Creatives, Getting Better is Not an Option

Hello Creative Souls, and welcome back. Today we're going to talk about why getting better at your creative work is not an option.

If you've ever felt like the creative world is too saturated, there's no room for you, you're not good enough, your visions are bigger than you are, you don't have the time, money, or resources to bring it all together, then this post is for you. Because I know that tugging at your heartstrings inside of you is this deep, deep calling, a desire to bring your creative vision to life; yet somewhere, for some reason, along the way you're hitting roadblocks. You deeply, naturally want to get better. You have a craft. You have a medium. Maybe you're good. Maybe you're great. Maybe you think you're terrible. Doesn't really matter where you fall on the actual spectrum. You probably desire to get better at it. And that's good.

It's a natural human experience to want to progress in life, to want to get better at things, so harsh is not really my vibe here. If you've seen other posts of mine, I'm more of a sweet love and encouragement kind of friend here. So when I say getting better is not an option, I am not telling you that you are not good enough. I'm telling you a simple relieving truth that when you start doing your creative work, getting better is not an option. It's an inevitability.

You will get better if you show up with regularity. We’re going to talk about you getting better at your creative work by showing up again and again and thus growing your body of creative work = and getting better with each project that you do. Let's get into it.

One of the biggest resistances I hear from the creative community is time. I get it. We're all so busy. Some of us are working multiple jobs, maybe we're balancing kids and our home life to take care of. We've got other activities and things. We live in such a busy day and age, right? It's so busy, and time is the biggest obstacle that I hear from other creatives. I completely understand. Honestly, time is the reason that I decided to go into a creative career, because I didn't want to have a career over here that was something completely separate from my creative soul and then have to try to make time to hobby out my creative life. Now, that's not a judgment if that's what you're doing; but if you are like me and don't want to hobby out your creative time, you want it to be the central focus of your work life, good. Stick around because that's exactly what my blog is about = helping you take your creative vision that might be a hobby or a side hustle and blossoming it into a full-time thing so that your creative work can become the center.

If it isn't the center of your actual day-to-day life, but it is the center of your heart space, which I'm almost certain is true. then we've got to take a baby step to getting it there. This has to do with finding time and using it well. I’d like to talk today about the CSOP. You've probably heard of SOPs before if you're in any kind of business industry: standard operating procedure. How we do things on the regular so that it's repeatable, easy, and scalable. This is why businesses talk about SOPs — because if you have them, then you can scale a business. Franchises will also have SOPs because one franchise needs to do things the same as another franchise or they're not going to represent each other anymore. Even as small business, even as entrepreneurs or solopreneurs, we really could stand to use some standard operating procedures.

So, what's the C? I bet you can guess on a creative channel: Creative Standard Operating Procedure. Mine grew organically, and not because I'm so business brilliant that I made one like 10 or 20 years ago. Mine grew out of repetition and finally shook itself down into a standard operating procedure that I can now use. So use my decades of experience to fast-track your own CSOP so that you can get there faster. Let me guide you into creating one.

We have the value of having a CSOP when we do carve out the time — let's use the bare minimum, five minutes. I've got five minutes to do a thing. I know it's not enough. It makes your heart break. You want to paint for five hours. You want to play music for five hours. You want to write your book for five hours. You'll get there, don't worry. You need to start with five minutes, though, because five minutes comes before five hours. When I find my five minutes, my five hours, I need to know what to do with it. If you're really working not just as a hobbyist, then you need to have a little more organizational strategy about it. Otherwise, you'll continue to be a hobbyist, No judgment if that's what you want to do, but if you want to turn it into a money-making machine, you need to get some structure behind it. That's where the CSOP comes in.

This is how when you show up, when you've got those few minutes or those few hours, you know what to do with it. The first thing I would do, my darling, is get out a pen and a paper and start to write down what your Standard Operating Procedure looks like. Now, if you're simply a hobbyist, and you've got a canvas, paint brushes, an idea, and the time, you've got all the things you need. But if you want to turn that into an actual money-making machine, then that's not enough. You're also going to need an avenue to sell it. You're going to need connections and an audience to sell it to, people to help you promote it and get it out there. It turns into a business. This is why I understand some people don't want to take their creative work and turn it into a business because they feel like it'll get tainted if they put all this business energy on it. That's a fair perspective. If you want to spend more time in your creative work and money is an object for you, then you're going to have to put the business behind the art, okay? And you're going to have to learn to do some of these things. That's why I think the CSOP is so helpful.

