Creative Coaching for Musicians

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S3 E57: Creative Consistency: How Much Does It Matter?

Rebecca Hass

Do you struggle with consistency in your creative practice? There are a lot of common (and rigid) assumptions about what consistency means, but it can be more flexible and self-compassionate. In this episode I talk about the benefits of creative consistency, how to know when it will help or harm, some reasons not to stay consistent, and share encouragement for finding the type of consistency that works for you and your art!

What’s your relationship with consistency?

Tag me on Instagram @rebecca_hass (or send me an email) to share!

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TRANSCRIPT

Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 57 of Being a Whole Person. 

I don't have much in the way of announcements today: my usual plug to please rate and review the show. It makes a huge difference for those of us who are independent podcasters, and it helps us get found. It helps us spread our message. I want more people to be on board with the fact that we can be creative and we can take care of ourselves at the same time. Let's spread that message, so, ratings and reviews are always much appreciated. 

I'm also cooking up some new offerings and ways to support the podcast that I'm kind of excited about. They've been kind of a long time coming, and slow to form themselves. It's been kind of a tough month for me. I think springtime is going to be the perfect season to start this stuff. So, stay tuned, I'll be sure to let you know about these new things as soon as I can. 

So let's get into today's topic. How much does consistency matter in your creative practice, or in all things, but since this podcast is about supporting your creative practice, I'm going to focus on that, of course. This topic has been on my mind for a long time, intermittently, but especially as my work and my energy level have been disrupted by grief. If you didn't hear in my last episode, I lost my sweet orange friend Rusty the cat two weeks ago today, and it has been tough. Like all of you who have been through grief know, it goes in waves. Sometimes you're feeling good, and sometimes you're not, but I'm just trying to give myself grace through that. 

That also kind of brings up the question, what does consistency look like when our lives are disrupted? I'll definitely talk about that in this episode today. There can be a lot of “shoulds” wrapped up in this conversation about consistency. I've definitely used less than self compassionate measures, like beating myself up over not doing stuff, to guarantee my own consistency, both in creative stuff and just in work in general. I don't recommend that. It doesn't work that well. Well, that's not true. It can work well, but it doesn't feel good, and in the long run, it really doesn't work well, because it leads to burnout if you're forcing yourself to be consistent. 

If you're multi-passionate, you might see yourself as inconsistent, in kind of a negative way, because you enjoy doing so many different kinds of things. Maybe starting projects is much easier for you than finishing them. I think that's very human, but especially a tendency for those of us who are multi-passionate. Then we start to see ourselves as, “Oh, I'm just the kind of person who doesn't follow through on stuff. I'm wishy washy,” and it can potentially change the way that you think about yourself. It doesn't have to be negative. 

I have definitely heard other people's advice ringing in my mind about consistency as so important, the most important thing. As you might guess, I do tend to agree with that. Consistency is very helpful, especially in your creative practice. But, like anything, it's much more of a nuanced conversation than the popular sentiments that guru-type people with seemingly endless energy might be spouting at you. Having a lot of energy, or not having a lot of energy is something that's often left out of that conversation. So you know that I will put that into my conversation about this. 

Consistency doesn't have to be so all or nothing, it can mean lots of different things. And if you are like me and kind of prone to overcommitting, prizing this virtue of consistency can lead us to think that we're not allowed to shift things, that we have to stay rigidly in this one idea that we are not allowed to adapt. That's just not true either. There are lots of different ways to approach consistency. 

So I'm going to talk a little bit first about how to know when consistency will help or harm you, and kind of how to decide when to stay consistent with something and what that will look like. I kind of already mentioned the harm side of it, that idea of consistency at all costs. For obvious reasons, that might not work for you in the long term, especially if you're being consistent with something that's not actually important to you. You're trying to kind of fit yourself into the wrong box with something that's more of a “should” than something you actually want to do. 

Consistency and reliability might be kind of a value that you hold, or something that was really drilled into you as a kid, that was a really important standard to uphold. I can definitely relate to that idea. Sometimes I would strive for this consistency at all costs, and want to just check the boxes just to have the accomplishment. There's nothing wrong with you, if you've had that impulse. It's very tempting. 

