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| Snow Kitty by Max Jason Peterson |
Wake Up to Something You Love
If the thought of getting out of bed is a chore, the rest of the day often drags, too. Everything you have to do feels harder when you're thwarted by not having enough time to do something you love.
I'm speaking, for my part, of creative work, but this could apply to many different activities.
I’ve recently returned to something I tried years before: getting up before I have to go to work. This is a true challenge, since I’m a night owl with a morning lark's work schedule. When I’ve tried to do it in the past, my resolution didn't last long, since it was hard to motivate myself to crawl out of bed early just to do some really hard work writing and editing on my computer with an aim to churn out as many words or pages as I could.
Yet there have been two times when this strategy did work for me, and I honestly enjoyed it. The first occurred a few years ago, while I was drafting a fantasy novel. I'd wake up but still lie comfortably in bed, writing with colorful pens in a rainbow-edged journal (my favorite way to write being by hand, especially with fun materials).
The other time is now: pure joy, to get up before work just to draw, because I love it.
I’ve really missed my art; I'd been away from it for too long, and it's thrilling to watch my skills return. But these mornings aren’t about making up for lost time. And yes, I do have paying art assignments, but these are just pieces I'm making for the love of it.
Having gotten out of bed because I want to, I find my mind clear, my heart relaxed as I pick up the pencil. It's fun, not a chore. Not something I'm making myself do. Every morning I give myself the choice: sleep in? Draw? I try to sleep in. I end up drawing.
And it brightens my whole day.
Try it! Get up just a little bit early to do something creative that you love, in a way that is all about you and your enjoyment of the process. It may contribute to an overall goal (my drawings will be published online eventually), but the point isn’t the progress, it’s the process. It’s a way to say yes to a deeply held dream. To get in touch with your soul while you’re still so close to your unconscious, and not yet bowed down by the pressures of the day.
Often by the end of a long day at work, I’m too tired to create—because making things from the heart requires so much mental and emotional energy. Even if I had the will to do it, I might knuckle under the stress that accumulates with all I have yet to do, with not enough time to do it. I may feel I don’t have time to play. If I engage with my creative life, it has to be solely for professional work. And in order to justify taking time to do it, I need to work hard and make it count.
This is no fun. It's a quick way to burn out. Believe me, I've been there.
When I wake up and choose to climb out of bed, I feel joy as I rise to meet my art. Obviously that pleasure, doing something I love, is both the benefit and the motivation. But I think it runs deeper than that. I'm making time for my dream first. And that’s important.
Not only is the mind clearer, the energy fresher before you begin your daily routines, but you'll also be showing yourself that you do take your dreams seriously—that you value yourself enough to
make this thing you love a priority.
Maybe the amount of time you have is small—fifteen or twenty minutes. Maybe it’s closer to an hour. Either way, just putting in the time reinforces the sense of commitment.
Meanwhile, you'll also improve your skills and your connection to your art. Even if you find that you have to keep erasing your subject’s face (or crossing out lines of a poem), the longer you spend looking at the picture you’re drawing, the more deeply you’ll see it, and the closer you’ll be to getting it to look the way you want.
Incremental progress only looks slow on the surface. Turn off the
part of your brain that counts up what you've done and searches for an end in sight. Focus on the process, the fact that this is what you want to be doing day by day. Slowly but surely, you’re
getting there. One morning you’ll find you’ve completed a striking drawing or a
sonnet full of insight. And it doesn’t feel like an insurmountable effort. You
were just having fun, giving yourself a moment of joy by spending time doing
something you love.
