Speaker #0Is there an area of your creativity that feels stuck, draining, or even overwhelming right now? Maybe you started with passion and excitement, but lately it just feels exhausting. You might even feel like you're questioning whether you want to even continue at all. Well, what if it's not that you're making the wrong thing or doing the wrong project, but it's just the wrong process? What if we don't need to just be creative in what we do, but also in how we do it? Today, I want to share how you can bring this transformative thinking to your creative project, how you can reclaim the fun, lighten your load, and fall back in love with your work again, just by changing how you approach it. Welcome to Unleash Your Inner Creative with Lauren LaGrasso. I'm Lauren LaGrasso. I'm an award-winning podcast host and producer, singer-songwriter, public speaker, and creative coach. This show sits at the intersection of creativity, mental health, self-development, spirituality. And it is meant to give you tools to love, trust, and know yourself enough to claim your birthright to creativity and pursue whatever it is that's on your heart. Before we get into the pod, I want to remind you that I do offer creative coaching. So if you love my style here, I know you'll love my style of coaching. If you're interested in unleashing your creativity, sharing your creative project with the world, and or finally going after your biggest dreams, it would be my honor to help you. You can email me at lauren.lagrasso at gmail.com to set up a free discovery call or go to my website on the contact page and select coaching. I can't wait to help you unleash your inner creative and find your authentic voice. Okay, now to the topic, which is a juicy one. It is why you need to be creative, not just in what you do, but also in how you do it. Now, I came to this topic, as usual, from my own life and creative journey. Actually, from this podcast. You may not know it because I never talked about it publicly, but maybe a little less than a year ago, I started feeling really burnt out on the podcast. My resources had gone down. The funding that I have for the show had just reduced greatly. I was exhausted from doing all the prepping and booking and quality controlling so many episodes a week. I was not having enough fun. It was feeling like work. It just was feeling like it was too much to hold. And you know how much I love this show. This show is my baby. I've been doing it for six years. But I just knew at that point that if I kept doing it the way I was doing it, with the resources that I had, I was going to burn out and begin to resent it. And so I seriously thought for a while of either pausing the show or maybe quitting it indefinitely because I couldn't think about how I could possibly keep going that way. it just wasn't going to work. If I kept doing it the way I had been doing it, even though I loved what I was doing, I do love interviewing and doing these recordings and producing the show for you weekly, but the process of it was so overwhelming that I felt like I cannot possibly go on. And then I realized, wait a second, I love doing the show. So it's not the what that's wrong, but it's the how, the process that isn't working for me. So I realized, okay, I've been so creative in doing this show, coming up with new content every week, at that point doing almost 300 episodes, but I haven't been applying my creativity to the how at all. And so I realized I don't need to stop the show. What I needed to do was start thinking about what could make it more sustainable, less expensive to produce, and more fun. And I realized that doing bi-weekly solo episodes not only would be way easier to produce, but also would help me develop myself as a thought leader, would help me connect with you one-on-one. I actually really like editing solo episodes. So that was something I could take off of my editor and I was able to save on the production budget that way. And It made me think more creatively each week because I had nothing to pull from. Basically, the only thing I was pulling from each week, and when I do these solo episodes for you, that's what's true. I'm pulling from just my own imagination and my own experience rather than looking at somebody's experience and being like, okay, how can I frame an episode around them? These episodes are completely framed around my own creativity. So I really was having to pull from my own creative well. And utilize all the great creative knowledge that I've learned over the course of my life and especially over the past six years of this podcast. And that simple shift of going from doing four interview, four to five interview episodes a month down to two to three interview episodes a month and two solo episodes made me fall in love with the show again. And not only that, but the process. It made me enjoy doing interviews more. It made it more sustainable for me. I was able to build up my resources again to keep the show going, to get more funding for it. And it gave me the space creatively, emotionally, and time-wise that helped me realize like, oh, I love this so much and I can fall back in love with this again and make it work for me. Not only that, but doing the solo episodes also expanded me in a way because it allowed me to start to incorporate more video. into my podcast. So now for most, or at least many of the solo episodes I do, I incorporate video and I mostly like edit them as video podcasts. And it also helped me build that skill up for myself and share with some people because some people, no matter what, even though I'm an audio person myself, some people, no matter what, never really want to listen to audio. So it helped me connect with a new audience too. So all of this, because instead of just being like, well, this isn't working because I'm tired and I can't keep doing it. I don't have the resources to do it. Looking at the situation and saying, what can I take away and what can I add and what would be fun and what would make this feel new again? And so it is so deeply important to not just look at how you can express yourself creatively, but also for the projects you're already doing or for the creative passions you already have. How can I make this process as creative as possible so that it is fun for me and so that it never gets stale? I want to mention, this is something that I did when I was burnt out, but this isn't something that should just happen in your creative life that you should wait to do until you feel burnt out like I did. I now think it's important to have these little check-ins with yourself as often as you can, but certainly at least once a quarter when you're doing a creative project or you have a creative partnership, checking in and saying, what could I make or how can I change my approach with the resources that I have? How can I make everything flow better? How can I make it feel better? How can I make this more fun and sustainable for myself? Now I want to kick it to you, to give you tools so that you can start to do this and implement this in your creative life and your creative projects. I want you to contemplate an area of your creativity or a project that you've been doing for a while. It could be an area you think is going totally fine, but you've just been approaching it the same way and you think maybe it could use some new energy. It could be that you felt like I felt totally burnt out. under-resourced and like if something didn't change, you couldn't keep going on. Or it could just be something that you think is great, but you're curious