Quick Notes & Links:

When I sit down with a new dream or idea, I require 3 things. That my creative steps be:

1) DOABLE -  A step I can do. Something I can take action on.
2) USEFUL - A step that is necessary for my specific goal.
3) REQUIRE PRIORITY - A step that has a specific place in my list of steps. If this step can happen at any point in my process, it might not be crucial to achieving my dream.

You probably already have a list of steps you are taking as part of your creative process. As long as you make sure your steps are doable and useful and prioritized, you’re putting yourself in a great position to accomplish your dreams.

Links to Ideas/Tips/Advice on how to approach your creative goals:
VIDEO: Tedx Talk How To Achieve Your Most Ambitious Goals
Make Your Dreams Come True in 9 Steps
Creative Dream List
Neuroscience: Write Down Your Goals If You Actually Want to Achieve Them

Start creating this habit for yourself. Dreams. Steps toward those dreams. Evaluate if your steps are doable, useful and prioritized. Rinse and Repeat! It's important to understand the difference between Dreams and Steps. It's important to build the habit of finding time for both dreaming and taking steps. And it's important to make sure your steps are the best steps to take.

You can find us on Twitter and/or Instagram: @Creative4evr.
Don’t forget to be creative this week. Even if you just think about it. Later. 

Full Show Notes:

Hey, hi and hello! Welcome to Creative4evr. The podcast dedicated to keeping you forever inspired, forever motivated, forever creative, and forever YOU.  I am your host, Janet, a.k.a. Jai//Em, a.k.a. the voice inside your head, a.k.a. your biggest fan, and together we’re going to get some creative shit done.

I’ll start by saying again, happy New Year. Happy 2020! It seems we are gonna be doing that thing where we refer to this decade as “the roaring 20s.” There are already images of flappers popping up online, and there's lots of roaring 20s talk, so we may burnout on that pretty quickly... but right now, I’m embracing it... I can clearly hear my own voice not sounding very excited about this decade being referred to as, “the roaring 20s,” but I assure you I am. It just doesn’t sound like I care. But I do, I care. Frankly, I’m just exhausted. You know how it is, you go to a New Year’s Eve party and stay up ‘til 2 in the morning, then your next day is messed up then, then the next, it snowballs, then you’re back at work— it’s hard. That’s what I’m dealing with right now, but I am, am, am excited about the roaring 20s. “Janet, why do you hate the roaring 20s?” I don’t! I don’t hate the roaring 20s.

Alright so today’s episode, number 2, we’re gonna talk about something that applies to the creation of this podcast. Something that explains why it took me such a long time between starting to record episodes and releasing them, and that is… DREAMS and STEPS.

Okay, I want your dreams to be big! I think creative people should have gigantic dreams. I think they should be big, and messy, and wild, and crazy, and slightly improbable, but also wildly improbable, romantic and sexy! I want your dreams to be important! Important to you, important to other people, I want your dreams to be ambitious, even if they are unpopular. I want them to be difficult, hard to accomplish. I want them to be bold and I certainly want them to be creative. I want them to be OF YOU, I want them to be unique, and very personal, and something that you care deeply about. That’s what I want for your dreams, that’s what I want for my dreams.

But, what I also want for you, what I want for myself, is practical steps toward those big dreams. That’s where I got in trouble starting this podcast. Big dreams, I listed them all out for myself, I recorded my mission statement podcast and listed them out for you, and then sat down with no steps. No practical steps to make those big dreams happen.

I said in the 1st episode of the podcast that we would be hearing stories from other creatives, which meant I would be interviewing other people. I said we were going to strengthen our creative habits, which requires me to do research on the best practices for strengthening creative habits, which requires me to talk to other people about what they do to strengthen their habits, and requires me to think about what I do to strengthen my own creative habits. I said we were gonna stay aware of the world around us, which means, research! I have to be aware of the world around us in order to talk about the world around us. I said we were going to take care of ourselves, which again is research— talking to people, and thinking about how I take care of myself, and sort of understanding that  before I convey anything to you. I said we were going to discuss TV, books and movies with a focus on books. Well, MY GOD, that requires that I watch TV and movies. That requires that I read books, that I then do the work of breaking these things down into chunks so that we can talk about them.

WHEN, people of earth? When was I going to do all of this stuff? I didn’t take the time to think about the Steps that I needed to take in order for my dreams to become a reality. This is why we end up abandoning projects. This is why we end up starting so strong and then being disappointed and feeling like we failed.

I have gone to bed countless times thinking about the big ideas, thoughts bouncing happily around in my mind— I am gonna do this and it’s going to be so great, and the next thing you know you I’m answering fake interview questions in your mind because my idea has started winning me awards, even though I haven’t started working on the project! I’m in my head in this fake interview like, My mother has always been an inspiration, and I thought if I could just be as brave as her, that I could create this. But I never dreams…thought it was going to turn out this way. This is a dream… come true. Total BS. Total dreamy, bullshit, BS. How am I being interviewed about something I haven’t even done yet? But it happens! BECAUSE DREAMS ARE SO FUN!

Sometimes we have to take 5 steps, sometimes 35, sometimes 105 and then 10 more after that because it has to be done. Steps are not dreams, steps are not fun. They can be, but usually they are hard, and slow, and inconvenient, and always, always, always cost us something. Whether that be actual money, or our time and our freedom.

People that are serious about becoming dancers or filmmakers or streamers have to find the time to take the steps toward those goals. This especially applies to those of us that have day jobs, which means less time hanging around watching Netflix, less happy hour drinks with friends after work on Fridays, because Saturday morning is the only time we have 6 hours of free time and we need to be fresh, we can’t be hungover. I know I am not the only one that has opted not to travel during a major holiday— made up some excuse— so I could stay behind in an empty apartment and WRITE, because who in their right mind would give up $450 dollars for a plane ticket that could go toward a book edit later, or a piece of tech needed for a project. Not to mention I would have a Thurs...

