Celebrating creative successes
I hope you are settling into autumn. I love getting out for walks and paying attention to the changes of the season, whether that’s the transformation of the leaves or mushrooms erupting overnight.
This month, I wanted to share my thoughts on celebrations with you. I reached a milestone recently and have now published ten features. It may be a small step on my journey as a writer but each of these steps add up and remind me that I am on the right path.
Many of us (and I include myself in this) have a tendency to focus on making plans for the future. It can be easy to overlook the progress we’ve made already; we’ve often come further than we think. This means that we are missing an opportunity to boost our confidence and help maintain our energy throughout our journey.
During the pandemic, we have had to invent new ways of celebrating when the usual ways of marking life’s milestones were not available to us. This set me thinking about how I can be more creative in the way I celebrate the small achievements in my writing.
On one of my walks, I gathered foliage to create a celebratory seasonal display on my kitchen table. Flowers are one of my favourite gifts to self. Every time I enter the room, I am reminded about what I have achieved so far. Connecting with nature is an important source of creative inspiration for me so I’m hoping this will spark ideas for future writing projects!
I’ve also been making a conscious effort to open up more with friends and colleagues about my dreams and goals. Sharing your creative journey with others can help to make it feel more real and also means that you have a network of people to support you along the way. This includes discussing my dreams with people before I know if they will be a success. This can make you more vulnerable but it means you have support through any setbacks.
I’ve been paying more attention recently to acknowledging where things haven’t worked out as I had hoped. For all the features I’ve published, there have many more pitches which didn’t get commissioned. With each of these disappointments, I have looked for opportunities to develop my writing craft, whether that’s buying a book to develop my skills or setting aside time to attend an online class. This means that I still get an incentive for trying and it encourages me to learn from the things which have not gone so well.
So, I would love to hear your thoughts on this. How do you celebrate your creative successes? How do you mark the things that have not gone so well?
