Lauren and Rachael don polka dot funeral garb to put season one to rest and discuss the importance of giving yourself your flowers. Reflecting on past wins and unexpected achievements is such an important practice for chaotic creatives, who are constantly facing change and the unknown. Acknowledging the promises you've kept to yourself can be a great way to build the trust in yourself that is essential when facing new challenges. Plus, your Chaotic Creative hosts reflect on working together on the podcast and what they look forward to over the break.
Lauren and Rachael don polka dot funeral garb to put season one to rest and discuss the importance of giving yourself your flowers. Reflecting on past wins and unexpected achievements is such an important practice for chaotic creatives, who are constantly facing change and the unknown. Acknowledging the promises you've kept to yourself can be a great way to build the trust in yourself that is essential when facing new challenges. Plus, your Chaotic Creative hosts reflect on working together on the podcast and what they look forward to over the break.
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The transcript for this episode can be found here!
Rachael: Hello and welcome to Chaotic Creatives, a show about embracing the chaos that comes with living a creative life.
Lauren: We are your hosts, two self-proclaimed chaotic creative gals. I'm Lauren Hom. I am a designer, muralist, and most recently chef.
Rachael: And I'm Rachael Renae. I'm your internet hype gal, and I'm here to encourage you to live a creative and confident life. And today we are talking about confidence, giving yourself your flowers.
Lauren: Yeah, it is episode 10, which wraps up season one of this podcast.
Rachael: Oh my gosh. A full season. It feels like we just started.
Lauren: I know. Which is honestly the best feeling because it's been such a easy thing to record because it's so aligned with what we were already doing.
Rachael: Exactly. It's basically like we just got microphones in our hangout conversations.
Lauren: Exactly.
Rachael: Yeah.
Lauren: Yeah.
Rachael: And we were thinking, because we are on our last episode, it would be a great time to kind of reflect on maybe what we've thought about after having conversations on the podcast or just reflecting on the growth that we've experienced in the few months since recording, but also we're at the midpoint of the year, and as we were talking before we started recording, we were talking about our inner critics and being harsh on ourselves if we haven't maybe accomplished what we had set out to. Yeah, that was a lot. Where do you want to start?
Lauren: Yeah, I think the topic for this episode came up because we're thinking about, as we've been blasting through recording episodes, and like you said, it's the halfway point of the year where if you don't take a moment to pause and intentionally reflect on all the things that did go and that you did learn versus like, "Fuck, I didn't reach this goal and this goal and this goal," which is unfortunately our default, if you don't stop and give yourself your flowers, it's hard to build up that inner confidence and resilience in order to move forward in a productive way, in a way that feels good because oftentimes, for me, I need to...
My mental state affects my output so much as a creative person. And if you're not... You talked about this earlier, if you're not hyping yourself up and cultivating that part of your inner psyche, the inner critic will take over. Will grab the mic and tell you all the things you did wrong and so I think since we've been recording this podcast for a couple months now? Four months? Three or four months. Wow. It's good for us to reflect on. I'm like, "Holy shit, we did the thing we said we were going to do." We've been talking about starting this podcast since the end of last year?
Rachael: I think so, yeah.
Lauren: Yeah. When you first approached me in like October, I want to say. Wild.
Rachael: I do think there is something to be said for the timing is right when the timing is right. It did work out really well and we had some ideas and we're like, "We need to start this." And that feels really good to follow that creative excitement. And we've talked about following the fun and prioritizing our own version of play in several episodes. And I think, yeah, it also is important to pause and reflect because if we're constantly pushing forward, then we're not really recognizing how our path may have zigzagged in a direction that could be really beneficial for us.
Because of course we can't predict the future. We can set goals for ourselves, we can follow the excitement of whatever creative project or work is inspiring us in that moment. But I think allowing ourselves to ebb and flow with maybe energy or what type of projects that we're spending our time on, it's good for us to do that. And if we're basing our mental health and definition of success as achieving every goal we set out to achieve without acknowledging all of the other things we may have accomplished that we didn't even think about accomplishing, it can be detrimental.
Lauren: Yeah. It's unfortunate that we have a bias towards either fixating on failures or almost brushing off wins. Earlier this week, Kristle and I were talking, and we were planning some work stuff and she was like, "Do you want to update your portfolio? We've got this work that we've worked on." And I was like, "What work? We haven't done anything in the last year." And then she kept bringing up projects and I was like, "Oh, yeah, that is true." Oftentimes we've accomplished way more than we give ourselves credit for because we just don't take a minute to reflect and go, "Oh yeah, I completed that or that," or, "I said I wanted to do this and I did it." And that in and of itself is something to be celebrated.
Rachael: Absolutely. That's building trust and confidence in yourself. If you set a goal and you accomplish it, whether it's a creative goal or professional goal or even just like, "I want to read a page every day," and you do it, you are proving to yourself that you can keep promises to yourself. They talk about this in books about building up an exercise practice and things like that. Don't make promises to yourself and then not keep them, because if your inner brain can't trust you, then how are you going to show up and have anyone else trust you or your psyche will not think that anyone else will trust you. I'm doing a really bad job explaining this, but basically back to the point of by setting goals and then actually doing them, you are building confidence and trust in your creative process in whatever goals you're setting for yourself.
Lauren: 100%. You're also building some muscle memory. Something that's been on my mind lately has been just the power of, I don't know what to call it, momentum, compound interest, the snowball effect where the more you do something, the easier it gets to do. For example, I think a lot of people listening can relate to this. If you take a break from social media because you're overwhelmed or it doesn't feel good to post anymore, I'm speaking for myself here, but there's also a party that wants to get back in there and just like you got to market your business, you got to share your work, you have to advocate for yourself. That is part of the agreement of being a freelancer or a small business owner.
