Pursuing The Creative Life - it turns out that I really am my worst enemy, and it's been me all along!

When we are wanting things to change and realise it's us that needs changing

I was talking to a friend/colleague recently who is in a similar position as me. Pursuing ‘The Creative Life’ while working, while looking after an elderly parent, while parenting - you know the drill.

How’s things? she said. Subtext: outside of work and family, how is the writing, the MA, the podcast plans etc

‘Great!’ I replied.

She stopped in her tracks, looking at me expectantly as though I had a life changing piece of news to share with her. I kind of did, but it wasn’t what she was expecting.

‘Well, same old same old,’ I said, backtracking slightly, ‘but I’m carving out an hour each day to work on ‘my stuff’, and that’s great.’

‘An hour?’ she said, eyes out on stalks. ‘That’s IT?’

‘Yep, and it’s working really well!’ I said.

Because it is.

Have you ever watched a tightrope walker? Balance isn’t an absolute, it’s a constant state of change involving thousands of little shifts.

I used to look for a mathematical breakdown of what a balanced life looked like, hoping to find a ratio to follow and boxes to tick. I realised that it’s not that simple. It’s about bending and flexing, like a palm tree in a storm which can bend and touch its toes, going with the pressure of the wind rather than railing against it and eventually breaking. But more recently, I’ve learned that beyond being flexible with the things life throws at me, I’m learning to become flexible with the things I throw at myself…

…and I didn’t see that coming!

So, my ideal day now is ringfencing 8 am for one hour to do as much as I can on the work that I love before stepping into any other role or need. Having a measured hour, rather than frantically cramming in as much as possible until I’m at breaking point, is proving to be so much more productive—sounds almost impossible, doesn’t it? It’s not!

I’m no longer weighed down by guilt. It’s unbelievably freeing

There are obviously days when I write for longer when I’m in the flow and have the time to do so, but I don’t feel weighed down by guilt on the days when it’s just an hour. And it frees me up to do other things: I’ve been investing in my fitness this year (I’m doing The London to Brighton bike ride on Sunday!!) as turning 50 with its onslaught of aches and pains was an uncomfortable wake-up call, I’m investing more in my marriage because it’s just the two of us now for a lot of the time and we’ve not had that before. My kids call from uni at random times, and when they’re home, they want to talk at midnight. And my phone is always beside me, just in case my mum falls or needs me urgently—my time is built around her needs too. So my 8am hour is like an oasis, and it helps me navigate all the other requirements each day throws at me.

I think we create ideals of how we would like life to look, but these images in our minds often become hurdles that we have to navigate on top of everything else. I learned years ago that stress is nearly always a blocked goal, so if we’re setting unrealistic goals for ourselves, it’s safe to say we’re likely to be stressed a lot of the time. I’m finding that my 8 am hour, five or six days a week, has been ridiculously helpful at protecting me from feeling frustrated or resentful when life has other plans for me the rest of the day - which is nearly always the case. It’s a realistic goal that works for me rather than against me.

Real life is a combination of needs, wants, shoulds, have tos, forgot tos, accidentally did, fell into etc

I wish I’d figured this out years ago. There’s no such thing as the perfect life, or the creative life, or the academic life, or the working life, or whatever you want to call it. There’s just life. And our days are a combination of needs, wants, shoulds, have tos, forgot tos, fell into, accidentally did, and so forth. I’ve never been a regular 9-5er, and so I’m used to no two days being the same. I love it that way, but it can mean that you have to be even more intentional about putting structure and routine in place to get things done. And equally intentional about creating space to NOT get things done.

Some days, I’ll have three or four hours to sit, write, and ponder. I LOVE those days, but they are few and far between at the moment. I can either get frustrated about that and force myself to battle the other things in my life, or I can go with it and try to prioritise and flex as much as I can. So I plan religiously, swear by lists, and hold it all lightly because it will probably change by my next breath.

