself, crushed my creativity because these endeavors that bring me so much joy and happiness, and that I do because they feel good and I want to share, and I want to put myself out there, and I want to support more people. They became this stressor and I got caught in this analysis paralysis, as people say, just thinking through all of the options of what I could share, what I could do, and then thinking through, well, why that's not good enough, and then ending up not being able to produce or put anything out at all because nothing felt good enough. And then I have the internal dialogue of thinking, oh my gosh, I'm a failure. I'm completely out of ideas. I have nothing worthwhile to share anymore. Had a nice run. I finally have people showing up and engaging and excited about my content.

(07:10)

And welp, the well is dry now, I have nothing more to say, and it was just this uncomfortable and, like, mind trap that I found myself in. And I couldn't create from that space, which is understandable. If you're putting all that pressure on yourself to show up in a certain way, in a certain way that assumes you know how other people receive the content and what other people will think is useful, and you can get trapped in this cycle and nothing feels good enough, and you're no longer just sharing authentically because you want to share. Now you're trying to be something, it's almost like putting yourself up… I feel like it's almost as though I put my previous content up on a pedestal and I'm like, wow, I don't know if I can top that, and what I am working through right now in real-time and working through in life and in this season of my business is continuing to create from the space, this authentic space where I'm sharing lessons that have been meaningful to me and ideas that I think are important or that have helped me, and just humbly putting them before people saying, maybe you feel this way too, and maybe this will help you, right? And I think approaching it with the lens of sharing your story in the most authentic way possible and not stressing, not worrying about what people will take from your story, right? Like not worrying if it has snazzy bite-size tips that people can pull out of it or that there's a clear lesson or insight, or assuming that there's not just because you don't feel like your story is particularly powerful or important in that moment or that day, or that week. One of my biggest fears as a content creator, and I think is as business owners, as entrepreneurs, and really a lot of people in society these days who engage on social media and the internet, we often find ourselves in this position of being a content creator.

(09:50)

And to me, one of my biggest fears has always been, right, running out of ideas. What if I have nothing else to share? What if I only have these very few pieces of wisdom and that's it, that's all I have to offer. And like, I've shared all those things, I don't have any more tips, right? It's this, this lack mentality, the scarcity mindset that there's not enough, and that I'm going to run out. And what does it say about me if I run out of things to say, or what does it say about me, if there's nothing else that I can teach people because I've already said it, and I've already said it in the way that I think is the best way to say it, and I can't think of another way to say it at all. And as I'm talking, you can probably tell that it's this very analytical mindset, right?

(10:43)

It's like this constant self-criticism of not being good enough, smart enough, creative enough, you know, having enough new ideas. And when you put all that self, all of that on yourself, excuse me, I'm not even gonna edit that out because we're being real now.

(11:03)

When you put all that on yourself that's an incredible load to carry, where instead, if you create from the space that by sharing your story and your perspective, you can change the world, there is this freedom and it takes the pressure off because the end goal isn't a ton of likes or shares or having one really stellar quote that you can put out there. The goal is to be authentic and show up and share. And for me, when I make this transition from trying to force creativity, to force things, to be amazing and stellar and impactful, and take a deep breath. In fact, let's all do that right now because it never hurts to take a deep breath, take a deep breath in, let it all go.

(12:22)

When I step back and I take a deep breath and I clear my mind, and I tap back into why I'm here and what my goal is, things become clear again. I'm able to move from that space of forced creation to flow. I'm able to just let go and allow ideas to come and they continue coming because I'm not judging them. I'm not saying that's a bad idea. That's stupid. No, one's even, that's not going to be important to people. No one, no one cares, right? None of not having any of that judgment, just taking all of the ideas, letting them percolate and following what you are intuitively guided to share without the additional layers of analysis. I honestly, to me, and this is just one human's advice. But to me, the minute that I start analyzing my content and my creativity through the lens of, is this going to, like, get people to want to work with me? Or is this going to, like, increase my reach? Or are people going to share this? Or is this strategic to say right now, the minute I add all those layers of analysis on, I am just like, dimming my fire, like suddenly creating is not fun anymore because it's this, it's not flow for me. It's like this calculated plan, and it's not that I don't think there's a place for planning, but for me, I think it's so important to have fun and to have the freedom to speak and share authentically. And so for me, when I'm creating the lens, I want to bring to that work, and the lens that I'm striving to bring to that moving forward is not about analytics or how things might be received. It is about being authentic, showing up as myself, being humble, being kind to others, having an open mind and sharing where I'm at in this moment, sharing something that I think may be of service to someone else.

(14:53)

As I always say, you have to do what works for you and your creative process may look totally different, but I wanted to share this real-time processing of this realization that I've had, because to me, what I've learned is my creativity does not thrive with judgment. And it doesn't thrive with the pressure of feeling like I need to show up as this wise superstar who everything they say is just magical, right? That is suffocating to me, that pressure to, really perfectionist here, be the best and always be on and always having great ideas, makes it so that my creativity gets turned off, right? It's almost like, the creativity gets scared because there's so much judgment and so much pressure that it can't flow, and what I want to internalize and what I urge all of you to consider, also internalizing, is the idea that you are a superstar because you show up as yourself. You don't have to be a kind of way, and you don't have to be perfect. And you don't have to, you know, always sound like a life book of inspirational quotes, right? There could be things that you don't think are meaningful to completely change someone's life or give them a different perspective. And the truth is, it's not your job to try to analyze that beforehand and figure out how to make it happen, to figure out how to be inspiring.

(16:59)

Just be, just be, let it flow, follow your intuition. If you need to take a step back and do a podcast episode or social media share or blog that is just you processing to get your creativity flowing again, do it, right? Do it. And trust that by showing up and being yourself without expectation of what will happen by doing that, will be for your highest and greatest good and will be something that can change the world because you can change the world just as you are with your story. It's incredibly powerful. And we've just got to keep doing the work of healing, you know, unpacking and healing, the beliefs and the fears that hold us back. So, to bring this full circle, for me, the minute I had the conscious realization that people were watching and listening, I got scared and started overthinking everything I was going to say or create. And instead, by just turning inward and focusing on getting centered and just showing up as my authentic self, that is what's going to allow me to continue creating and hopefully continue to inspire and support others. So thank you for being with me on this journey in life, in general, on this episode in particular, I appreciate you listening. You matter, your story matters. You cannot control how other people are going to hear or feel or interpret it. So, show up as yourself, speak from the heart and change the world.