The longer you sit it out, the harder it tends to be to get back in there, but once you start literally anything, anything is better than nothing. And once you post that story, dip your toe in the water or make a in-feed post and get back into the habit of, oh yeah, now that I'm thinking about if I wrote an Instagram post, it becomes easier to write the next one. And you've also broken the seal of like, "I haven't touched this," you've wiped off the cobwebs. And I've just noticed myself trying to get over the hump of just publish it and see what happens. And you're also training your brain to familiarize itself with surviving the perceived fear of, "If I post and people leave mean comments" or, "It's not going to perform" or whatever, all those things could happen. And you get to have the experience of like, "Oh, that's not as bad as I thought it was. I'm still alive. No big deal."
Rachael: Yeah.
Lauren: A lot of times the perceived fear of doing something is worse than the actual thing.
Rachael: And we talked about that in a previous episode. The fear of doing something new holds you into the pattern that you're in. And I think at the same time, doing something that is perhaps outside of your set goals and intentions for yourself for any project or any certain amount of time. We were talking about reflecting, and I think I maybe have even mentioned this in a previous episode, we're doing a lot of wrap up in this. Callbacks, if you will. I did some reflecting at the six-month point for 2024, and I really set some very aspirational goals for myself in my creative business because I experienced a lot of growth with that business last year. And at the six-month point, I have accomplished some of the things that I set out to accomplish, and there are a lot of things that I probably won't get done or reach those goals that I set for myself by the end of the year. And I was feeling like, "Man, am I not working as hard as I worked last year? What's happening? I'm in this transition period, what's going on?"
And then I decided to be my own hype gal, which I'm a big advocate for, and write down all the things I did accomplish. And this podcast is one of them, speaking on other people's podcasts, doing things that I didn't even think were an option in this coming year that were future goals I was able to get done. So it's like, yes, it's important I think to set goals and to be working towards something, whether that's in your professional life, your creative practices, or your personal life. I like to make goals for all of them because it's fun. And the goals can be as simple as read a page a day or go to yoga once a month, whatever your goals may be. And recognizing that life can change at any moment. And often our path is never... I don't think often is even the right term. I don't think our path is ever as we specifically think it's going to be when we set those goals. So being okay with that flexibility and understanding that you're still accomplishing things and you're still working toward bigger goals even [inaudible 00:10:42]. Yeah.
Lauren: Yeah, I can't remember where I read this years ago, but it was something along the lines of know your goals and where you want to be, but be flexible with how you get there. And I think that that's been helpful for me because yes, we love planning. As chaotic creatives, we need to do some planning. And it can be difficult when you don't reach those goals exactly how you thought you wanted to or if you haven't reached them, but you are still getting closer to accomplishing that eventually. Things don't always happen on our desired timelines. Things don't always happen exactly how we want them to happen, but just the only way you can fail is by not doing it anymore, I guess, so.
Rachael: Yeah, I talk about this in my Prioritize Play workshop, but one of the lessons that I give toward the end of the workshop, so if you're in it now, sorry, you're going to hear it again, is we work through limiting beliefs like, "Oh, I don't want to pursue this creative practice because my friends and family will be disappointed in me or maybe I'll be bad." And we work on overcoming a lot of those limiting beliefs that we get ingrained as children or in our young lives. And at the same time later on in the workshop, I talk about how we need to be honest with ourselves about what our dreams are for our lives because it doesn't have to be what society tells us. I think we're examples of living our own paths and we encourage you to do the same.
And one of my big dreams is I want to own a chateau in France and host artist residencies. I think that that would be a really beautiful way to spend my life or at least part of my life. That is a big dream and that is not something that I'm actively working on right now directly, but knowing that that is a potential outcome that I want to experience in my life, I can do very small things like sign up for French class, make sure I can learn the language, apply for an artist residency, or host workshops so that I can get comfortable talking in front of artists and creatives, hosting this podcast. You can identify those big dreams and you may not be... I'm not working with a realtor in France right now, but I still am doing small things that are still propelling me toward that larger goal.
And I think what we need to do is really reflect on what are our big dreams and goals for our lives and how do we slowly work our way there, understanding that our path will be windy and we'll learn a lot of lessons.
Lauren: Yes, 100%. It reminds me of what my friend Andy J. Pizza oftentimes says-
Rachael: So motivational.
Lauren: Ugh, he's so great. He runs the Creative Peptalk podcast for anyone who's not familiar. If you're listening to this and you haven't listened to Creative Peptalk, I'm surprised. He says, "You are preparing for your big break." And I think that it's, whether you want to call it that or laying the groundwork for... Stone by stone, step by step, a little path towards your dream thing, that's what we're doing day by day, week by week. This ties into what the theme of this episode is of reflecting, because in the moment it's so hard to acknowledge like I am laying down one tile today. That's like one piece of the whole puzzle. And when you start feeling like, "Oh, I'm not doing enough," it doesn't help you do more. So it's good to just know that like, "I'm working towards something even if it's not happening on the exact same timeline" or if like you said, it's not directly what someone would think is related to the thing.
Because it's interesting hearing you say all this now, because Crystal and I were just talking earlier, I'm very much in a stage of my life where I don't have a big dream to anchor onto right now, and I'm so used to having school or a relationship or a job where I need to be in this place or focusing on this thing, and culinary school was that last year, but coming back to Detroit just on my own now to dilly-dally. I'm just like, "Oh, I need to take a beat and think about what I might want as a bigger goal for myself because just so used to it being reliant on an external thing." In your twenties, you go to school and then you get a job. That's what I thought I was supposed to do.
Rachael: Yeah. And that is another... Not to keep bringing up my workshop, but it's another thing that I talk about in that is that we do a lot of those milestones without thinking about it. It's like, "Okay, go to school, get a job, find a partner, get married, have kids, retire, play golf, die. Move to Florida, die." And that path is awesome for so many people, obviously because it's the norm, but if it's not your path, that's okay. You may have to try a little bit harder to advocate for yourself and what that path is for yourself. Like I don't want to have children, and I have had to have that conversation with potential partners, with family members. People think I'm going to change my mind. I'm not, I'm not going to change my mind.