If I were just writing scripts, I could sit down at the computer, write a script, Standard Operating Procedure done. But there's so much more because I'm not just writing scripts. I'm actually taking those scripts straight to the stage, producing full-on shows with all the aspects and selling those shows. There's a lot of parts and pieces. You need to start to create a Standard Operating Procedure that reflects all of that. When you have your five minutes and you sit down (or stand up, however you do your creative work) and you have the CSOP, you don't have to waste four of your five minutes deciding what task you should do. You already know what to do.

The CSOP in my business is one I've created. like I said, over years of experience and repetition. It's called a production guide because we produce shows. In the production guide, I have all of the different aspects lined out. This is where you want your pen and paper because if you're trying to businessify (that's a word now) your creative work, then you need all these aspects. So there's the actual process, the creative process, the creation. That's the part you probably already know well. If you're a songwriter, you write songs. If you're a painter, you paint. If you're a playwright, you write plays, right? The creative part is probably the part that you know. The part that you're missing are the other aspects of business, which are connections. Knowing some people in the industry will help. I don't mean you need to know them already. You need to reach out and make relationships. Let's call that connections or networking. Connections feels more sensual, doesn't it? Use the word that feels good to you.

We also need an aspect of marketing. Don't think of those as the same things. They will overlap, but they're not inherently the same. When I reach out to someone and ask them if they would like to collaborate or if I can come do a thing in a space, that's not the same as me producing social media content that promotes my show. One of them is marketing and one of them is using connections to uplevel my work.

Then there's a sales vision, or sales plan. How are you going to sell it? Are you going to have an Etsy shop? Are you going to sell tickets to a show like I am? Are you going to put all the content online and try and reap the benefits of streaming income? Are you trying to get booked for a tour? What's the sales mechanism for you? Are you trying to be a vendor at lots of local artist fairs? Are you trying to sell your paintings online, not in an Etsy shop, but through direct sales, through social media? Oh my goodness, the options are endless. There's plenty of money out there and there's plenty of people who want to buy art, but they don't want to buy your art if they don't know it's for sale. So you need to take some time to think about the sales mechanism behind it. This doesn't mean you have to master it and it doesn't mean you have to launch it right now. I just want you to jot down CSOP and then think about the creative process.

Now, inside creative process, there's probably a bunch of things. Inside my creative process. It's not just writing the script. There's actually a whole process where I go through an outline. I go through character development. I go through reveals and storyline concept. I go through writing and editing and sharing. That's just the script. Then we've got to get into rehearsals and get on stage, which comes with costuming, props, set, and the lighting. So the creative process might be a big bulky part of your CSOP. If you're wanting to monetize, then the pieces you're missing are connections, marketing, and sales.

For today, let's keep it simple. We just want to open that can of worms, if you will, and start getting you thinking about those things so that when you have five minutes of creative time, it's not just I'm gonna paint the picture. It could be sending one email for one minute, and then painting the picture for four minutes. This will not rob you of the creative work, because guess what? In order for you to sell it, the creative work has to be created. If you're worried about the business aspect tainting your creative work, but you want your life to focus more around the creative work, then don't worry about it. That's a problem you should dissolve. It's not a problem. It is the pathway to enable you to spend more time doing creative work.

If you just want to continue to be the hobbyist, then carve out the five minutes or the five hours and don't worry about this business stuff. Just do the creative process. Even within that, you could still have a CSOP that could serve you well. Truthfully, the CSOP is best for those of us who want to monetize our artwork.

This is just the starting ground just to get you your wheels turning, to get you thinking from a business perspective. I was once told that artists don't know how to do business. That was two decades ago. Pissed me off something fierce. I'm so glad it was said because it still motivates me today. Don't tell me I don't know how to do business, baby. I'll do some business with my artwork.

When I go to produce a new show, I don't have to spend a bunch of time reinventing the wheel here. I know what tasks need to be done and I know in which order, and you can bet some of those tasks overlap. From there, you can start to really create work consistently that you can sell. So get out your pen and paper. It doesn't have to be a 60-page business plan — I wouldn't recommend it — but I would recommend getting those four categories on paper. Creative process with as much detail in that area as you like, as suits your creative medium. Connections, people and relationships. And marketing and sales. These are not the same categories, although they all overlap.

This should feel good. This should feel like writing a love letter to the world.

So my darling, work on your Creative Standard Operating Procedure. When you show up with regularity to do your creative work, whether it's for five minutes a day, 5 hours a day, whatever it is, guess what? You will get better. The better you get, the easier it will be to sell your work. The better you get, the more people will appreciate the work you're trying to sell to them.

Let's take your creative work and monetize it and make it the center of your life. If you want to spend more time with me or figure out how to do this for yourself, then you should sign up for my weekly newsletter below where I share these concepts and ideas with you every single week.

Now you know what to do.

Go do your creative work.