Clarity and Creative Flow

By Christine Carron

A powerful action you can take on behalf of your creative adventure is to embrace clarity. Clarity sometimes shows up as grand flashes of insight. Those are valuable experiences and to be cherished, for sure. There is, however, a humbler clarity, built day in and day out—even moment to moment—that helps us navigate our creative adventures effectively.

Humble clarity is knowing where you are so you can get to where you want to go. This seems so, so simple. And, yes, most of us absolutely know where we want to go from a big achievement perspective. A published book. A gallery opening. A booking at Carnegie Hall. These are our most cherished creative dreams. Dreams are lovely, and exciting, and feel delicious. They are perfect and inspiring in their tender possibility.

Where things get tricky is the "where we are" part. That is not about some future state. It is about reality. Right now. 

Avoiding Reality and Creative Blocks

While possibility is often tender, reality is . . . well reality. Sometimes it can be confronting. Really confronting. That means clarity can be confronting, too. Yet if you don’t grab hold of clarity, your progress will remain harder than it needs to be. Inaccurate assessments of where we are is one of the biggest contributors to creative blocks.

Why? Because we are devising plans in our heads or on paper that start from a starting point that we are not at, which means the map (that plan we created) is the wrong map. Basically, we’re telling ourselves to take the second exit off the roundabout, but when we try to do that we don’t even see any roundabout. That’s when we can (and often will) get stuck and frustrated. 

Inaccuracy Goes Both Ways

Humble clarity is the way through these kind of blocks—and the way to minimize their occurrences from the start. We get humble clarity through a practice of inquiry. Checking in with ourselves, over and over, and owning, without judgment, where we are. (Note: Along with smudging up our clarity, judgment tanks our mindset, which is just another drag on forward momentum.)

For example, perhaps as we gain clarity in where we are, we realize we don’t yet have the level of craft skills that will allow us to pull off a certain project. That clarity then becomes the catalyst that enables us to change our trajectory. Instead of continuing to flounder and get frustrated with our less-than-effective attempts to pull off the project, we get ourselves to a workshop, or a class, or set aside time for self-study to boost our craft know-how. Then with our skills at the level needed for that project, we will have smoothed out the process and mindset friction that was getting in the way of progress. 

Many of the inaccurate assessments I’ve experienced in myself and others are where we might have assessed, hoped, or expected ourselves to be further along than we actually are. It also goes the other way. I have seen just as many creatives blocked because they are not accurately acknowledging the progress they have made.

In one instance, a writer was immediately unblocked once she acknowledged that she was actually on a third draft (i.e., making measurable progress) instead of trapped in a never-ending first draft, which was what her Inner Critic was telling her.

Humble Clarity Power

This kind of ongoing humble clarity is a powerful catalyst for forward momentum. The more you claim clarity, the more assured and effective your action plans will become. As they do, you will be able to move forward with greater confidence and ease, and with each step, you will be one step closer to making your current reality match the delicious possibility of your creative dreams.

Happy day, happy creating, happy jamming. You’ve got this!