So it's like you may have to work a little bit harder to get people on board with your path, but you need to be so sure of what that is. I don't know that I'll actually buy a chateau and host artist residencies, but that feels like a fun goal for right now. Next year, it could be completely different or in two months it could be completely different. And so it's noodling on what you want your life to look like and also being flexible and being present because that is something that my therapist tells me a lot is like, "Yes, you're working toward these goals and you're in the future, but make sure you're enjoying the present." And I think that some of my creative hobbies are really grounding me in the present like ceramics, for example.
Lauren: Ooh yeah.
Yeah, we were talking about this off camera or off mic before, but it is the... Having big creative goals, especially if you want to run your own business, oftentimes business goals can be at odds with creative goals where when you are running a business or you're working towards running a business, you are living in the future where it's like projected revenue, you're getting ahead of your marketing. You're always ahead, ahead of your marketing calendar, ahead of your product launches, whatever it may be. And that's just the grind. As a small business owner that is pretty inescapable. However, to have something scalable, repeatable, that you have a system down is good for business, but it's not always good for creativity. Repetition gets old after a while for the creative brand. You yearn for something else. And I think having the hobbies or even just like recording this podcast, being present with people, having conversations, going out into the world are grounding things that anchor you in now. And you need to enjoy now in order to... If you don't enjoy the present, you certainly won't enjoy the future.
Rachael: Absolutely. And truly nothing is promised. So we got to be enjoying the now and hopefully working toward, I say goals. I don't want what I'm saying to feel like it's like a productivity goal. I am not saying you need to do all these things and hit projected revenue. You do in your own business if you own your own business, but I'm talking about just are you living the life that you want to live for yourself? I think that's my whole thing.
Lauren: Yeah, it's like the creative version of a version of this meme I see going around that's about little treats. I don't know if these enter your orbit too, but it's in the spirit of like buy yourself, the latte like little treats are what get you through the day. I think the same mentality can apply to creative stuff where it's like, do some quilting, go to ceramics, set aside two hours to draw this weekend. It may seem indulgent or difficult to do when there's like a million other things going on that could be making you money or working towards a professional goal. But I think those little treats of me time, creative time, play time are necessary to sustain getting to that bigger goal.
Rachael: That is exactly what I mean by prioritizing play. It's like there's always something else to do and work on, but if we don't prioritize our version of play, whether that's playing basketball or coming up with a new recipe or making a mocktail for your lovely friends to enjoy. That is so rewarding and energizing when we get to do just the little fuck around and find out projects like noodling on something, for chaotic creatives anyway.
Lauren: Yeah. And those can oftentimes, those playful let's say conversations, the way this podcast started was you could say out of play where it's like, "We're going to get together and gab." And then we did that consistently enough over the years that we were able to piece together some through line where it's like, "Hey, are you picking up on this common thread here?" And then I remember you approached me after you were midway through a business coaching session where you were like, "My coach thinks I should start a podcast and I would like to do it with you because I think it'll be easier to do it with somebody else."
And you were 100% right to be able to brainstorm together and almost share the, I don't want to say burden, but share the load of you manage the Instagram, we edit the podcast here. I host the space with the setup. It works nicely because we also hold each other accountable in a non-pressure feet to the fire kind of way. It's just like, "Hey, what does your schedule look like?" We have two brains thinking about the same problem now, which is so helpful.
Rachael: Yeah. And just bouncing ideas off of each other. This could be happening... We know for us it happens offline as well, but I think this also demonstrates the importance of finding your people and making sure that you have a person or people to talk to about your creative ideas and big ideas. And that may not be everybody in your life.
Lauren: It won't be.
Rachael: It won't be, yeah. And there are people that love you so much and don't understand what you're working on. And so Lauren and I were talking before we started recording about our... We use the same newsletter subscription and I'm like, "You're the only person I can talk to when I'm trying to figure out an automation and convert kit." It's a coworker and a friend built into one. And I think that there are a lot of opportunities and benefits to get from finding the people for you to talk about your creative practice with or creative business. Does that make sense?
Lauren: Yes, of course. It's speaking the same language. It's also when you find even one person who speaks the same language as you or who has the same goal. I think about a ceramic studio since we keep bringing this up because we both go to ceramics.
Rachael: Different studios.
Lauren: Different studios. We used to go to the same studio, but I can't make it up to Ferndale. I think that just being in a room with five or six other people whose brains are coming together to focus on basically the same topic even though we're all working on different projects, naturally conversations will come up that are helpful to my ceramics practice that I just wouldn't really encounter anywhere else and I wouldn't expect to have with Kristle or with my dad or anybody who wasn't in that room who wasn't thinking about the same thing at the same time. I think that even through reflecting on this podcast, so many times when we've been talking, it sparks ideas in me. So for example, we talked about this when we went to lay in the park after the last recording, I have noticed a through line with you and some of my other friends throughout my career that I'm really good at naming stuff and people come to me-
Rachael: Oh man, you are.
Lauren: To name their newsletters, to name their courses, to name their passion projects, to name their blogs because I just have-
Rachael: It's instant for you. Yeah. I love it
Lauren: And it's so easy for me and it's so fun. We joked last time, but I'm actually going to try doing this, hopefully it's live by the time this podcast episode comes out, fingers crossed, where I would love to offer like a 30 minute or one hour colleague calls where if you're a creative, we can get on a call and just shoot the shit, brainstorm. It's just like a digital version of what you and I do when we sit together.
Rachael: Absolutely.
Lauren: Especially because a lot of people work remotely. A lot of people work alone remotely. It can be so isolating. And you could sit there and bang your head against a wall, but just talking helps to-
Rachael: Having a fresh perspective.
Lauren: Yeah, it helps to dislodge a lot of the creative garbage that's been there and just get things flowing. At least it builds some of that momentum.
Rachael: Absolutely.
Lauren: Yeah.
