Stepping into your radical creator energy

Becoming the kind of creative you dream of being is a spell rooted in intention and action

This is a time of year when the world feels expansive, and where I feel a sense of possibility. Yes, even now.

And, especially now, regularly attuning to that feeling of possibility, whether in my creative work or life in general, is an important skill (I would argue it’s critical, a need-to-have not nice-to-have).

In her book, We Should All Be Millionaires, Rachel Rodgers talks about the kinds of decisions we make that move us towards or away from our goals.

She refers to these as broke ass decisions, which are the ones that your broke self is making that's keeping you from moving in the direction you want and millionaire decisions or millionaire thoughts, which are ones that move you in the direction you want (in this case, to be a millionaire).

But this works for our creative selves and creative work, too: think about the kinds of thoughts and decisions you’re welcoming in. This isn’t a place to judge yourself, but rather to get curious.

We think thousands of thoughts in a given day: Are the ones you’re focusing on ones that connect to the creative (or person) you want to be?

Magic is just intention in action

Intention = getting clear about this future version of your creative self.

Action = Taking small steps, even just spending five minutes working on a dream project you keep putting off. AND shifting your thoughts towards imagining your dream future and assuming it will happen (yes, even if that feels weird). Try this 1x/day, at least, and see how you feel after a week.

You’ll be amazed how far just those two things will get you.

Part of this is thinking about who you want to be, and how that person moves through the world. Let’s say you were in the same room with this dream version of your creative self right now: The version of you that you want to become.

What would that person be like? What, what would it feel like to be in their presence? How would they move through the world in a way that speaks to their power and their presence, and how would they make decisions? How would they hold and move their body?
How would they show up for themselves, care for themselves, advocate for themselves? What kind of work would they be doing? What kind of work would they delegate? Who would be on their team (accountant, chef, house cleaner, virtual assistant, etc.) to support them as they stayed focused on their creative work?

Imagining this person, and getting clear about who they are and what they do, makes it easier to make decisions aligned with that future.

This does not mean ‘that version of me has a ton of money, so I need to go into debt in order to emulate them’, or ‘that person has all these connections, so I need to discard my actual creative work in order to network’. That’s surface-level emulation that ultimately won’t get you to the creative life you crave.

Instead, ask yourself “am I moving through the world and making decisions in the world in a comparable way that is in keeping with how this person would?” THAT is a deeper level understanding, and will lead to an easier inflow of more surface-level things (like certain accolades, connections, money, etc.) because you’re creating situations where those things are possible, and you’re creating those situations by being true to yourself.

By imagining, and emulating this resourced version of your creative self, you open yourself up to becoming them because you’ve shown yourself it’s possible.

Here’s an example:

I’m writing this after eating a nourishing lunch, while sitting on my back patio in the sun. I’m super relaxed and excited to write this newsletter because I have something I want to share, not because I’m flogging myself to create (note that I worked my ass off to get here, which is also part of this, but that also makes the sunshine-soaked writing all the sweeter). 

I could be sitting inside in the dark at my desk, struggling under the weight of self-imposed deadlines, but that’s not how the version of me I want to be treats their work. 

The me that I want to be takes time to do self-care activities during the day. So even though I've got a lot of work to do this week, I'm still taking time for that work because that's important to me, and for sitting in the sun, eating good food, and taking breaks to move and stretch.

That's how the creative person I want to move through the world and be lives their life: So whenever possible, it’s how I live mine.

Creative magic happens at large and small scales

You don’t need to have the perfect conditions in order to begin building the life of your dreams.

The life you have is the perfect sounding board for your desires as a creative: Giving you fuel for your work itself but also to ask ‘what’s working here? What’s not?’ when you think about how you create. 

And making shifts towards your desires can be small and simple (see intention + action, above), and these compound the more you do them.

Whatever your current world looks like, you can still find ways to make congruous versus incongruous decisions, and decisions that are rooted in your power versus those that take you out of your power.
Maybe not for everything, maybe not all the time, but I promise that at least some of the time this is possible for you, and the benefits to your creativity itself and to the work you produce (and to your quality of life) will expand even beyond your wildest dreams. 

When I talk about being a radical creator, making aligned decisions (intention + action) is a part of that: It’s taking the ingredients of your current life and alchemizing them into something even more powerful, more creative, and more you. 

As a creative, maybe that means I have a choice between dedicating time to two projects, one that has an immediate short term payoff in terms of it gives me a little more money, for example, but it's not actually something I want to do. Versus devoting that time to something I’m really excited about and believe will pay off in the long term, but the impact won’t be immediate. 

Maybe I have to do the first (I have written plenty of roundup articles that needed to happen but didn’t light me up), but I can find ways to make space for both (I always work on my own projects before writing pieces like that).

This week, think about how this creative revolutionary person moves through the world, how they behave, how they carry themselves, how they interact with others, how they honor themselves, how they set boundaries, etc. (or just pick one area to focus on).

Get clear about what that looks like then, at least once a day, make a decision, large or small, that aligns with that version of you.

Try it for a week and let me know how it goes!

P.S. I LOVED leading Radical Creators this spring and hearing all the ways it shaped folks’ worlds for the better. 

But I also got feedback that the full 21 days was more than a lot of people could commit to.

So I’m offering a mini version: 7 days, $21, includes the same benefits (daily meditation and reflection, bonus resources, Slack channel with daily deep dives and coaching support). And, it’s free for paid subscribers.

As before, Radical Creators is online and asynchronous (read: you don’t need to schedule time for it, you do it when you have time), offered in June (dates TBD).

What do you think? Would you come?