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Making Choices
237 Plays2 years ago
How in the world do I find the time and energy to do what I love? Contribute something positive to the world? Make a living AND be fulfilled as a person and an artist?
As creative people, the possibilities really are endless. But if you're smart (and you want to survive), you'll find a method to evaluate your priorities. So you can discern for yourself when to say "yes," and when to say "no."
In this episode, Lisa explores how honoring what motivates you will further your goals and help you to be faithful to your calling.
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:12
Speaker
Hello, welcome to Be Make Do, Soul Makers Podcast, where we talk about what it takes to pursue your calling as a culture maker with spiritual wholeness and creative freedom. I'm your host, Lisa Smith, and it's my passion to encourage and inspire you to become who you were created to be, make what you were created to make, and do what you were created to do.
Balancing Creativity and Obligations
00:00:39
Speaker
Today, we're going to talk about a question and a concern that I hear a lot. How in the world do I find the time and energy to do what I love, contribute something positive to the world, make a living, and be fulfilled as a person and an artist? Great question. So let's dive in.
00:01:08
Speaker
Three friends called me in one week struggling with the same question. I'm drowning in opportunities. How do I choose?
00:01:18
Speaker
They were each carrying the weight of all the things they'd already said yes to and considering what to do next. Jobs that pay, gigs that provide visibility and cache, awesome, fun events they didn't want to miss, opportunities that help people and bring good to the world, not to mention all of their own amazing, fantastic, personal, artistic ideas. And in the midst of all of this, they're asking,
00:01:47
Speaker
How in the world do I find the time and energy to do what I love, contribute something positive to the world, make a living, and be fulfilled as a person and an artist?
00:02:00
Speaker
That's a lot, but it's a common struggle and I certainly struggle with it. And I'm sure you do too. When that faucet of opportunity has been turned on, you want to drink every last drop. Whether it's to teach a class or do an exhibit or be a part of a performance or record with another band, you want to say yes to everything.
Deciding When to Say Yes or No
00:02:26
Speaker
And maybe that's because you're afraid that those opportunities won't come again. Or maybe because you never know where it might lead and you're afraid of missing out. Or maybe you're just passionate about so many different things that not doing something would feel like you're betraying yourself and you're calling. As creative people, the possibilities really are endless.
00:02:52
Speaker
But if you're smart and you want to survive, you'll find a method to evaluate your priorities so you can discern for yourself when to say yes and when to say no, especially when all the choices are good, meaningful options. So how do you decide to say yes or when to say no?
00:03:15
Speaker
It's not simple. It all depends on you, your personality, the circumstances.
Introducing Three Frameworks
00:03:21
Speaker
But I can share with you what I share with my friends, three foundational mental frameworks that set you up to discern which way to go.
00:03:30
Speaker
So first, you have to have a clear understanding of why you create your motivation. Second, you need to define success for yourself. What do you really want? And then be faithful to that.
00:03:46
Speaker
And third, you really need to get that every time you say yes, it costs you something. Ultimately, the choices are up to you, but having a solid understanding of these three ways of thinking will give you clarity to be intentional when making the difficult choice to say yes or no. So first, you need to identify what motivates you as an artist.
00:04:14
Speaker
That's the ultimate actor's question. What's my motivation? And it's yours too, no matter what kind of art you make. Your motivation for creating is unique and personal to you. It's your why. It's what keeps pulling you back again and again to the creative process, even when there's little tangible reward.
00:04:35
Speaker
Artists have all kinds of reasons for creating. Some feel the artist's role is to affirm and glorify life, like the choreographer Alvin Ailey, who saw his work as a way to show my people how beautiful they are. Isn't that lovely? And then on the other hand, you have Brecht, a playwright we studied in drama school, who famously wrote, art is not a mirror to be held up to reality, but a hammer with which to shape it.
00:05:05
Speaker
I kind of get both. And then there are some creatives who just work simply because they can't help it. It's a romantic, personal, spiritual expression. While there are others who are just highly disciplined and devoted to the craft, like Michelangelo, who said, if people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn't seem so wonderful at all.