Rachael: And I think I have learned this about myself. I need the accountability of different types of groups in a lot of aspects of my life. So I'm in a creative mastermind right now of women who are building up their businesses. We're going through different exercises and because we're all doing the same thing and working on identifying, coming up with names for our communities, and I was texting you about this because you're so good at naming. And having that opportunity, but then also you said the ceramic studio, I can talk about, oh, I went to lunch with a couple of people from my Ceramic studio this past weekend and we were talking about clay bodies and Mason Stain and things like... Figuring it out while we were also talking about other creative practices and life goals and things like that. Having that space. I've talked about this previously, but I have to pay for French classes because I won't learn on my own. Having communities around your specific interests are like IRL niching for now, right?
Lauren: Yeah.
Rachael: Understanding that there's one specific goal like, "I want to learn French, so I need to do this in a group setting." I've learned that about myself. I will perform better when I have other people holding me accountable or just other people around. Like we were talking about how sometimes you need to leave your space even if you're not interacting with another person, but being around other people's energy. We both do well when we have a problem that we're working through and we go to a coffee shop and then knock it out.
Lauren: Yeah, totally. I think this entire podcast has been an exploration in living with the creative chaos and sometimes, I guess this is personifying it, sometimes you do need to tame it and corral it and make it work for you. Sometimes you let it run free and you're okay with that. Other seasons of life call for you to make peace with it and maybe divvy it up into different chunks of your life. So I think this whole podcast is not seeing it as a good or a bad thing. It's just like's-
Rachael: A personality trait that you have.
Lauren: Totally. That you have to learn how to wield.
Rachael: Yeah.
Lauren: Yeah.
Rachael: It is reflecting on your own interests and practices and recognizing I am a chaotic creative and that's okay. Like you said, it's not good, it's not bad, it's just is how our brains operate. And being able to understand that and empathize with the chaos will help us to rein it in when we need to, let it run free when it needs to. And I think also recognizing that about ourselves as chaotic creatives helps us to tame that inner critic and recognize when we deserve to give ourselves the flowers like, "Hey, yeah, I didn't do any of the goals on my list this year, but my chaos allowed me to pursue a new project and I met new people" or, "I finally joined a D&D game night and I met a bunch of people that were my people." Following the fun will allow you to build that confidence and trust and then wrangling the chaos by working toward goals is the balance to that, I think.
Lauren: Yeah. Hearing you say that makes me think that it seems like there are just different eras for letting it run wild, and then the running wild is the exploration, the curiosity, the try a little bit of everything to see what you like. Oftentimes a part of our chaotic creative personality too is once you do... We're intuitive, so when we find a thing that we love, you zoom in on it. I think this is... The internet tells me this is an ADHD trait-
Rachael: Yeah, hyperfixation.
Lauren: To hyperfixate, or you're like, "This is my favorite outfit for a year."
Rachael: Yeah. I could never, but yes-
Lauren: I'm the kind of person who will listen... If I like a song, I'll listen to it 100 times in a row.
Rachael: I went to the gym yesterday and I was listening to this one song. I love the band IDLES and one of the songs usually hypes me up so much, but I've been listening to it too much and I was like, "I did it again" because I always do it. And I'm like, "Just one more. It won't push it over the edge." And then it does. And so now I need to put that on the shelf for like 10 years.
Lauren: Who knows? And maybe you'll hear it again and you'll enjoy it again. But there's the periods of chaos where it's exploratory and then there's the periods of wrangling it in where when you do find something that you want to stick with, roll with it. Great. I think as chaotic creatives, it can be rare to have that clarity of like, "This is my thing right now and I'm just going to lock in." But one thing I've learned and I'm still learning how to accept about being a chaotic creative is knowing that things will most likely change and evolve. My interests will shift and being okay with and anticipating a bit more uncertainty in my life because of the benefits that I get from pursuing lots of interests and living with the chaos. It's just a trade-off.
Like last night, one of my oldest best friends called me at like... I was telling Kristle this—he called me at 11:30 P.M. which is an inappropriate time for most people, but he knew I was going to be awake. Yeah. And we were just talking about he's gone the way of working full-time roles, he calls it the safe route where it's like full-time design roles where it's predictable and he might get bored and switch jobs, but he's played that game and I went freelance pretty early. There are trade-offs to both, neither is better than the other. I was telling him like, "Damn, 10 years in, I am jealous of my friends who do not need to self-promote in order to sustain their livelihood, whether it's through Instagram, TikTok, a newsletter, to not have to think about marketing yourself on a daily or weekly basis for your livelihood is..." The grass is always greener, of course. But I'm just like, "What must that be like?" And it's like, I didn't know all this stuff doing in.
Rachael: You phone it in sometimes when you have a jobby job, as I like to say.
Lauren: And I guess you have a little taste of both. And he was like, "Yeah, things can get boring and it's a bit of a slog, but I went with my gut and this is what I chose." And I was like, "Yeah, same here" where right now going to culinary school and changing things up a bit and trying to find my groove again. I don't regret any of it, but I'm like, "Oh, this is the other side of the coin of what I signed up for is there's no ceiling, there's no floor. I create my own reality and my own business and I am really in the driver's seat. And that is just...
It's something I've always known about the way that I structured my business and livelihood, but I think it really just depends on your personality type and what's important to you, your priorities. If I had dependents and I needed to provide my children healthcare or I needed more stability or cash flow, a full-time job might be more appealing to me and might just make more sense and would have no bearing on whether or not I was a good creative or good artist. It doesn't really matter how you make your living in that sense, as long as you are making time for your creative projects and for play and for hobbies.
Rachael: Yeah, and I think the reflecting is so valuable. We're reflecting in this episode about the season, but also just having conversations with your friends like that, "Oh, this is the path that I chose. These are the choices that I've made. I'm not stuck in this." You could probably apply for a corporate job. I know you probably never will.
Lauren: I keep joking that I'm unemployable, but someone the other day that I just met was like, "You've run your own business for over 10 years and it hasn't gone under. That's a feat."
Rachael: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Lauren: And I was like, "Oh, okay."
Rachael: For sure.
Lauren: Again, not giving myself any flowers for having sustained myself for the last decade.
Rachael: Yeah. A creative agency would be lucky to have you.
Lauren: Oh, thank you.
