The following is an excerpt from Authentic Excellence: Flourishing and Resilience in a Relentless World. Routledge Greenleaf

Creativity and Values

Luke’s dad didn’t share any of his secret hopes when he brought home the piano.  Maybe one of his kids would take to it, maybe not.  When Luke, who barely had all his baby teeth, started climbing up on the bench to concoct valid tonal motifs, the family was blown away.  Even Luke’s mom, who was concerned about her husband’s level of enthusiasm, permitted an intense level of attention to cultivate young Luke’s talent.

            There were music lessons; teachers; recitals; travel; summer camps; performing arts schools; pressure.  So much pressure.

            The unraveling was only noticeable to Luke and a couple of teachers during his teenage years.  However, his talent carried him to a renowned conservatory.

            At the conservatory things began to come apart.  He was no longer a big fish in a small pond.  He was a small fish in an ocean.  Students at the conservatory were scary, not because they were proficient, but because many of them seemed to enjoy playing.  There was a natural ease in their approach.  They weren’t forcing anything.  They were creating sound in a place beyond method or technique.  For the first time, Luke saw a limit to his career as a musician. 

At first, he denied the limitation; maybe if he just worked harder he’d get to that next level.  He thought he was one book away, one class away, one concept away from unlocking the secret.  The expectations to live up to his giftedness grew louder as a wall began to develop.  Physical atrophy and apathy toward the instrument set in.

            Luke limped toward a degree and then moved to New York.  He lied to his parents about recording and playing regular gigs.  In actuality, Luke was living for the first time.  He got a bartending job, made real friends, and enjoyed being free from music.

            Luke didn’t miss playing music, but he missed performing.  One night a friend coerced him on stage for a stand-up comedy open mic.  Luke did a few minutes and actually got some laughs.  He was hooked.

            Six years later, Luke was performing 3-4 times a week.  Building material was difficult, but he was learning to find his voice.  His delivery and stage presence was at an all-time high.  He had a large social media following.  Agents and bookers were remembering his name. 

He loved comedy, but it was a slog.  He was 32 and felt the fatigue of the service industry.  What else could he do to make money and still do comedy?

There was no way his heartbroken parents could understand his accolades or frustrations.  By now they had forgone the pain of Luke not being Mozart and were just trying to, “Save their lost son.”  They offered deals, “Why don’t you open a business?  Draft a business plan and we might invest?”  Or, “We’ll loan you the money to go back to school and get your MBA.  With your ability to talk to people you could be a successful businessman.” 

            The frustrations of artistic life made the offers tempting.  Luke was struggling to deal with difficult customers at his job; bombing a set here and there; watching younger comics getting big breaks.  He felt like quitting, except…  he knew that he had no choice.  Luke would always want to do stand-up no matter how that affected other aspects of his life.  “So how am I gonna live out the rest of my days as a comedian?”

LVI for the Creative Life

Creativity is an important value that drives many people to devote their lives to creative projects and artistic performances.  This chapter reexamines Paradigm Shift One, moving from values clarification to values relationship, in the context of an artist.  It can be difficult to manage the expectations, pressures, and consequent coping patterns associated with being creative, but managing these challenges is the burden of the artist not the art.  Art and expression are abstract practices that are tied to a creative energy.  The more an artist can move beyond their neurological responses to the human pressure of the creative world, the more likely the artist will be able to flourish and flow with artistic expression.  In this chapter, we will delve deeper into subcategories of the Creativity value and examine creative life roles.  In doing so, we will look at concepts that can help the creative mind find meaningful expression and resilience.

We will subdivide the Creativity value into five Creative Expressions:

1)   Creation & Project Construction

2)   Learning Technique

3)   Brainstorming & Outlining

4)   Performing

5)   Editing & Organizing

Just as we’ve customized the value of Creativity into subcategories, it can be helpful to expound one’s life roles to more accurately fit a creative lifestyle.  The LVI provides three common life roles: Work/Academics; Relationships; Leisure and Community Activities.  The Work/Academics role can be further divided for the creative life:

1)   Income Work

2)   Art Career

3)   Other Mediums

4)   Art Adjacent Work

5)   Relationships

6)   Leisure and Community Activities

Creative Expressions

Creation & Project Construction

Creation & Project Construction is manifesting imagination into a realized work or performance.  This creative value entails creating a work that acts as a conduit between one's mind to another’s.  Manifesting a representation of one's imagination can be frustrating and call on natural responses to fear like perfectionism and avoidance.  It is never easy but important to come from an expressive mindset rather than an outcome-oriented mindset when building creative projects.  Focusing on the outcome of finishing a project can work against you by pulling you away from imagination and expression.  It can helpful to view building work as only an opportunity to express your art.

