The Syncreate Podcast: Empowering Creativity
Welcome to Syncreate, where we explore the intersections between creativity, psychology, and spirituality. Our goal is to demystify the creative process and expand the boundaries of what it means to be creative.
Creativity. It’s a word we throw around all the time, but what does it really mean? On the Syncreate Podcast, we share stories of the creative journey. We talk to changemakers, visionaries and everyday creatives working in a wide array of fields and disciplines. Our goal is to explore creativity in all its facets, and to gain a better understanding of the creative process – from imagination to innovation and everything in between.
The Syncreate Podcast is hosted by Melinda Rothouse, PhD. She helps individuals and organizations bring their creative dreams and visions to life through coaching, consulting, workshops, retreats, and now, this podcast. She's written two books on creativity, including Syncreate: A Guide to Navigating the Creative Process for Individuals, Teams, and Communities (winner of a Silver Nautilus Award for Creativity and Innovation), with Charlotte Gullick. She's also a musician (singer-songwriter and bass player) and photographer based in Austin, Texas.
The Syncreate Podcast: Empowering Creativity
Episode 76: Creative Spark Series - Developing a Consistent Creative Practice with Melinda Rothouse & Charlotte Gullick
Many of us aspire to a consistent, even daily, creative practice, but other life priorities and distractions make it difficult. So how can we commit to a regular practice in a way that feels sustainable and fun? We can begin by setting longer-term goals and then breaking them down into monthly, weekly, and daily tasks to make consistent progress over time. This episode, like the mini-episodes that preceded it, also includes insights from our book, Syncreate: A Guide to Navigating the Creative Process for Individuals, Teams, and Communities.
For our Creativity Pro-Tip, we encourage you to keep a decision journal to track your creative time alignment, and to put your creative time at the very top of your to-do list for at least one week and see how it feels. .
Credits: The Syncreate podcast is created and hosted by Melinda Rothouse, and produced at Record ATX studios with in collaboration Michael Osborne and 14th Street Studios in Austin, Texas. Syncreate logo design by Dreux Carpenter.
If you enjoy this episode and want to learn more about the creative process, you might also like our conversations in Episode 41: Creative Practice, Process, and Product, Episode 43: Creative Time Management, and Episode 70: New Year’s Creative Intentions.
At Syncreate, we're here to support your creative endeavors. If you have an idea for a project or a new venture, and you’re not sure how to get it off the ground, find us at syncreate.org. Our book, also called Syncreate, walks you through the stages of the creative process so you can take action on your creative goals. We also offer resources, creative process tools, and coaching, including a monthly creativity coaching group, to help you bring your work to the world. You can find more information on our website, where you can also find all of our podcast episodes. Find and connect with us on social media and YouTube under Syncreate. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and leave us a review! We’d love to hear your feedback as well, so drop us a line at info@syncreate.org.
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Melinda: Welcome to Syncreate, a show where we explore the intersections between creativity, psychology, and spirituality. We believe everyone has the capacity to create. Our goal is to demystify the process and expand the boundaries of what it means to be creative. We talk with visionaries and change makers and everyday creatives, working in a wide range of fields and mediums - from the arts to science, technology and business.
We aim to illuminate the creative process - from imagination to innovation and everything in between. I'm Melinda Rothouse and I help individuals and organizations bring their dreams and visions to life.
Charlotte: And I'm Charlotte Gullick. I am a writer, educator, and writing coach. We are the co-authors of a book on the creative process, also called Syncreate. At Syncreate, we're here to support your creative endeavors. If you have an idea for a project or a new venture and you're not sure how to get it off the ground, find us at syncreate.org. Our book, also called Syncreate, walks you through the stages of the creative process so you can take action on your creative goals. We offer resources, creative process tools and coaching to help bring your work to the world.
We're offering a monthly coaching group starting in January 2025, and we'd be delighted for you to join us. We'd also love to hear your feedback on the show. Please drop us a line at info@syncreate.org. We're looking for feedback on how we can improve the show, what's resonating for you, and future topics you'd like us to cover.
Welcome to the Syncreate podcast where we're doing a short, collaborative experience for y’all because we have so much fun, and we hope you do too.
Melinda: Yeah!
Charlotte: So this is it, y'all. We're talking about the nitty gritty of making your creative life a thing. So, we want to talk about the down and dirty: How does this work? How do people do it? Let's demystify. We've given a lot of tips and ideas in our various podcasts. There's a lot of good information in there but we want to talk specifically about - how do you commit and what does commitment look like, in terms of your creative life? So, the first question that one could ask themselves as they say, “Alright! 2025 is where I commit to my creativity regularly. I find a commit - a community - I find a community to connect with. (Laughter)
Melinda: Are you commuting in your creativity, what?
Charlotte: I'm commuting with my community in my commune. (Laughter)
Charlotte: The first question is – is where is your creativity on your daily to do list? So, Melinda, you're on the spot. It's a hot seat. Where does it show up for you?
Melinda: Ooh, ooh. It's so hot. It's so hot. (Laughter)
Melinda: Yeah. So, the idea here is like - I'm still one of these people that has a little notebook, and I make my little to do list once a week or so. And it's so easy for so many other things to take precedence or feel more urgent or more important than our creative work. It's kind of like, you know, when we get really busy, we drop our exercise routine when that's actually what we probably need the most. And same thing with our creativity - it's so easy to feel like, “Well, there are other things that really demand my time and attention.” And so, we're asking you to bring your creativity back to the top - to make it a priority in the new year.