Rachael: Me saying that with no experience with creative agencies at all.
Lauren: I am a good employee for like the first six months.
Rachael: Yeah, I could see that. And then-
Lauren: I just ruined my chances of ever being full-time employed.
Rachael: Nah, they're not listening to episode 10. They're going to start with 1. I think though that reflecting is so important. We're doing it on this, you and your friend were doing it about your careers and the maybe more practical part of my brain likes to reflect on the chaos. If I let the chaos of my creativity go free, I'm bouncing a lot. I'm not really sticking to any projects, I'm not finishing them. And I definitely am an advocate for trying stuff and following your curiosity and exploring your skills and growing your skills. And sometimes we need to find the discipline to be able to finish a project or do your marketing for your business or push yourself a little bit harder to reach some of those goals. I think former versions of me thought, "Oh, I just need to find the thing that's easy all the time." That's never the case. It's not the case with relationships. It's not the case with your creative projects. You need to run into some challenges so that you grow.
And when those challenges happen and when that growth happens, we also need to take time to pause and be like, "Wow, look how much I overcame. Look at all the things I went through while I was accomplishing these goals." So giving yourself time to look back at the whole picture, not just like, "Oh, I didn't hit this money milestone." Oh, but did you make connections and are you working toward a future big project that might bring a bunch of income? Seeing it from the full view I think is helpful and we have to pause to be able to do that.
Lauren: I'm calling back to a podcast episode that I listened to, what's it called? It's called No Stupid Questions, and the woman who was speaking, her name's Angela Duckworth, she wrote that book Grit about high achievers. Anyways, she had a good way of describing what she's noticed in high achievers in like sports, in business, in arts, whatever it may be. And it's that everyone goes through these ebbs and flows, these seasons of exploring and then exploiting. And I know the word exploit is loaded, but basically what it means is you go out and you try a bunch of stuff, you have the curiosity, but then when you do lock into something or you take the time to be like, "Of the things I've tried, what is the thing that feels like I want to go deeper? I've gotten a free sample of everything and what do I want to buy the full size of?"
Rachael: Yeah.
Lauren: Then you go into your season of really building up your skills and just going deeper into that skillset. And once it's boring for you or you no longer like it, or for whatever reason, you burn out, there could be so many reasons, then you go back into your exploration phase and that is just the natural cycle of when you look back over the course of your life and you're like, "Wow, that person did so much stuff or I did so much stuff." It's because you went through little micro seasons of that.
Rachael: Yeah. And I think this is also a call back to I think it was the last episode that we did when we were talking about how to add in offerings while keeping under the umbrella of your personal brand. And it's that, it's following the curiosity, finding out what thing is inspiring, and then maybe working toward a new goal or a new offering. And it's totally that. I love that. Also, the word grit just reminds me of oysters and I just want to eat oysters.
Lauren: Is that like sand in the oyster?
Rachael: Yeah, like the grit in the oyster. Yeah. Or if they shuck it poorly and there's chunks of shell, I think. I don't know. I just like to eat them.
Lauren: Let's get this girl an oyster sponsorship.
Rachael: Oh my gosh, I would love that. We got to go back to New York. Lauren took me to a place that had dollar oysters during happy hour, and this gal was slurping.
Lauren: I do remember that. I watched you slurp. It was great.
Rachael: I loved it. We were on a busy street corner, got to do some people watching. Pretend I was a New York resident. It was great.
Lauren: Yeah, that was the time that I think I got a DM from someone being like, "I think I just saw you outside of Lighthouse and you were with this person" and it wasn't you. So maybe from far away you look like this other gal. I can't remember who it is, but I think I pulled up a photo of her and I was like-
Rachael: That's funny.
Lauren: You're both just like.
Rachael: They were half right.
Lauren: Yeah. Tattoos and blondish hair.
Rachael: Yeah, there's a lot of us.
Lauren: Yeah, it's great.
Rachael: Basically
Lauren: We all fall Into archetypes.
Rachael: Yeah.
Lauren: That's fine.
Rachael: Yeah, absolutely.
Lauren: We're all unique and not unique at all.
Rachael: I actually really love that. I think for so long in my life I was like, "I'm different." Because I hadn't found my people, I grew up in a very rural area and I wanted to be a little emo kid, and we didn't have scene kids where I lived. I wanted to be one.
Lauren: Did you have scene hair? Did you do the razor hair?
Rachael: No. In college a little bit. It was puffed up a lot and I wore the bandana, and like yeah. But I never dyed it black. During my scene phase, I never dyed it black. It has been black-
Lauren: I was this close to getting snake bites and I am so glad I did not.
Rachael: Oh, I'm so glad you didn't. Oh my gosh. Yeah, I almost had gauged ears and I know a lot of people who had the big ones that had the surgery to get earlobes again.
Lauren: Yeah, there was someone that I met recently who said that she had to get surgery for something else, and she asked the surgeon to close up her ears at the same time and he was like, "Yeah, sure."
Rachael: Oh, cool.
Lauren: Yeah.
Rachael: Wow. Yeah, this is a perfect example of how our paths grow and change. We're definitely still emo kids, but in a different expression, I think. Yeah, I don't know where I was going with that.
Lauren: It's all good.
Rachael: Yeah, reflecting, reflecting on our past.
Lauren: Yeah. I think something I appreciate about this first season of doing this podcast with you is that I think we got so much further together than we would've alone.
Rachael: Oh, absolutely.
Lauren: And it was such a good excuse to get together, but also it feels less scary to try something with somebody else. It's like you both have a little bit of skin in the game. Again, you're sharing the load. I think that I've learned a lot from just giving this a shot with you, and I don't know if I would've had the motivation to just start something like this by myself and to even have you as a partner to brainstorm. And again, we've talked about this in the podcast. This happened organically over so many years, and it ties into what you were talking about of it might not feel like you've reached your big goal yet or that you can't quite figure out is this getting me closer? But it is. If you're just following the fun and taking little steps to get closer to what's aligned for you, it'll point you in the right direction.