There is a misconception that because one greatly values creating art that they will have a fulfilling experience in the real-time creating and constructing of works.  Dorothy Parker said, "I hate writing but love having written.”  The more we care about the work the more stakes are involved which can create pressure when combined with uncertainty associated with the ambiguous nature of art.  Leading with expression and our values instead of fear can help keep this pressure in the background.  When we lead with expression, we put ourselves in a better position to work with the art.  Many times artistic works develop a life or momentum of their own.  If we are preoccupied with fear, pressure, or evaluation, it is harder to flow with the natural progression art often provides us.

It is important to be aware of how the challenges of this Creative Expression can greatly affect other aspects of an individual's life.  When frustrated with the expression of the Creation & Project Construction one's mood, health, and relating abilities can be impacted amplifying challenges in other life roles.  Although Creation & Project Construction might not be as immediately fulfilling like Performing can be, focusing on the opportunity to freely express your creativity can allow you to draw upon a deeper source of motivation. 

Artists can often become chronically evaluative of the amount or perceived quality of their completed works as an indication of their worth as an artist.  You are an artist and you are enough regardless of how much or how little you express Creation & Project Construction.  When we don’t feel “enough” as artists, we can start to rely heavily on outcomes and completed works to reassure our worth.  Focusing on outcomes can commodify creative works into forms that have little to do with imagination and art. 

As in yoga, think of artistic expression as a form of practice.  Sometimes we can be so worn down by trying to realize an imagined idea that all we may be able to muster is a going-through-the-motions minimal practice.  This is a successful practice of creative expression.  Defining success by expression can connect us with imagination and play which can allow the life of a work to better interact with our imagination resulting in more flourishing expressions.

Learning Technique

Learning technique is a major component of artistic development.  There are many ways to study and internalize techniques such as specialized schools, published works, self-discovery, and mentorship.  It is a Creative Expression that can ebb and flow throughout an artist’s life.  Learning technique can be heavily attended to in the beginning of an artist’s development where pure imagination couples with an individual’s gravitation to a medium.  One learns technique by repeating methods used by others and experimentation.  Over time experience begins to accumulate to the point where artists are able to communicate the language of a medium through their own interpretation of technique.

Many artists find fulfillment expressing Learning Technique by teaching.  Artists who teach can utilize this expression in the creative life roles of Income Work, Art Adjacent Work, or even as the main focus of their Art Career.  There are many creative minds that after years of focusing on their own work find fulfillment in teaching others technique based on their experiences.

Artists are sometimes vulnerable to devote too much energy toward Learning Technique as a form of never-ending preparation, which can be a way of avoiding important but scary expressions like Performing and Creation & Project Construction.  In creativity, moving too far away from imagination and play can result in burnout.  Let’s revisit Luke’s example at the beginning of the Chapter:

As the instrument began to slip away from Luke, there would be the occasional spark of interest.  He’d connect with a song and say to himself, “I should go home and just play that song for fun.” He’d go home to play, but would try to transcribe the song by ear.  If he struggled to transcribe the song, he would get scared that his abilities were weakening and either force himself to transcribe or abandon the song in frustration.  Luke wouldn’t allow himself to look up sheet music just to have some quick fun playing a song, which was exactly what his music life needed.  

Brainstorming & Outlining

Brainstorming & Outlining involves the formulation of ideas, a courtship to the eventual marriage of abstract imagination and manifested work.  This Creative Expression is less of a foundation for Creation & Project Construction, and more of a crystallization of pure imagination.  This value is rooted in “play”.  There is an improvisation in forming and spit-balling ideas.  Brainstorming & Outlining can allow someone to express their imagination without judgment or edits.  Technique can be applied as little or as much as the artist desires.  It’s noodling around on the guitar; improvising comedy in conversation; languaging poems, lyrics, and prose; it’s sketching out a design; splashing paint on a wall; blocking the outline of a story idea.  