Saying all that, right now, I’ve got three hours to myself in London, and it’s glorious. I don’t have to worry about getting a call from my mum needing me to pop over to do something urgent or contend with the guilt of not doing the ironing, tidying the kitchen, or walking the dog, or writing a social media post for work or trying out a new product I need to research for work. Instead, I’m sitting in a quiet cafe (I’m the only one here!) with my laptop and a coffee. It feels like a total luxury, but I wouldn’t want it all the time because I love my full life.

It used to be that if I didn’t have days at a time, or even weeks, I felt I couldn’t accomplish anything that I deemed worthwhile, nothing was enough. But I find I’m so much more content when I put less pressure on myself to DO EVERYTHING NOW and allow things to take the time they need to take - and dare I say, they’re turning out better that way.

Inviting space into my life is allowing me to live, to do crazy things like sit at the kitchen table and chat with my husband while he cooks at the end of the day. I love that. Or sit on my daughter’s bed and watch her do her hair, I love that she’s home from uni at the moment, I want to soak this up. These are the most precious moments. I see that now. This IS the life I dreamt of: having a family that loves one another and a home that is safe and happy. I didn’t have that as a child.

And then my overachieving brain shouts at me to do something. So I remind the MOB (my overachieving brain) that I’m allowed to enjoy my life as well, I’m allowed to pause, and creating that as a habit helps me when life doesn’t behave the way I might like it to that day—pausing helps then too, even if it’s just to remind myself that it’s okay.

That’s part of the difficulty with creativity. Doing creative things is life-giving. I enjoy sitting and writing for hours at a time, sometimes for here on Substack (I’ve got sooo many unfinished drafts!), sometimes journalling, sometimes working on my MA, the book proposal, a podcast - I love it all, and it helps me grapple with life. But if I’m not living it, what’s the point of grappling with it? I don’t want to be a person who lives in an echo chamber. So one hour a day might sound like a tiny amount, but it’s sacred. It’s helping me put energy into the creative things I want to do that are outside my paying job, my family commitments and other responsibilities.

I used to feel hugely frustrated at not accomplishing as much as I wanted to, and I’d be lying if I said I was totally free from that, but I’m getting there. My dad raised me, saying all that mattered in life was what I achieved. Love wasn’t a thing in our family. He’d say emotions were a waste of energy - those things have taken years to undo.

And that’s some of the battle: being an overachiever, berating myself for not finishing the book ideas I’ve had buzzing around my head for years, not podcasting every week anymore, not making music like I used to, and my piano playing should be further along than it is. There is so much pressure, and it all comes from inside my head.

As I’m sitting in this lovely little spot, with sunshine pouring through the windows, I’ve been tuning in and out of the lyrics, these words caught my attention:

Hallelujah anyway, when the days are long and the night won’t fade, we sing hallelujah anyway, though the pain is real and I’m not ok, hallelujah anyway

And I think that’s it. Joy doesn’t come from having everything as we think we want it, but in finding a way to work with what we have, rather than berating its inability to change. Maybe we are the ones that need changing.

I googled the lyrics and couldn’t find the song. I did however find that Anne Lamott has written a book with the same title. Have you read any of her work? Her writing is beautiful. Rich with wisdom.

Amazon writes: In Hallelujah Anyway, Lamott ventures to explore where to find meaning in life. We should begin, she suggests, by ‘facing a great big mess, especially the great big mess of ourselves. It's up to each of us to recognize the presence and importance of mercy everywhere, within us and outside us, all around us, and use it to forge a deeper understanding of ourselves and more honest connections with each other.’

When I think about purpose and about what I hope I’ve passed on to my children as a way to live well, I hope that having warmth and a generous heart is at the centre of it. Sometimes, I feel as though it’s taken me too long to learn how to do all this, but in the words of the late David Niven, it’s better late than never…and I’m not done yet!

Have a great weekend,

Pipa xx