Rachael: Yeah. And like you said, you don't necessarily have a big, your version of the French chateau at this moment, but you don't have to. I think following your interests, like you said, is going to get you aligned, and who knows what that big goal may be. I hope it's also just living at my French chateau. I just want all my friends to live there with me.
Lauren: Amazing.
Rachael: Yeah.
Lauren: I'm only laughing because the only thing that's coming to mind that I've said for a long time is my I'll know I've made it when... Or rich person goal is to have a freestanding bathtub, which is so specific and stupid.
Rachael: I love that. I love that.
Lauren: And it's like I could put one in here right now if I really wanted to. It'd be such a terrible investment.
Rachael: Actually. Season two, we're going to be in a bathtub. It's going to be in this corner.
Lauren: We each have... There's two freestanding bathtubs.
Rachael: It's like a very small segue into our colorful toilet idea that we'll share someday. I love that very achievable big dream goal. Literally easier than mine.
Lauren: And I think for anyone who's maybe more in my boat, because I bet listeners some are in your boat and some are in [inaudible 00:44:39]. They know like, "There's this thing I want to achieve someday or this thing I'm working towards it'd be awesome." You have the clarity. For me, that was going to culinary school and now that I'm back, I'm just like, "Oh, I don't have one anymore. I used mine up."
Rachael: And I think it's important... We were talking about before we started recording about culinary school, it's like you just went to your graduation, but you moved back before that. And so it feels like, "All right, I did it. Next thing." And I think it's important to savor. You had been working up to that goal of going to culinary school for a few years and you did it and you got to give yourself the flowers to say like, "I did this thing that I was working toward and dreaming about, and it's okay to be in this period of enjoying not having the commitments and the action steps that you needed to take to get to that big goal." You're in a rest period.
Lauren: Yeah, that's a good way to put it. And I think... Oh, what was I going to say? Culinary school, rest period. Yes, for people who might be in my boat, it is okay to not have a big thing that you're working towards. And it might feel like a little bit, if you're used to having a big thing. Did you spill on yourself? Great. But even if you don't have a big thing, now is the time to, one, rest and you can be still Also, there's a lot to be learned in stillness. It's actually quite hard for me.
Rachael: Yeah, same.
Lauren: But it's good. A lot of self-reflection. And then also it's just taking me longer to reorient my life than I thought because I've always been like, "I've got a thing. I'm intuitive." It's just taking a little longer now. Having little goals that you're working towards or just little glimmers of, "Ooh, that looks cool," or something to grab onto basically will be the breadcrumbs to getting you to the aha moment of, "This is what I want to do." That's how anyone gets started with anything unless you were born into a family of we all do this and so you're going to do it and it happens to be a thing you wanted to do.
Other than that, most of the time with art, it's experimental where it's like, "I'm going to try these things. I'm going to follow that little spark and see if it leads anywhere." Most of the time, it doesn't, but when you do find a thing that hits for you and resonates with other people too, you might want to go down that path and that's cool. And so I think I'm trying to embrace following those little sparks and seeing where they lead and giving myself some grace. Also giving myself my flowers of like I just finished a big thing and it's okay to take a breather.
Rachael: Yeah. And you also worked while you were in school.
Lauren: Yep.
Rachael: So you had two full-time jobs.
Lauren: Oh my gosh, it is... I don't know if anyone can relate to this, but maybe it's a chaotic creative thing or an eldest child thing or, I am so used to keeping myself busy and I am a recovering overachiever, to truly rest, intentionally rest, or to have a slower period of... Like it's the summer right now, freelance work is slower. It can be uncomfortable to just be like, "It's okay to chill."
Rachael: It's really, really hard for me, and I find myself booking my calendar full.
Lauren: You have one of the most stacked social calendars of anybody I know. I'm in awe.
Rachael: And it's so interesting because I am an introvert. I get energy from being at home alone. And so if I don't have time to putz around my house or sit on the couch and read for an entire day, I think I hit a point of like mental burnout, but I don't put those in my calendar and so then I'm like, "Oh, I have this free day," even though the rest of my month is packed. So I was telling Kristle while you were getting ready, I blocked off my entire... Every free day I have in August, because I'm going to be gone for a lot of the month. I blocked it off and I was like, "Do not make plans." And I even said, "No plans on this day, bitch," to myself because I was like, "You can't do it. You need rest." And I love being able to... I read an entire book on Saturday start to finish because I was like, "I have no energy to do anything. The only thing I can do is be horizontal in reading this book."
Lauren: I love that because what you just did, that that was your downtime activity. For some people it's so hard to read an entire book. And so I think that it's great that you knew that that's what you needed.
Rachael: Oh yeah. It was just like a romcom, it wasn't something... Because I read a lot.
Lauren: You didn't power wash your brain with information.
Rachael: Oh yeah. And I do want you to talk about that. It's like watching trash TV for me. I don't watch a lot of TV and so reading a romcom or a fantasy romance novel is just like turning my brain off and being entertained. And so I can just do that. When I do watch TV, I also binge an entire season in one go because it's like I just need to not be doing something or thinking, but I'm trying to be better about building more rest and stillness in. And I think I do a lot of processing of my emotions and feelings and thoughts while I'm doing creative projects like sewing or ceramics. Or I know I talked about running in a previous episode, I'm trying to keep up with that. And so there's a lot of processing happening, but I think I sometimes just need to turn my brain off and be entertained by a love story.
Lauren: Yeah. And I think that that's something that just comes with time and practice of getting to know yourself and your patterns and what you need and what certain activities put you in the headspace for. It's easy to lump everything into hobby or leisure, but there are things like... When we're not working, going to the grocery store, running errands, that's like... Those are care tasks where you're not resting. You're not working me, you're not resting. Even socializing, like you said, I think in one of the last episodes you were like, "I can do a max of three social things a week before I am tapped." And even when you know that, you can still push those boundaries, of course.
Rachael: I do it a lot and I'm working on it.
