I’m onto week 8 of the Creativity Coaching certification I signed up for a couple of months ago. And I think the reality is slowly settling in. Two weeks ago our assignment was to find our first coaching clients. The task involved writing a simple introductory blurb and putting it out into the world. I mean talk about going from thinking about a think to actually doing it, it felt a little surreal. It is so easy to think, dream, conceptualise, design, make dream logos for one day when you might do the thing, set up blogs and sites and spaces to house the thing, but then to actually announce to the world you’re going to attempt the thing you’ve really wanted to do. Well, that’s a whole different story.
That’s where the self-doubt, the should-I-reallys, the am-I-ready’s, the who-am-I-to-do-this thoughts come flooding in. And I’ve definitely been there and will probably travel in and out of questioning, second-guessing for a while.
“The headline is that there is no substitute for actually working with clients. If you wait until you feel “really ready” to coach, you may find yourself waiting a very long time.”
Announcing it!
I made a Canva graphic (of course), and wrote a little blurb about what I’d be doing and then made a list of friends and family to send it to. I also put something out on Instagram to ask if anyone might be keen to start coaching with me, and I’ve had some lovely responses. People seem excited and genuinely in need of help so that’s the aim - to be of a little help.
To my lovely friends + family!
Last month I signed up to complete a Creativity Coaching Certification. I’ve been circling this for the last nine (!) years, and I’ve finally taken the leap.
As part of the training, I need to get a solid number of coaching hours under my belt, so I’m looking for some people who might like some free creativity coaching for the next few months.
You might be a “traditional” artist (writer, poet, painter, musician), or you might be in tech, teaching, or NGO work. You may dream of living a more creative life, you want to make things, write things, start things but you encounter challenges in the pursuit of creativity, whether internal or external.
If you’d like a safe space to explore your own creativity, please feel free to reply to this message. I’d love to help. And you’d be helping me too.
Feeling challenged.
Of course, it was definitely going to happen that learning how to coach others in the context of their creative challenges was going to become a kind of self-coaching process for me too, and it definitely has been. Some of the things that have come up for me (and there are many!) are:
My struggles with making creative decisions: what if I choose the wrong thing and waste time! This one feels particularly deeply rooted and I’m going to have to continue to do some excavation work to figure out what lurks behind that, and more importantly how I might move past it, or at least acknowledge its existence but get on with things anyway. Not deciding on a project direction, or putting off making the decision feels like I’m keeping my options open and somehow that notion of ‘having options’ makes me feel rich - like I’m rich in choices, and I could do anything. But the reality of not choosing a particular creative direction means there is a material loss - no decision means no start, which means no progress in any direction, even if its the ‘wrong’ direction.
My tendency to over think and underdo: I find I can endlessly think about the potential of a thing, imagine if I made this book, or that upcycled tablecloth. Perhaps first I need to do a course (hello all the unfinished Domestika courses I’ve signed up for) and learn how to really do calligraphy/illustration/watercolour/bookmaking/eco-dyeing. Then once I’ve done the course, and read the book and reset my entire Pinterest and Instagram algorithm so that its all I see, the maybe I’ll have gathered enough information to start. Oliver Burkeman in his book “Meditation for Mortals” talks about how we can trick ourselves into thinking that if we become the kind of person who does the thing, that it will make the doing of the thing easier. But what we really need is to just do the thing. Instead of trying to become a meditation guru, how about meditating for just five minutes, today, is what he’s getting at.
My sense of responsibility for people: I think this one is going to get in the way for sure, and I’m going to have to learn to manage it. When someone opens up about their creative dreams, goals, hopes, wishes as well as their fears, anxieties, problems and sticking-points, how am I going to not take on the burden of responsibility for how they choose to proceed and keep in perspective my role (to be of a little help), and remind myself of the fact that its their life to life, regardless of whether they grow, develop, break through their creative blocks or not.
There are many more I could go into, but these are some that are coming up for me at the moment.
Asking good questions
I’m also reminded that coaching is, in large part, about listening well and asking good questions. Not questions that focus on peripherals, not questions that are too big, or too small, but the right questions at the right time. After all, what is coaching other than a conversation. And to be able to really listen and ask the right question is invaluable. The right question can help us discover what we really think and believe, the right question can cause us to stop in our tracks, the right question can help us see more clearly, the right question can increase our levels of self-compassion, the right question can divide between what’s really important and what’s non-essential. So there’s that, learning about asking good questions, and also turning those questions on myself. Why would I say that? What’s underneath that? Where have I heard that before? Why would I choose to proceed that way and not this?
On a process taking time and me wanting to get things done
I need to exercise patience. It has been a long while (maybe university?) since I signed up for something that lasts for a whole year. I have a tendency to jump into things, do them quickly and get them over with. But I can’t do that here. I will need to stick with this, do the weekly work, the assignments, the sessions, the written reflections, the note-taking, the reading, the thinking, the setting up of meetings, the bumbling through awkward silences, the attempts and re-attempts to communicate, and then I’ll have to do it again next week, and the next. There’s no way to fast forward this process and get from here to done by next week. It will take the time it takes, and I am trusting that I am growing and that the changes I experience settle in as I stick with it.