Many artists experience fulfillment by stockpiling ideas that may never get touched.  Brainstorming & Outlining may be an artist’s primary relationship with creativity.  Some artists rarely take their art beyond the Brainstorming & Outlining expression.  This focus does not discount one’s substance as an artist even if that individual doesn’t identify as an artist.  Some of the best creative partners and editing minds one can work with are “ideas people”.

Performing

Performing is a Creative Expression that asks a lot of an artist.  There are constant challenges performers face: hitting certain technical marks, staying in a present mindset, managing audience reaction, etc.  Despite the challenges, one can experience powerful fulfillment when performing.  Performing is the attempt to become fully in a present moment of pure expression while an audience participates in the experience.  This is extremely challenging in a world driven by outcomes. 

As discussed in Chapter 7, our performances can benefit by understanding what a healthy expression of Performing looks like in action and when that expression begins to exhibit unhealthy characteristics.  E.g., “A healthy expression of Performing is when I’m coming from a place of imagination, play, and presence.  When that crosses the line into being evaluative, ‘Does that look right?  Does the director think I’m a good actor?  This doesn’t sound good.  Does the audience like me?’ I’m Performing in an unhealthy way.”  Having an idea of this boundary can help center an artist in real time when unhealthy components begin to inhibit performance.

Another effective source to utilize when performing is Volitional Confidence (discussed in Chapter 8).  “When I feel that I can’t, what of this can I do?”  Volitional confidence can help focus one’s energy on a manageable portion where one can better connect to imagination and expression.  This practice can guide you to perform better when you don't have your “A” game.  Despite those rare times when everything falls into place, there are many incredible performances that don’t begin well but blossom into magic.  It is rare to start off with you’re “A” game and maintain it.  Many great performances start off as a “B” performance in terms of flow and rise to an “A+” by staying calm during adversity, accepting challenges, and trusting one’s self. 

Regarding Audience Awareness, there is a fine line between unhealthy evaluation and healthy analysis.  Using the audience to inform the direction and development of a performance is perfectly fine because it’s more of an objective creative analysis.  For example, choosing to go big with a character to give the audience a larger sense of departure is a creative decision.  However, it can inhibit expression to view an audience reaction as a personal statement of your creativity, “I’m a bad actor.” or “I’m a great musician.”  Positive audience reactions can also be misleading.  It feels great to receive positive audience feedback, but if one takes it as a personal statement, “I’m a great musician.  I know what I’m doing,” it can cause one to be too reliant on an audience’s reaction.  Any audience reaction is subjective.  Negative and positive reactions can be misinformed and inaccurate.  When analysis of an audience crosses into personal evaluation of one’s self, it can work against the artist’s expression and development.

Audience response and outcomes only have as much to do with artistic expression as you let it.  Artistic expression can be viewed as practice.  Let your art be enough and trust your innate ability to be enough just by practicing.  Defining success as the expression of Creativity can help anchor one in a deeper place of motivation, resilience, and flow.  Sometimes in a performance the stars simply do not align and sometimes they do regardless of any reason, understanding, or intention.  The unknown nature of art can be scary when it is so important to us.  One can help manage these challenges by focusing on imagination, expression, and practice.

Editing & Organizing

The Editing & Organizing Creative Expression can be one of the more trying expressions an artist manages.  It is difficult to bring a work of creativity to a place of “done-ness”.  Some creative minds find this expression to be their preferred relationship to Creativity.  Other creative people can avoid or be perfectionistic when expressing Editing & Organizing.  When we devote more attention to a value (or Creative Expression) than we prefer, we can experience stress.  Many times, when a project progresses to the point where editing and organizing is needed, the artist may already be exhausted and vulnerable.  When experiencing such unrest, stress, or burnout, it is important to trust the temporary nature of this over-attention for a greater rightness.  A project that is an important manifestation of your creativity is asking for a challenging amount of attention and expression to reach a form of realized art.

Editing can be very uncomfortable especially when dealing with a project that has already required so much risk and effort.  It is difficult to revisit the difficulties and depths one took repeatedly for the sake of technical refinement.  It is important to realize the difficulty of this challenge and exercise healthy coping and self-care strategies (discussed in Chapter 9). 