Lauren: But at least you know it. So then it's yours to do with that information what you want. And at least if you have more than that in your calendar, it's just going to be a little bit of a heavier week.
Rachael: Yeah, and I need to build in downtime. And me talking about this, I brought this up, this feeling of feeling overwhelmed and being bad at setting boundaries as far as saying yes to too many things. I'm also was just like, "I want to do it all. I'm so excited by everything. I want to see all these people."
Lauren: Eyes are bigger than stomach.
Rachael: Truly. The chaotic creative way. But I wanted to go back... I thought about my therapist and a different thing that she said. Hi, Sarah. I would love it if my therapist listened to this. That would be-
Lauren: Oh, I thought you were going to say if we got her on the pod for next season.
Rachael: Maybe. But one of the things that she said that has stuck with me since I started working with her five years ago is I was talking about just education. And okay, if I achieve my dream of going and living in France and owning a chateau, I probably wouldn't be doing my engineering job. That's a big future goal. And I was like, "Oh, but I have a master's degree and I'm wasting it." And she was like, "No education is wasted because you learn so many skills that aren't in reference to that particular job, like working on a team, problem solving, organizing your time, things that are applicable in all aspects of life." And when you are talking about try a new hobby and find those breadcrumbs, because even if they don't lead anywhere, that's still giving you education in a form where I feel like so many conversations we have are like, "Oh, I just read this book about this."
And it's not even related to creativity, what we're talking about, but it does tie into your perspective on life. So just remember that no education is wasted, and education doesn't have to be formal. It can be like, I took a workshop, or I read a book, or I listened to a podcast and now I want you to talk about power washing your podcast brain, and then maybe we can wrap up.
Lauren: Yeah, this is timely because we are speaking on a podcast right now, and people listening might be in the throes of this, but-
Rachael: Not our listeners. Not our people.
Lauren: This is not a, what's the word? Super information-dense podcast where you're trying to retain... Hopefully you're retaining some of this, but it's conversational.
Rachael: Yeah, we're gabbing.
Lauren: Yeah, we're gabbing. I set aside a good chunk of time this long weekend to clean and organize, and the first day I probably listened to 12 hours of podcasts, video essays, just about anything and everything. Pretty information-heavy, intellectual-dense stuff. And I felt so fried afterwards, and probably by hour eight, nothing was sticking anyways. And the next day because I knew how that made me feel. And while I was doing it, I was like, "Should I change this?" And I just didn't because I was like, "Eh, it's fine." Because we talked about this before we recorded. Our brains have a hard time knowing when they're full, the way that... There's only so much you could eat in a meal where you're like, "I'm good."
But my chaotic, creative, overachiever, multitasker part of myself is like, "I can learn a thing while I organize." It's a lot, it's like sensory overload. It's basically me doing a digital analog version of when people are scrolling on social media while they're watching a show in the background I realized. If I'm being honest, I judge people who do that, but then I turn around and do this to myself. It's no better because it's more analog.
Rachael: Or like the information is more dense.
Lauren: Yeah. It's just like I'm... So the next day I realized that didn't feel good. I feel fried. I'm sure my screen time was all day. And I wasn't even watching, I was just listening. I just put on music the next day and I was like, "This is what I need right now." And I used the term power washing my brain with information as a way to say it's good to check in with yourself of yes, because we as chaotic creatives want to do all the things and know all the things and try all the things, it is helpful to not bite off so much more than you can chew where you're not even digesting or taking in the information that is there.
I might've brought this up in a previous episode, but even the desire to know you want to try a thing like this DIY project or this thing has been on my to-do list, and then blast your brain with like five YouTube tutorials, and then you don't want to do it anymore because one, it scratched some of the curiosity itch of seeing someone else do it, which is a psychological thing where it's like you see someone do it and you're like, "I'm good." And then because you're watching five different people do it five different ways, you're like, "But what's the way" when you probably should have just tried and found out for yourself.
Rachael: And you would’ve learned something from any failures that you may have had, yeah.
Lauren: And so I think to tie it all back to the podcast and the theme of this last episode of season one is it's important to talk about the thing, but then move into action and try the thing out. Try it on. It's like clothes. See how it feels. Do you like it? If you don't, great, you did... Luckily we like this, so we're going to do a season two. If at this point, and we had committed to 10 episodes I think to each other at least when we started. Again, we've talked about this in the podcast, setting containers are helpful because then you have a natural start and stop to check in. If we hated it, we wouldn't do it. Easy.
Rachael: Yeah. If it felt really draining, we would've pivoted, I think. But I always feel really energized and we always hang out after, and then it's like two more hours of us continuing the conversation.
Lauren: Yeah, because not the amount of time or even effort put in, it's you could spend four hours talking with somebody and then feel exhausted. Or you could spend four hours talking with someone and be like, "I wish I had another hour." And this happens in so many aspects of life, and it's important to grab on to when it feels seamless and easy. Not necessarily easy, but there's a flow or a like, "I would like to do this more."
Rachael: Yeah. It feels maybe not restrictive or not like you're forcing it.
Lauren: Yeah. It feels like it just works naturally where like you said, it's not being forced or you don't feel resistance.
Rachael: Yeah, resistance was the word I was looking for.
Lauren: Yeah.
Rachael: Yeah. So try the thing. Put yourself in situations where you can follow your curiosity. And then give yourself time to rest and digest. You may not be in a season of productivity or working hard toward those goals. Maybe you need a break. And as someone who just got sick for an entire week a couple of weeks ago, because she did not give herself a break, let me tell you, you got to.
Lauren: It's wild too, because I think you got sick because you were socializing so much.
Rachael: Yeah. It was just like back to back I had trips, I had visitors. I had people coming into town that I was trying to squeeze in before I had four other things that day. And I will do it. I do prioritize my friendships, but I need to prioritize my well-being as much as I prioritize socializing, and it's a lesson I'm constantly learning.
Lauren: Great. You got the best of both worlds here at Chaotic Creatives. Shit.
Rachael: Yeah. In the creative chaos zone corner.
Lauren: Yeah.
