Throughout my adventure with #QuiltingStories I’m sharing some of my favourite tips & ideas from The little book of Easy Creativity, which includes the things that have helped me complete #The100DayProject these past couple of years
I feel like in recent years I’ve been unlearning a bunch of stuff, and every time I make some progress it feels like I reclaim some of my energy, and life becomes a little less exhausting.
One of my more recent moments of unlearning was giving myself permission to change my mind, especially when it comes to my creative endeavours! I can fall in love with a craft or idea so deeply that I can’t ever imagine not feeling that way about it, and then feel so much shame when one day my brain finds something new & exciting it now wants to do instead. I saw it as a character flaw and feeling bad about it was so energy draining!
But recently I realised that being multi-discplinary (aka wanting to do ALL the arts & crafts) is just part of my personality. It’s who I am AND – most importantly – it is totally okay and doesn’t make me any less of an artist!
Also interestingly acknowledging, accepting and taking the shame out of it has actually helped me notice themes that do run through my work and what I enjoy. I realise many of the common threads do add up me being a textile artist, even if how I interact with fibres & textiles has gone through lots of iterations over the years. While I’m not always a fan of labels, calling myself a textile artist feels quite freeing!
I have always been a bit more comfortable with changing my mind within a creative project, or a series of interlinked projects, and I think that’s part of what helps keep me going with #The100DayProject – knowing that I don’t have to have it all planned out at the start. I can figure stuff out as I go along, and if I feel like I need to change my mind about any aspect of it as I go along that’s absolutely fine too.
Before 2021 I had tried #The100DayProject and other daily creative projects too, and I’d never stick with them for more than a week or two. Part of what made it impossible for me was having a really fixed idea of what I was “supposed” to be doing, without building in flexibility for that to change as I went along.
Over the past couple of years I’ve come to realise – and really enjoy – that when you do anything for 100 days you’ll have new ideas pop up AND learn a hell of a lot along the way. Allowing changing my mind to be part of the process really supports me in seeing it through to the end.
I treat #The100DayProject as an exploration & adventure. At any time I’m doing the project in a way that feels most fun & exciting for me at that moment, even if it’s not what I expected to be doing when I started out.
Giving yourself permission to change your mind doesn’t make you flaky, it makes you flexible. It takes us away from all or nothing thinking, allowing you to change the parts that aren’t working and see the rest of it through.
As I say in The little book of Easy Creativity “Yes, of course there are things in our lives where we need to stick with it, persevere through discomfort and make it to the other side. But when we’re doing something for fun, then maybe ditching it when it stops being fun is a good idea!”
Are you doing #The100DaysProject? I’d love to hear about your project and how you keep it flexible to help you make it to the end – Come & chat to me in my comments or DMs over on insta (if insta isn’t your thing you can find me in other places too)
If you’d like more support to put together a plan that works for you to do #The100DayProject or any other crafty or creative project then check out The little book of Easy Creativity. It comes with worksheets (or joysheets as I like to call them) giving you a space to gather your thoughts & make a plan that works for you!
Ko-Fi members get instant access to The little book of Easy Creativity for free when they join (current members can access it here) – but if membership isn’t for you then you can buy the book in my Ko-Fi shop instead!