Another challenging component of expressing Editing & Organizing is the ambiguous nature of “done-ness”.  Many times it is not clear as to when an artist transitions from creating to editing, and there is certainly no definitive end to the editing and organizing of a project.  The argument that there are no completed works of art has merit because one can endlessly edit and organize.  Author David Mitchell says he knows he’s done editing when he starts changing items back to their original state.  Mitchell’s idea is one guideline, but the editing process is different for each artist and varies from project to project.  An artist develops an instinctual gauge with certain projects and their overall editing process. 

There are a number of artists that find Editing & Organizing to be a fulfilling expression of art at certain times in their artistic life.  Elevating and contributing to others' works in progress can be a meaningful form of art.  Artists can practice this Creative Expression through life roles such as Income Work, Art Adjacent Work, and Art Career.  

The inherent nature of editing can be a deflating experience.  Transitioning an inspiring idea into a concrete form can feel like failure.  Cutting and shaping aspects of an artistic expression can be difficult, painful, and confusing.  Trust that the magic of the work is not lost in the technicalities of editing.  The power of the work is shifting from the artist’s imagination to the audience’s creative participation.  The work is becoming its true form, a conduit of imagination.  It can help to trust the reader or audience.  A work of art is a communal effort.  The reader/audience is participating in the work.  It can be easy to lose sight of this when editing your creative idea into a digestible format.  Insecurity can cause an artist to overdue a point or, as Ted Thompson explains, “bully the reader.”  It can help to trust the reader or audience to meet your expression however their imagination chooses to dance with your work.

Creative Life Roles

Income Work

Income Work is a life role that can be a major source stress in a creative person’s life.  Some find Financial Prosperity not be an important value beyond the point of facilitating their artistic pursuits.  Other creatives may view Financial Prosperity as an important value that conflicts with Creativity.  Either way, a person has to negotiate money in order to pay bills.  Many times artists acquire money by spending time and energy in fields they may not like.  It can help to draw a distinction between one’s Creative Life Roles and Income Work.  An artist is often called to spend a substantial amount of time and energy on Income Work.  Some artists live as inexpensively as possible and sacrifice creature comforts; some artists work part time jobs to maximize time to devote to creative work; other artists work financially stable jobs and sacrifice preferred time to work on their creative projects; and many fluctuate between these options.

Challenges can arise when an artist experiences rewarding outcomes and approval in their Income Work.  These outcomes can feel satisfying especially when we are receiving few desired outcomes in our creative life.  Income Work outcomes can prompt one to agree to more Income Work responsibilities which will require more time and energy.  It is important to be aware of the significance creative expression can have on your wellness when prioritizing large decisions.

It can be defeating to spend consistent time and energy on Income Work we don’t like.  Stress and frustration are natural responses but if they become too much of the focus it can center us in a place resentment.  It can help to focus on underlying purposes, “I’m spending time on this work to pay bills in order to have space to create my art.”  This focus can root artists in a deeper source of resilience because it’s tied to the value of Creativity.

Art Career

This Creative Life Role embodies one’s artistic life.  It involves artistic development, creative output, and desired focus of an artist’s energies.  It may help to view this life role as one’s current primary medium.  If you had all the money in the world, where and how would you devote your creative energies in a fulfilling way?  If you had no money, how would you express your creative energies?  Time and energy management can benefit by distinguishing the Art Career life role as the platform in which you express your most important creative energies.

Other Mediums

Ron was primarily an actor until his mid-twenties.  He had gained experience in performance and technique through this medium, but had also become so outcome-oriented that debilitating pressure began to overwhelm him.  The ability and desire to bridge the gap between acting technique and expression became less important to Ron.  As a result, acting was no longer fulfilling his creative value, so Ron naturally gravitated to writing as an outlet.  It started out as an exercise to influence his acting, but because he was able to connect to expression and imagination easier in this medium, Ron grew to focus on the medium of literature.  Ten years later, Ron had relegated acting to the occasional hobby and had become a serious writer. 

Artists can experience benefits by learning, observing, and participating in mediums other than their primary focus.  There is a wealth of concepts and methods that when crossed over to a new medium align to create fulfilling art, and conversely add rich new perspectives to mediums of primary focus.  Some artists are very serious about several mediums and other artists concentrate on one.  Using other mediums can help an artist reconnect to one’s core imagination because a different medium challenges the artist to rely more on pure artistic expression rather than experienced proficiency.  All mediums influence each other.  Artists can draw from the benefits of other mediums by experiencing them as an audience member.