So part of this is like, where can we carve out time in our schedules? And considering the time that many of us probably spend binge watching Netflix or doomscrolling through the headlines or social media… what if we took some of that time and actually devoted it to our creative practice or our creative work, whatever that might be?
So, we are curious to hear from you - the audience. Are there certain places in your day and your schedule where you could carve out a little bit of time? And let us know! Drop us a line and let us know how you do this. We'd really love to hear from you. And for me - oh, gosh! Let's see.
Charlotte: I just want to say that was really beautiful and considerate of the audience - and you stepped away from the hot seat. (Laughter)
Melinda: I know - I got off the hot seat pretty quick.
Charlotte: ‘Cause you’re so considerate.
Melinda: Yeah! So, you know, one thing about my life is I do a lot, a lot, a lot, of different things. But I do have some fluidity and flexibility in my schedule, so I find the easiest time for me to prioritize my own creative work is at the beginning of the day, before I get involved in too many other things. So, like journaling in the mornings is part of my morning practice, which includes meditation and coffee, and bringing the creativity in earlier in the day before I get distracted, and before there's meetings and all different things going on.
Another way that I find that I can carve out time is - again, we've talked about this - gathering together with other people. And, for me, like a regular rehearsal - a weekly rehearsal with my band - is a time that is carved out, and that's really become sacred time for me. I look forward to it. We all get together. We work on things. And then the other piece is like - there's nothing like a deadline to get you on a track with your creativity.
So, like I spoke about in another episode, it’s like, I'm going into the studio to work on some demos of some of my new songs, and if I know I have something on the calendar, then I've got to prep. I've got to work out the arrangements or print out the lyric sheets or practice the songs - get myself together.
So, setting ourselves deadlines, whether that's for some kind of external accountability with another person, or sometimes more difficult, just our own accountability, but that might be something like scheduling it on the calendar, just like you would any other meeting or any other appointment.
Charlotte: So, it makes me think of two things. One is that writer’s workshop that I went to recently. There was a woman who, she sends a friend money, and the friend can only send it back if she meets her writing deadlines. (Laughter)
Melinda: How much money are we talking?
Charlotte: And I read about it. It was a whole thing. So, it's like you don't get your money back. So, trying to find the intrinsic/extrinsic motivation.
Melinda: Yeah. That's amazing. I love that.
Charlotte: It's pretty nitty gritty. And I what I do right now is, my minimum, I have to write 30 minutes a day. And sometimes that's journal writing or “real writing,” or researching. But that's my minimum. I don't get to do my checkmark on my Don't Break the Chain [app]. So, as we close out here, a really helpful frame can be in - it comes from Julia Cameron, The Artist's Way - is an exercise: Where do I want to be with my creativity in five years? And spend some time - if you had all the time, money and talent - and I add health to that - where would you be with your creativity? And let yourself dream big.
And then from there you back it up. So where would you be in one year, six months, three months, one month, one week, one day? And that's a really useful exercise to help you see how your small choices - the nitty gritty choices that you make - can get you or not get you there in the direction of your creative dreams.
Melinda: Yeah, I love that. And also, I mean, it's like, where do you want to be? And then the coach, Danielle Laporte, who I love - she has this really potent, powerful question: How do you want to feel? So, the powerful question here is how do you want to feel about your creative life in five years? And so, marrying it with the daily practice and the daily commitments is - what's your vision? How do you see yourself in terms of your creative life in five years? And what do you want that to feel like? And try to conjure up as many sensory details as possible and hold that image in your mind as you're working to close that gap.
Charlotte: Absolutely, absolutely. The feeling is more important than the thing. That’s great.
Melinda: Yeah. Or at least as important, I think. And just the vision. You know, there's the vision and then there's the nitty gritty part.
Charlotte: Yeah. Thinking a lot of things. But so, our Pro Tip is to ask yourself - we talked about this in another episode - but keep a Decision Journal to track your creative time alignment. And in conjunction with that, we challenge you to put your creative time - whether that's five minutes or twenty or two hours - to put it in the top three of your to do list for one week and see how that feels.
Melinda: Yeah. And just for those - because I didn't know what a Decision Journal was before we talked about it. So, can you just explain for people who might not be familiar, what that actually involves?
Charlotte: It's like keeping a little notebook with you, and every time you have to make a decision, you write it down. It's amazing how many decisions we have to make in a day. Maybe a day is too much, but maybe it's two hours.
Melinda: Like a decision - like any decision of any kind, not just creatively?
Charlotte: Any decision of any kind. Like, how are you spending your time?
Melinda: Wow.
Charlotte: You know, it's kind of like when we get the screen updates and you're like, “Woah, I spent 11 hours on my phone daily?”
Melinda: That was a choice.
Charlotte: Nothing else.
Melinda: That was a conscious choice.
Charlotte: Find us and connect with us on YouTube and social media under Syncreate and we're on Patreon as well. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and leave us a review.
Melinda: We're recording today at Record ATX Studios in Austin, with Charlotte joining us from the Hudson Valley. The podcast is produced in collaboration with Mike Osborne at 14th Street Studios. Thanks so much for being with us, and see you next time.