what could come up if you actually looked at this and asked, how can I be creative in the how instead of just in the what? So now I want you to either contemplate if you're walking or driving, you can contemplate, or if you're sitting down and you have a journal available to you, you can journal on the following question. What could I change about the way I do my creativity that would make this project better? I'll repeat that question. What could I change about the way I do my creativity or my creative project that would make this project better? The next question is, what could I change about the way I approach my creativity or creative project that could make my life better? Again, that's what could I change about the way I approach my creativity or creative project that could make my life better? And the third question, what is a change I could make with the resources that I currently have that could make everything flow better? What is a change I could make? with the resources I currently have that could make everything flow better? So you can contemplate those questions, write them down, and then you're going to take stock of what comes up. What comes up when you think about it? Maybe you haven't thought about redoing this process in a really long time. Maybe you've never thought about it. That's how I was. I was so in the grind of getting this show out week after week. And that happens when you have a recurring creative project that just needs to see the light of day on a weekly basis or a daily basis. It's very easy to get into a grind where you just are in autopilot. And that's about the least creative thing you can ever be. You know, there's a difference between autopilot and flow. Flow is amazing. Autopilot is you're doing things almost out of like low-level trauma because you just know you have to get it done. So if you've been in autopilot, really taking stock of does it have to continue to be this way because it has to continue to be this way? Or have I just been doing it that way for that long that I haven't seen anything else? Like. Could there be another approach that would be more fun, more innovative, more energizing, a better use of my resources? So really asking yourself those hard questions. And then really look at what comes up. Look at all the options. Think of as many options as you can for how to approach this project in a way that feels better, flows better, is more cost effective. And then try it. A big part of this is not being afraid to try it. I mean, I had fear around that. I thought, well, what about all the people that like the guest episodes? What if they stop listening? What if they get upset because I've been showing up with episodes that range from 45 minutes to an hour for years and now I'm coming to them with shorter episodes or episodes that are just my voice? What if they don't like it? A big part of it is just not being afraid to try and knowing you're doing it for yourself. And if you have a consumer-facing project or business, the people that have been listening to you, buying from you, watching your stuff, they're going to, if they get you and you've been showing up authentically, they're going to keep showing up for you, even if you're now showing up in this different way. And if not, that's okay. There's new people that will come along. When I started doing the minisodes and when I started doing more solo episodes, new people showed up in my audience. And guess what? Those people were more engaged with my audience because it was my voice every other week instead of me always platforming somebody else. So... As long as you've been showing up authentically and this new iteration you do is a continuation of your authentic voice, people are going to keep being interested and showing up for it. And maybe you'll even get new people along the way. Yes, if your project or product is of service, you do want to make sure you're continuing to give value to your audience. But at the end of the day, what is any of this for if it doesn't feel good, if it doesn't feel joyful to you? The creative life is not always easy as we all know. So this is really about you and making your creative projects or work more fun, sustainable, or interesting to you. And the people who consume it and interact with it will understand or even potentially like it better than what you were doing or how you were doing it. And it's just going to feel so much better to you because it's going to have new life. It's like when you dye your hair. As you know, I know because I've been every shade of the rainbow in the past five years. I've been blonde. I've been brunette. I've been auburn. I've been red. Now I'm back to brown. So every time you dye your hair, you get a new little flavor of life. And it kind of feels like you're a new person. I always say to my fiance, I'm like, do you like that you got a new girlfriend tonight? Do you like your new girlfriend? When I come back with a different shade of hair. So it's kind of the same thing when you take a different approach to your creative project. Yes, it's the same creative project or it's the same creative expression. But when you do it in a different way, it kind of feels like you've got this new lover. And that's fun. It's fun to get to experience something different. So keep checking in. Ask yourself those questions. See what comes up. And once you get the answer, try it. I promise you it's going to feel like a new, like kind of like a rebirth in your creative life. So remember, we need to not just be creative in what we do, but also in how we do it. I can't wait to see how you all end up utilizing this idea in your lives, in your creativity. Please write me at Lauren LaGrasso at Unleash Your Inner Creative and let me know how it affects your creative life, how you implement it, what comes up when you journal posts about it. I would love to reshare it with our community. I'm super fascinated by all of your creative processes. Is that the right way to say it? I don't even know. But no, you're all just such amazing artists. Actually. over the weekend got the opportunity to meet Mona Lisa, who I had on my podcast a couple of weeks ago, who's a listener. And through her, one of her friends that also listens to the show, we got to FaceTime from London. Mona Lisa was in LA, but her friend was in London. And it's just like so amazing to meet you all and see what you do. And you're just such brilliant artists, creatives, entrepreneurs. I'm wildly inspired by you. So please share what this brings up for you in your process. and how it helps you and how you end up implementing it. Because I'm super curious. I know how something affected me, but I never know how it will relate to you and your journey. So would love to hear it. Write me. And with that said, thank you so much for listening. This podcast was hosted and executive produced by me, Lauren LaGrasso, with music by Liz Full. For more information about me and the show, you can follow us at Lauren LaGrasso and at Unleash Your Inner Creative on social media. If you like what you heard today, especially if you liked this episode and the solo episodes, Leave us a rating and review so we know you liked it. And feel free to offer up ideas for other topics and guests you'd like to hear me hit in the future. It means so much. And also share the show with a friend. Podcasts are really spread person to person. The biggest influencers in our lives are our friends and family. So share it with someone who it might be helpful to. I love you and I believe in you. I'll talk with you next week. Bye, cutie.