00:05:29
Speaker
And then there's always people like Andy Warhol, who didn't take it all so seriously. He wrote, don't think about making art, just get it done. So you may say, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, to all of those quotes and recognize something of yourself in each. But I caution you to not synthesize so quickly.
00:05:51
Speaker
Hopefully you heard that many of these artists are actually expressing oppositional thoughts, sometimes even within themselves, which we all experience. And we all have reasons for creating. We're all different. What about you? Are you, for instance, the type of person who's just always making, you don't really care what the outcome is, and you're not necessarily concerned with what people think. You just like making things.
00:06:21
Speaker
Or are you somebody who's really driven to use your creative talents as a way to bring people together to create community or to help people find healing? Or is your art making just how you personally make sense of the world and connect with God?
Impact of Motivations on Creative Choices
00:06:38
Speaker
Or is it just like a way to express yourself?
00:06:42
Speaker
Or is it something that energizes you, makes you feel fully alive when you're making audiences laugh and cry and see things in new ways? Or maybe you just have this vision for how things could be better and your creative work is a way to share that vision and inspire others or compel them to action. Or maybe it's some combination of all of them or a couple of them together or something else entirely.
00:07:07
Speaker
What is it that motivates you to create? Well, there's lots of crossover in why artists and musicians and dancers and writers and poets and filmmakers do what they do. We're unique individuals who create for different reasons and are fed and drained in ways that can be very different from one another.
00:07:30
Speaker
What motivates you might drain somebody else, and what drains somebody else might motivate you, right? If artistic activity is purely an act of personal self-expression for you, working on a collaborative mural for the city might be extremely draining and frustrating. So that might need to be a no for you, regardless of how great an opportunity it seems.
00:07:55
Speaker
Or on the other hand, if you are driven to bring people together through your artwork and you thrive on creating spaces for others to discover their creative gifts, then probably working solo in graphic design won't fill that need. So if you do say yes to that job, then you're going to need to find additional spaces to feed what motivates you, what motivates you to create in the first place.
00:08:24
Speaker
And if you don't create those spaces, you can get burned out and confused. You might find yourself asking, if I'm using my artistic gifts, why aren't I feeling fulfilled? But if you understand your motivations, you can consider them more intentionally when evaluating your options. For instance, you might be in a situation where financial security is a non-negotiable priority for you right now.
00:08:53
Speaker
So taking a job that allows you to be creative or use your artistic gifts may seem like a logical choice. Get paid, use your artistic gifts. No brainer, right? But if your motivation for creating is primarily self-expression, you could be setting yourself up for disappointment. Maybe it seems like a good opportunity because it combines your very real need with your talents.
00:09:21
Speaker
But if your motivation for creating isn't being fulfilled, you could be better off saying no and looking for a job that uses a different part of your brain and other skill sets and just reserves your creative giftings for your personal projects. That way you can come to your creative work fresh and with the freedom to express yourself without the baggage and frustration that might have come along with the other job.
00:09:48
Speaker
Like I took a part-time job as a middle school theater teacher one year because my goal was to make a living solely from theater related activities. But teaching improv to eighth grade boys is not for lightweights. It drained me and I soon returned to my admin day job. And I adjusted my goals to better connect with my artistic motivations. And I was so much happier in the end.
00:10:15
Speaker
I ended up pouring all my creative energy into developing my own theater company on nights and weekends. And then I worked my day job during the week. And even though it was way more hours and more work, I was way more fulfilled and energized because I was just free to get lost in the world of creative risk and discovery.
Redefining Success in Art
00:10:39
Speaker
And my bills still got paid. So win-win.
00:10:45
Speaker
Let's take a quick break.
00:11:15
Speaker
So motivation has to do with why we create. Success has to do with our goals for our work. And that's our second framework, defining success for yourself. Just as it's essential to clearly understand your motivations for creating, it's so important to get clear on your goals and your definition of success.
00:11:41
Speaker
It's a dangerous game to take on someone else's definition of successful artist, quote unquote. It's so easy to see someone else's path and try to follow them. But if what motivates them, their personality, or their goals are different than yours, you're setting yourself up for a world of disappointment and frustration.
00:12:04
Speaker
In fact, I don't believe success is even a very helpful term for us as soul makers. I think a better way to think of it is faithfulness. I'm all about finding the right questions or finding better questions, so rather than asking what is success, I think a better question is, what does it look like to be faithful to and with my artistic gifts?