When it comes down to it, it's mostly about knowing why you're doing something. I've definitely had times when I'm trying to be consistent because of my perceived responsibility to other people. I'm not talking about weaseling out of things that you think are important, or that other people are counting on you for. I'm talking about when you think others expect something of you, and you don't actually know if that's true or not. Perhaps they don't actually expect that from you. 

I hear a lot of clients, and friends, and just people I know in general, using lack of consistency as a reason to beat themselves up. If that's your main form of motivation, that's problematic. That's going to just make you feel bad about yourself. It doesn't give you any positive reinforcement for the things that you're doing. You know, if you've been listening to this show, that being kind to yourself is really important to me. I want that for you, too. 

If you're trying to diagnose whether consistency is helpful for you, context is everything. Why do you want to be consistent with the activity that in question? Is it because of a long term goal that you have? Is it something that's really deeply important to you? Ask yourself, also, why haven't you been consistent with it? There are probably some good reasons, or at least understandable reasons, even if they're not the reasons that you would hope would justify it. Like, if there are some disruptive things going on in your life, like you started a new job on top of your creative work, something like that, it makes total sense that you would have a hard time staying consistent because your life balance has been disrupted. Or if some other large disrupting upsetting event has happened, give yourself some grace around that. That's totally great. 

You can also ask yourself, why is it a struggle for me to be consistent? that might lead you to some answers about what is actually more important to you. Then maybe you also come upon some barriers to your consistency, while you're asking yourself that question, and you didn't realize that these things were standing in your way. Perhaps some of these barriers could be removed, to make it easier for you to be consistent, such as doing something at the same time every day, or something along those lines. I'll talk more about the tangible ways to do it a little bit later in the episode. 

When it comes to sustaining your creative practice, if you're stressing about inconsistency, it could actually be a hindrance, when it makes you feel bad about yourself. That lack of self compassion, and perhaps shame, just starts to grow and bubble and fester. Then you start to get a negative feeling around this particular form of creativity you're doing, and it might keep you from wanting to continue, because you're associating it with these bad feelings, and that isn't helpful, of course. I don't want that for you. 

There are also, of course, lots of benefits to being consistent with your creative practice, and consistent in general, it lets people know that we're reliable, that we can be depended on. It helps us sustain relationships. In terms of keeping up with our most important habits, it ensures that these small actions add up in our favor to help us to help make us into the people that we really want to be. 

There are lots of those core habits that really benefit from consistency, like daily exercise, taking your vitamins, practicing your instruments or your art. Having those routines can be very grounding and really help nurture you having more energy for lots of different parts of your life. It can be really great to have a built in habit that you don't have to think about. Like, for me, my daily walk is my most important habit, and I know that's going to happen every single day, because I've committed to it. That way, I don't have to ask myself, “Am I going to take a walk today?” because I already know the answer. I don't waste any mental energy on that. There's something really great about having it be so routine that you don't even need to think about it. 

I know that how you feel about routines might affect how you approach consistency. If you're someone who rebels against routines, versus it being more of a refuge for you, that might complicate things when you're trying to be consistent with something. And again, we'll get to some ways how later. It's not a binary though. 

As I talked about in Episode 47, Building A Sacred Container Around Your Creative Practice, showing up regularly is what ensures that you will catch that inspiration. When it's there, you have to be ready to collect it. When you have that regular practice of showing up at your art table, your computer to write, your instrument, whatever it is for you, then the chances that you will be ready to receive whatever it is are so much greater, because you have that connection with your muse, or however you think about it. There are so many different ways to think about our creativity. 

So when a lot of us think about consistency, we think, “I need to show up at the same time every day for the same amount of time and do exactly the same thing, and that's consistency.” That's true, that is consistency, but it doesn't have to look exactly the same every single time. Some of those variables could be different. Perhaps you are showing up at the same time every day, for roughly the same amount of time, but you're changing how you approach your work. You're maybe doing some different kinds of studies or exercises each day. You can flow with what you're feeling that day, while also showing up to do something. 

