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If much of your time is spent curating the work of others – gathering and sharing the most inspiring art you can find – it’s certainly a valuable act.

But when you’re so immersed in curating, you neglect creating your own work, the world is being sold short, cheated, robbed.

If your art isn’t even being brought to life, no-one else has a chance to find it, let alone be moved by it.

So by all means continue curating.

But don’t forget to spend at least as much time (preferably far more) doing your essential work of creating.

What’s your curator to creator ratio? Join the conversation to let us know.

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Choosing to embark on long term creative projects like tenthousandhaiku means that the end point is so far off, I barely even think about.

Which frees me to focus on each haiku – and each moment – with my fullest attention, energy and creativity, as if it were the entire project, right there and then, and nothing else mattered.

If we’re always thinking about finishing, with our mind in the next project, and the next after that, we’re not present in the current one.

How can you experience more of the long moment in your creative work?

Join the conversation to share your thoughts.

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The tiny details of the unknown future often seem to influence what we do and how we act right here, today.

Worrying that you won’t be able to, or won’t know how to, set up some aspect of your work and creative life in a week, a month, or a year from now, can sabotage what you attempt and feel confident embracing and creating right now.

For example, you might be holding back from even beginning a new novel, because you worry that you don’t know to even begin publishing it when it’s finished, or even whether you want to.

Or you don’t begin a new series of paintings that have been simmering away inside you for months, because you’re not sure which frames will work best with them when they’re ready.

These future fears don’t have any bearing on the talent and the ideas you have within you today.

The talent and ideas that can be given space and attention and energy to manifest themselves at a moment’s notice.

Imagine an architect who for years had been planning his dream home for his family, then once he was ready to begin building, held back because he couldn’t decide whether the front door would be pillar box red or forest green.

Or because he hadn’t decided whether to have roses or clematis growing up the walls in the front garden.

These are little details that will be worked out when the time comes. Don’t let them sabotage an entire project before it’s even begun.

In many ways it’s a waste of time to plan these kind of things anyway because by the time you reach that point, the art you originally envisaged will have altered and evolved.

It will have deviated from its original vision, as our work always does.

Plus, when it comes to areas you don’t yet know about, like for example curating your first photography exhibition, or setting up an online store to sell your hand made journals, there are always people ready and willing to help, who do know all about these areas. These people and these resources are more readily available than ever before.

Your main focus right now is not about the lighting of the exhibition space and the design of the invitations, or the colour scheme of your online store and how to accept payments.

Your main focus right now is to get out there and capture those fabulous photographs, to sit down and to bind those beautiful journals.

How often do you find yourself hung up on some future concern that’s five or ten or twenty steps down the line, and use it to avoid getting down to doing the work – to making your unique art – today?

Do you want to live the life of an artist, do you want to bring to life all those glorious creations waiting as tiny idea seeds within you?

Or do you just want to spend the rest of your days wishing and dreaming of creating your best work, but drowning in future fear?

All that’s needed is a shift in focus.

Take your eyes off that distant horizon you can’t possibly know until you get there anyway, and focus them on your hands right there in front of you.

They’re the hands of an artist. So what are they going to make, today?

Let go of those future fears, worries and concerns, just start creating.

Do you have fears about how you can find an audience and share your artwork, that prevent you from even starting to create anything in the first place?  Join the conversation to let us know.

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When you set off on your adventures each day, which is the first port you call at?

What’s the first thing you give your time, energy and attention to?

Is it your creative work?

If it’s not, and creating is only the third or thirty third visit of your day, how much time and energy do you have left to devote to it by then?

What does this say about how important you’re choosing to make it in your life?

Make your creative work the first port. Every day.

The rest of the journey can wait.

Join the conversation to share when creativity fits into your day.

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Recently I wrote that any day we choose can be Day One of the greatest day/ week/ month/ year/ decade of our creative lives. I have to admit though I’ve been rather slow in getting going with a few projects since December departed.

I have been creating plenty, and my morning stack of habits is close to invincible, even surviving a 48 hour bout of sickness over Christmas worse than I can remember and which saw me hardly leave my bed.

I still showed up on the yoga mat those two days, because it was important to me. And I felt better when I left the mat than I did when I arrived on it.

Where I have been a bit reluctant, is in starting to plan coaching courses for this year. Because it involves, you know, creating and putting a lot of stuff out there that people might not be interested in, and asking people for money in exchange for my work, time and coaching.

I’ve been aware that the consistent creativity I have shown in recent weeks – mostly in writing blog posts, writing haiku, taking photographs, and engaging in the creative communities on CCS and Google+, have been in some sense, classic acts of procrastination.

When I have a big challenging thing to set up (especially a big challenging thing that involves charging people money) I tend to find plenty of other things to do.

Now this is far from a waste of my time, because the other things I’m doing are very worthwhile and contribute to my overall personal growth and enjoyment. I’m in a very creative phase in my artwork, and very happy with how this is evolving.

But still I have the nagging thought in the back of my mind that it’s time to get going again with something that helps others be more creative in a focused and concentrated way. A nagging thought that won’t quieten, and that I need to listen to.

Last year I ran four main group coaching courses, and they all resulted in people making great strides in their creative lives. The system I’ve developed works, and each time I learn a little more about how to make it better, more rewarding and more accessible.

The only barrier then is good old Resistance, standing in front of me pulling faces, saying “na-na-na-na-nah, you’re too scared to do this, you’re scared of failing, and worse than that failing publicly.”

My Resistance looks something like The Backson, but not quite as cuddly.

And so, publicly, I’m going to spit in the face of Resistance and declare that I’m going to push ahead anyway with the new course, whatever he chooses to say or do.

I’ve already started composing the elements and content in my head and transferred that yesterday to a plan on paper in bright red pen.

I’ve also set a start date for the course – Saturday Feb 11th.

I know from the past that once I do these two things – sketch out the plan so I can visualise it, and set the start date, then it’s game on. There’s no going back.

I can breathe a sigh of relief and get on with the important work, while Resistance is left squinting and trying to wipe warm saliva out of its eyes.

Something else that helps when I start feeling this kind of resistance is making my intentions public. Or put another way, giving people permission to keep nagging me and asking how composing the new course is going.

This seemingly quite simple and easy step, works because it helps the part of me that needs to justify my existence on this earth by helping and supporting other people, take centre stage again.

In a kind of It’s A Wonderful Life internal montage I can then remember some of the messages and feedback I’ve had over the years about the difference I’ve made to people’s creativity, and use that as motivation to continue to make a difference.

We don’t do the work just for ourselves, that’s merely the beginning. We have a certain obligation I believe, to create what’s within us, so others can be inspired also.

So, to sum up, I still struggle with Resistance, and quite likely always will, but I’ve found ways that help me spit in its face and move through it anyway.

First, become aware of when you’re in Resistance.

Acknowledge that although you’re creating and doing important work, and that this is a good thing, there might be other, more important work, that needs to be done. Acknowledge that Resistance might be at work in another guise here.

Second, commit to the most important work.

You already know what your next big scary project is. Make an initial plan or at least a few notes. Make it visible, give it form. Set a date to begin the work. Set a date to launch it publicly. Make a public announcement if it helps.

Third, remember your work is not just about you.

You’re not meant to create amazing artwork in secret, in complete isolation, then bury it in your back garden so no-one ever finds it. Part of creating is about sharing your work, and this can – and will – have a profound positive influence on the lives of other artists. That’s your duty, it’s in the contract. Honour it.

So I’m off to continue planning the new course.

How do you deal with Resistance?

Join the conversation to share your thoughts on Resistance.

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