Creative Expressions through different mediums does not prevent the difficulties and discomfort that inherently come with expressing art.  However, sometimes different mediums click more succinctly with one’s expression at different times in a creative person’s life.

Art Adjacent Work

This Creative Life Role involves work that is closely related to one's Art Career, but more rooted in career development, exposure, networking, and money.  Poets may find work as copywriters; actors may be called away from fulfilling roles for commercial work; painters may do graphic design work for advertising; etc. 

This Creative Life Role provides opportunities for creative expression but may not result in much fulfillment.  Art Adjacent Work can involve self-promotion and networking which is often unfulfilling work for an artist, but necessary for Art Career development.  The underlying purpose of devoting energy to this role is to provide more opportunities to express art.

There are a number of artists who may experience a fair amount of crossover between the life role of Income Work and the life role of Art Adjacent Work.  If one makes a living from Art Adjacent Work, it can be helpful to realize that combination of these life roles.  Conversely, artists can better express their energies by distinguishing Income Work, Art Adjacent Work, and Art Career as separate platforms. 

Relationships

This life role coincides with the LVI model because it is a role that can be influential in an artist’s life as well as provide opportunities for creative expression and satisfaction.  Manifesting imagination is difficult or perhaps impossible to fully realized, but the artist is still inspired and finds meaning to conjure physical representations of the inner imagination.  Similarly, the idea of a relationship may never be fully realized because we can never be fully outside of our own experience; however, we are often inspired and find meaning in relating and experiencing love.

It is important to keep in mind that after energies are expended on life roles like Income Work and Art Career, one is left with little energy to relate to others.  However, relating and spending time with friends and loved ones can still be an important value one finds fulfillment in expressing.  Values Prioritization in the context of a specific day’s “rightness” is necessary for accommodating the importance one may feel in relating to others.  When energy is low, remember to focus on relating (not the state of the relationship), self-care, and active curiosity.

Leisure and Community Activities

This life role also corresponds with the LVI model because Leisure and Community Activities can provide important opportunities for values fulfillment.  This role involves activities that you choose to do with your personal time.  They might include hobbies, social events, entertainment, exercise, volunteering, spiritual activities, or just spending quiet time alone.

People can misinterpret any time or energy spent outside of Income Work as leisure time.  In the case of an artist, Art Career, Art Adjacent Work, and Income Work all require energy and present challenges that can be quite taxing.  The benefit of designating Leisure and Community Activities outside creativity is to provide a clearer awareness of restoration and rest. 

When artists juggle many life roles to facilitate their art, it is a common to dismiss leisure time or become resentful about not experiencing sufficient restoration.  Rest can be a vital tool for perspective, self-care, and imagination. There are periods of time when circumstances require specific life roles outside of art like Income Work and Relationships to take priority over other life roles.  During these periods, an artist may feel compelled to spend sparing moments on their art; however, the body, mind, and soul may also need rest during these spare moments.  Rest and restoration can be centering acts of wellness that can benefit many aspects of one’s life including art. 

One does not cease being creative when one is not creating a project or performing.  Taking time to rest, explore hobbies, participate in spontaneous events, and engage in the many Leisure and Community Activities outside of art can all help an artist tap into imagination, manifest art, and manage the challenges of a creative life. 

Key Points

1.     There are several ways in which we express creativity.  Distinguishing Creative Expressions that are important to us can help us better prioritize our values in the context of a day and allow us to tap into deeper sources of motivation and resilience.

2.     Focusing on expression rather than evaluation is the most efficient portal to the imagination and increases the likelihood of flow experience.

3.     Understanding the specialized definitions of Creative Life Roles can foster effective values prioritization, and help one develop strategies to manage and cope with the challenges associated with Non-Creative Life Roles.

Personalizing the Concepts

1.     At this time in your life, what Creative Expression is most important to you?  What is great about this expression, and what are the stresses and fears you have to manage when engaging in this expression?

2.     What component in your life frequently inhibits Creativity?  What is an underlying purpose or greater rightness associated with this inhibiting component?  If there is no greater rightness or purpose, what are some steps you can take to change this conflicting element?

3.     Define what imagination and play mean to you.