Quick Notes & Links:

Today we talk about the Creative4evr Podcast Mission. I hope this podcast -- 1) Brings us together. 2) Let’s know we’re not alone. 3) Motivates us to try to flip it so we’re doing more of our own creativity and maybe we’ll even start to get paid for it.

On this podcast...
// We will hear stories from other Creatives
// We’re going to strengthen our creative habits.
// We’re going to stop choking our muse to death.
// We’re going to take care of ourselves....know when to go to bed!
// We’re going to discuss and recommend books, TV shows, and movies with an emphasis on books. Many of the books will be from authors in marginalized communities, from authors of color, queer authors, and people we don't usually hear from.

We are on Twitter and Instagram: @Creative4evr. Don’t forget to be creative this week…even if you just think about it.

Full Show Notes:

Hey, hi, and hello! Welcome to Creative4evr. The podcast dedicated to keeping you forever inspired, forever motivated, forever creative, and forever YOU. I am Janet, a.k.a. JAI//EM, a.k.a. the voice inside your head, a.k.a. your biggest fan, and together we’re gonna get some creative shit done.

This is the very, very, very, very first episode and I am very excited about it. How many was that? 4? 5?  I’m really excited, this has been a long time coming! I’ve been working on this for a little while now and we’re finally releasing episodes, so it feels good. So, let’s jump right into it. You’re gonna get our mission statement, what we plan to do on this podcast, and we’ll talk again on the other side. Enjoy!

On this podcast, Creative4evr, we’re going to make sure that you stay inspired and motivated. Here's why. I have an expertise and it's living a double life. I work at my day job and I pay my bills. And then I spend the rest of my time being creative. Writing, podcasting, streaming on Twitch... I do all of these things outside of my day job that I'm passionate about, that I care about, that allow me to be creative. And I know so many people that do the same thing!

Over the years I've met artists, creators, dreamers, writers, inventors, singers and dancers. MAKERS. And all of us are working our ass off to make a living and be creative. We’re doing this in the wee hours of the night, on our lunch breaks, in the car on the way to work, while we're waiting to pick up our kids. We’re squeezing in our creativity in order to fulfill that part of our lives, while still functioning in the world and at our day jobs. Yes, sometimes those things intersect. Sometimes we are able to be creative at our day jobs and creative after work, but often I find that even if I am in a creative job, I'm still not doing the creative things I want to do. I'm not quite able to put those things on the front burner...

I hope this podcast -- 1) Brings us together. 2) Let’s know we’re not alone. 3) Motivates us to try to flip it so we’re doing more of our own creativity and maybe we’ll even start to get paid for it.

On this podcast we will hear stories from other Creatives. I don't mean that they will read their stories, although that's a great idea, I just mean I'm going to interview people like us and talk to them about how they squeeze their creativity out of each day. How they stay motivated, look at the world, what inspires them. I think it's so important to hear from people that are doing what we're doing. Sometimes, especially around awards seasons, we hear from six or seven super famous artists that are doing amazing work, but at a high level, for masses and millions of people. Yet, we don’t often get to hear stories about someone that has written one book that’s selling, but not well. We don’t usually hear from the artist that got a great gig, but it didn’t generate dollars for them. That's what I think is interesting, and I hope you do too.

We’re going to strengthen our creative habits. We’re going to get into the rhythm of our own creativity! How do we wake up? What is our mindset when we wake up? What are the things we do to ensure that when we have a moment to squeeze creativity out of ourselves, we use it?

We’re going to stay in touch with the world around us. Yes, you can be creative within a silo, without knowing what's going on in the world, but I think that's a short-term solution. We have to be in touch with what's going on inside and outside of our communities. Friends and family, but also strangers that we've never met nor seen.

We’re going to stop choking our muse to death. And that's basically saying we're going to try and let go so we can let creativity happen. So often we are the ones in our own way. I find that we are better at getting out of our own way if we hear about others that are doing so. But also, it goes back to strengthening our creative habits. If we strengthen our habits, it's easier to get out of our own way because it has become a part of our daily routine.

We’re going to take care of ourselves. Yes, sometimes falling into a pit of despair creates the BEST art of your life! I totally understand that, it has happened to me. However, it is not sustainable and there are things we can do to take care of ourselves. One of them is hanging out with, associating with, and talking to other people that are doing what we’re doing, so that it doesn't feel like we are alone, right? That's taking care of ourselves. Hanging out with other creatives. So, we are gonna do things like that, hang out with each other, take care of each other. But also, know when to go to bed! Know when to get up early and work out so that when we are creative our brain is able to do it, and our body is able to do it too.

We’re going to discuss and recommend books, TV shows, and movies with an emphasis on books. There are so many podcasts out there that review movies, talk about TV shows, etc., but I don't find there are enough people talking about books. Especially books that people really, really, really should have read. Everybody has a few books they pretend they've read or know about. We're going to change that. There are books that we all need to know, there are books that we all need to read. And I'm not going to lie, many of the books will be from authors in marginalized communities, from authors of color, queer authors, and people we don't usually hear from. YES, we are going to talk about TV shows and movies, but we’re going to talk about books, which leads me to my last thing. We are going to read more! I am going to shame you and make you feel like you're missing out. Before you know it, you're going to be reading more than you usually do. I guarantee it.

There you have it! Our mission statement. What we plan to do what the podcast and I'm super excited to watch it grow, change, evolve and ALL the things that happen when you decide to do something creative and go on a creative journey. I'm looking forward to it. It freaks me out a little bit, it’s a little scary, but I think it’s important to push your ...