00:12:29
Speaker
Let me say that again. Instead of saying what is success, a better question might be, what does it look like to be faithful to and with my artistic gifts? Faithful to the development and best use of the gifts God has given you, and then to be faithful with those gifts.
00:12:52
Speaker
All gifts come with a responsibility. The responsibility to gratefully receive, to use, and then to freely give away out of the overflow. With that in mind, you can list for yourself what you want from your artistic pursuits. What you want your life and your relationships to look like. What are your goals?
00:13:17
Speaker
What does it look like to you to be faithful to and with your gifts and opportunities? And then, what choices make sense right now to help you work towards those ultimate goals? And what do you need to do to make sure you're feeding your creative motivations?
00:13:39
Speaker
So you see how understanding what's important to you, what motivates you as a creative, can help you identify what success is for you. Like Michelangelo and Andy Warhol would be miserable in one another's versions of success. Why should you follow someone else's?
00:13:58
Speaker
The clearer you are on what success or faithfulness in your artistic life is for you, the easier it will be to say no. Better than that, it'll free you up to say yes without hesitation and regret, because you'll know for you it's worth it.
Cost of Opportunities
00:14:20
Speaker
So, this idea of it being worth it brings us to our final mental framework. It's one thing I've worked really hard to own for myself, and that is that saying yes costs you something. We're all kind of aware that it costs us time to say yes, and we say yes because of what we're hoping to get out of it, or because of what we want to give to others.
00:14:49
Speaker
So we usually consider the payoff for the cost of the time, but I bet you highly underestimate how much energy it will cost you, how much precious creative energy. And I bet you rarely take time to balance whether or not what you're going to get back is really going to be worth the energy you'll spend.
00:15:15
Speaker
or whether or not you actually have that creative energy you're committing to give and what it's going to cost in the long term.
00:15:23
Speaker
So I think of it like this. Two years ago I got a strawberry plant and I planted it in a container in my backyard. For two years it didn't do much but it survived and then last summer it just took off. It filled out the container with foliage and when strawberry season came around I started to see the little red fruit peeking out of their little green hats.
00:15:46
Speaker
And I get so excited for actual strawberries and I was really hoping I'd get this nice huge crop. So when I saw the strawberry plant sending out little tendrils all over the place, I was thrilled. From the same branch where the berry was growing, another little branch shoots out and then digs into the ground and starts a new strawberry plant.
00:16:12
Speaker
I was so excited. I was in awe of the possibilities of all the strawberry plants and all the strawberries I was going to have. But what I learned was that by allowing that to happen, not only would I not get a huge bumper crop of strawberries, but the ones already starting to grow on the vine would probably not turn out to be very much. Not very plump. Not very delicious.
00:16:41
Speaker
It's just like all those great juicy creative ideas and opportunities. By allowing too many possibilities to take root, I was diluting the nutrients necessary to make the fruit already on the vine flourish.
00:16:59
Speaker
The secret to tasty plump strawberries is pruning away not only dead leaves, but new shoots so that the fruit I've already committed to has the best chance of success. See what I mean?
00:17:16
Speaker
If what you're saying yes to isn't feeding what motivates you to create, and it's not moving you closer to your stated goals, then instead of being faithful, it's draining.
Supporting Long-term Creative Goals
00:17:30
Speaker
Then it's not an investment, it's just costing you.
00:17:35
Speaker
And honestly, that can be dangerous. Here's the bottom line. Spending your time and energy making what you were created to make, honoring what motivates you, being faithful to and with your gifts, and understanding the cost of every yes is a better way of making yourself available to opportunities that will further your goals and help you to be faithful to your calling.
00:18:03
Speaker
you will miss out on some things and that's okay because this way you're constantly feeding back into that well for the next project and for all the years to come.
Conclusion and Listener Engagement
00:18:20
Speaker
Thanks for listening to Be Make Do a Soul Makers Podcast. We hope that you enjoyed this episode and if you did, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Drop us a line or question at podcast at soulmakers.org and sign up for our newsletter at soulmakers.org. All links and resources for this episode are located in our show notes.