Consistency in one area can lead to inconsistency in another area, right, because it's all about our priorities, and making choices based on what's the most important. Our consistency can go in seasons. I had a very productive season of composition when I was leading up to writing my album, back in 2017, I did 2 100 Day projects, and having that daily habit was super helpful for me, just knowing that I was going to show up and write eight measures of music every day. But then I entered a season of putting out the album, and then I entered a season of moving across the country, and there's a pandemic in there. There were lots of things that changed my relationship with composing. 

It's okay, if you have seasons of not doing that thing as much. Maybe you're putting effort into other areas of your life. As long as you are being intentional and you feel good about those choices, that's okay. 

There are also areas where maybe you actively choose not to be consistent, because you know that putting in a ton of effort on that one thing is not exactly coming to fruition. For instance, I choose not to be as consistent with social media anymore, because I'd rather spend that energy on different areas of marketing and treat social media more like something social, and a way to connect with people. So I'm making that as a conscious choice, and that's totally great. 

Sometimes I struggle with daily habits versus being sporadic at something, because it can really feel like it has to be all or nothing. It can be really motivating for me to know I'm showing up every day for something. That's why I did so well with those 100 Day projects. Also, I had committed publicly to it. That can be a great way to make sure that you follow through with something. It's maybe not the best form of motivation, but in the end, it really was worth it for me to have done that. 

Of course, the public declaration was not the only reason I followed through with it. I went through some of the worst anxiety of my life during one of those 100 Day projects, and I found coming to compose to be a refuge from that, and a way to help me deal with my emotions, even though it was tough to get through the day sometimes, with all the anxiety. So that just goes to show you that it depends on the project you pick. Some might be easier to be consistent with than others. I have chosen not to do a daily project like that since then, at least not on that long of a term, just because I knew I would put too much pressure on myself around it, and I wanted to give myself more gentleness and grace. 

So I've kind of played with the idea of a hybrid between those two things. This February, I challenged myself to play the piano daily. I didn't say it has to be for an hour every day. I didn't say I need to do these etudes and exercises every day. I didn't say I have to write music or improvise or do any specific thing every day. I just have to play the piano every day. It hasn't been perfect. I've missed four days that I've been home this month to or during the weekend we lost Rusty, I wasn't going to pressure myself to do anything. I was just trying to function. 

It's really not about the numbers when it comes down to it. Doing this most days is better than just doing some days. It's okay with me if it isn't, all of the days. I'm still strengthening a habit, I feel more connected to music and creativity in general. For some reason, sometimes it just feels a little bit tender to restart a daily habit like this when you've been out of it. Having those more intuitive ways to approach it, knowing that I could approach it any way I wanted, I just had to show up, has been really nurturing for me. So maybe that's something that'll be helpful for you. 

Maybe you are a person who thrives on that time commitment being the exact same time every day, same time, every week, whatever it may be. You can go through your schedule each week and find out where you have some time blocks to put it in. It might change from week to week, but maybe it's just on your schedule, because you put it in there. Whether it's a regular time or not, if you do put it on your calendar and guard it as fiercely as possible, that will ensure that nothing else can encroach upon that time. 

Speaking of dedicated time on the calendar, you're always welcome to join us in Compassionate Creativity Coworking Club! We meet every Tuesday at 130 to 3pm Pacific. You can show up and work on whatever project is important to you at the time, or work on admin stuff, whatever you like. I'm having a blast with this really fun, supportive crew of people. If you are curious about that, you get to try your first session for free. I'll put a link in the show notes for that. 

Perhaps you do have this pretty unbreakable commitment, and then when you go on vacation, maybe it doesn't make sense to do everything in your normal routine at the expense of having time to have a unique experience while you're traveling, or at the expense of your overall energy level. Sometimes it just feels like, “Okay, I am not going to exercise today because I'm exhausted,” and that's okay. 

For me, it really helps to have this rule of thumb that I don't skip more than one day in a row, because when you skip two days in a row, then it's easier to skip the third day and the fourth, and then you're not really in a habit anymore. So that works well for me, do whatever works for you. 

You can also choose to set lower and upper limits on the amount that you are doing. I'm reading the book Effortless by Greg McKeown right now. He wrote the book Essentialism, which I've mentioned on the show before. I love that he mentioned having not just a lower limit, but an upper limit for your habit. Like, if you're going to practice your instrument, you can say, “I'm going to do at least 15 minutes, but not more than an hour.” 

If that sounds weird to you, like, “Why would I set an upper limit?” It's sort of like when you go back to exercising in a certain way after not doing it for a while. You really go for a sprint the first day and you do a ton, because you're like, “Yeah, I feel great,” and then the next day, like you can barely walk because you're so sore. That's definitely happened to me before when I've returned to like yoga, or weightlifting or something like that. 

The same thing can happen with your brain. You can really overdo it the first day, then you feel really tired the second day, and then you just don't have that momentum anymore. So setting an upper limit for the amount you do, in order to pace yourself and preserve your energy could be a great idea, because your goal here is just to build this consistent practice. Assuming that you're not facing some rapidly looming deadline, you might also want to make just a time commitment like this, rather than an amount of work commitments, because it does add up, even when you do small amounts over a long period of time, just like my 100 Day project of writing eight measures a day led to me writing lots of songs that I ended up recording on my album. 

A few more tips for you on how to make consistency work for you. Perhaps you want to set some reminders, when you're starting a new habit to just make sure you don't forget to do it, because that can happen when you're busy. It's easy to not carve out the space if you are not looking at your calendar constantly. It might be helpful to have that reminder at 10am or whatever it is that says, “Oh, hey, go pick up your paint brush now, this is the time I've set aside for this.” 

Also, check in with yourself regularly to see how and if this habit is working. You got to tweak your commitment to it as needed. Maybe the time of day you're doing it isn't working. Maybe the amount isn't working. Maybe the types of activities you're doing in your practice aren't working right now, and maybe you want to do something else. Like, maybe I'm trying to do a whole bunch of exercises like the Brahms exercises that are sort of torturous, and maybe I'm like, “I'm just really not having fun with this. I need to make sure that I have some part of my practice that feels really fun, either in addition to that, or maybe instead of it on certain days.”

Figuring out a trigger for your habit, such as after a meal, because that's something you tend to do every day or after another activity that is kind of set in stone, is so much easier than trying to find a spot for a habit where you haven't been doing something at that time before. 

Committing to skipping fewer than one day at a time, as much as you can, is also great. Also make yourself successful with realistic goals, like ridiculously small goals, if needed, such as flossing one tooth. It might sound ridiculous to say, “I'm gonna floss one tooth,” but the huge barrier can be getting started. If you say you're going to do one tooth, you're probably going to have floss in your hand, you're probably going to keep going, because you're all set up and ready to go. Same thing with getting your supplies set up to make art, sitting down to play, whatever it may be for you. 

So in the end, the bottom line here, is consistency can be adaptable, we just have to build some kind of a plan that allows for that adaptation. Then we also just have to know we're playing a long game, if you miss a week of something in the span of a year, it's not make or break. That's 51 weeks where you worked on this thing, and that's awesome. I'm not saying you have to uphold the standard of 51 weeks, but that's just an example. 

Even if you have this teeny amount of time for your commitment, it's still a commitment, it helps. If you're feeling stuck that day, maybe you just end up sitting there trying to figure it out, but you showed up to work on it. Even if you're not making the forward progress that you want on that day, you showed up to work on it. So that just keeps building trust with yourself, that you know you're going to show up for whatever creative challenge is there for that day. that's still progress, even if it feels like a fruitless day in terms of output. 

So, commit to starting and restarting again and again, as much as you need to, as many times as it takes. I'm wishing you lots of fortitude to do that if you need it. Of course, if you want my help in this, I love helping people with the nitty gritty of starting habits, and figuring out what kind of consistency will actually work for them in their creative practice.

If that's you, let me know, you can always do a free discovery call so that we can figure out what would be a fit. If you're Zoomed-out and you don't want to do a discovery call, I also have Voxer and you can write me an email - something else that doesn't take the amount of time as scheduling a call. That's totally cool too. I'd love to support you if you need my help in that. 

As always, I'm rooting for you and your creative practice, your wellness, and all things no matter what consistency looks like for you. I'm wishing you a great week. Until next time.