Rachael: Before we wrap up, is there anything that you're looking forward to creatively while we're on our break?
Lauren: Ooh. Oh, when does this come out?
Rachael: This will come out in August.
Lauren: Okay.
Rachael: I think.
Lauren: Yeah, great. It's so weird talking in the future. I will be hosting my third mural workshop in here. So by season two, this background will be different, which is wild. So I'm looking forward to that. I've been getting back into the swing of things now, promoting and just getting back on again the confidence of I can market my stuff and it'll reach the right people.
Rachael: Yeah.
Lauren: August, there's a break from ceramics. They're taking a... Which again, good for them. This is new from what I've observed being a student there for a couple years, there's a three or four week break in between the end of this session and the next session, so they can regroup, clean the studio, take some time to make adjustments. Or even just take a break too, versus the one-week break that there usually is in between classes.
Rachael: Okay.
Lauren: I'll probably sign up for ceramics towards the end of August. Yeah.
Rachael: Cool. That's exciting.
Lauren: What about you?
Rachael: Yeah. I always ask these questions without having an answer of my own.
Lauren: That's okay.
Rachael: What am I excited about? I told myself one of my goals for the year that I haven't accomplished yet is I want to make hard pants. So basically I have made a lot of pairs of pants, like sewn them that have elastic waist and are linen and soft, like pajama pants basically that I wear as real pants. And so I would like to make a pair out of something, maybe not truly denim because that feels very unforgiving, but something with a zipper and a fly instead of just elastic.
Lauren: Okay. When you said hard pants, I was just like, "What are hard pants?"
Rachael: Yeah. I basically never wear hard pants.
Lauren: Are they the pants you gave me, the Everlane pants?
Rachael: Yeah. Those are hard pants. Yeah.
Lauren: So when you take them off and you drop them to the floor and you step out of them, they can stand up?
Rachael: They have structure. Yeah, those are hard. Whereas I tend to wear, yeah, basically... I don't even know if they're socially acceptable pajama pants. I wear them like that. I like linen pants a lot.
Lauren: Interesting. I only wear hard pants.
Rachael: Yeah. I don't know how you do it. I like to be comfy.
Lauren: I also like to be comfy, but I don't know what it is.
Rachael: Maybe you're just comfier in hard pants. I have a hard time because of my hip to waist ratio. Anyway, I want to make hard pants. I have some ideas in ceramics that I want to do. I'm going to be traveling a lot between when we're recording and the end of August, so I'm going to be in a creative rest period where I'm just absorbing inspiration from all the places I'm going and that's exciting. And I want to have a tea party for my birthday.
Lauren: Yeah. Oh, please let me help plan some desserts or like sandwiches.
Rachael: 100%.
Lauren: I actually bought a little sandwich mold that is specifically for making cute-shaped sandwiches.
Rachael: Oh yeah, please.
Lauren: Yeah.
Rachael: Remember that viral video that you made of the sandwich?
Lauren: The fuck you sandwich?
Rachael: Yeah. Maybe we need some mini versions of that. Maybe without letters, but that sandwich.
Lauren: Okay.
Rachael: How do feel about that?
Lauren: Yeah. For anyone who's curious about what a fuck you sandwich is, it's a version of a Japanese fruit sando, which is basically just whipped cream and fruit in between white bread, which sounds gross, but it's delicious.
Rachael: My dream.
Lauren: It's like a dessert sandwich, but I cut letters out of the fruit and when you slice the sandwich open, it reveals fuck you.
Rachael: Yeah. In the sweetest way possible.
Lauren: Yeah.
Rachael:
Yeah.
Lauren: Yeah. I forget about that all the time. I think as creatives, we often... Once we finish a piece of work, we archive it in our brain, but Crystal will remind me of it at least once a month, and it's like a nice reminder.
Rachael: Add that to your portfolio.
Lauren: Oh my gosh. I don't know where that... We were just having this conversation earlier. Where does stuff that feels more like social media content fit in a design portfolio? It's a new challenge or question for me to solve or answer, and this is really the thesis of my entire life. I think that creative people thrive when they are solving problems that they're genuinely interested in solving, and it's interesting to me, how does one handle an evolution of new media? I wasn't on Instagram when I first made my portfolio. I had a very traditional graphic designer illustrator portfolio. And so we're trying to figure out where that sits.
Rachael: Yeah. Time for you to come up with a new name for something.
Okay, I think we can wrap up this final episode. I just looked at myself because I remembered that we're in our polka dot funeral garb for putting season one to rest.
Lauren: We should have just given a eulogy.
Rachael: Season one was such an inspirational season to me.
Lauren: Actually.
Rachael: It was actually. I really loved it.
Lauren: Yeah, it was great, but I was thinking about how... Oh, where did I hear this? It wasn't Instagram. I know everyone's thinking it was Instagram where everyone goes. It was talking about how eulogies... Dammit, it was Instagram. Sorry Kristle, that was definitely a peak.
Rachael: Oh, yeah, cackling.
Lauren: Person that I follow on Instagram, I think her Instagram handle is... Oh, I'm going to be so proud of myself if I get this right, howcarolinecarolines. She's like a-
Rachael: Okay. You can tell none of us really thought through the marketing of saying what our Instagram handles are.
Lauren: Totally. No one would spell Rachael Renae.
Rachael: Absolutely not. Nope.
Lauren: She was talking about... She did like a breakup post with her former partner and she wrote this really beautiful caption that was framed as a relationship eulogy where she was reflecting on... Oh, the work that she does, she's a death doula, so seeing someone through the end of life process, which is really beautiful and not talked about nearly enough. She was talking about how with a eulogy, when we gather to celebrate/mourn someone's life, we tend to focus on not their shortcomings, but the things that we loved about them. We're focusing on the good while not sweeping the bad completely under the rug, but it's softened a bit.
And she was using that as a framing for talking about the end of this relationship that she cherished, but they no longer want to be together, and that helped me process my own breakup because I'm like, oh, oftentimes with a breakup, it's combative where it's like fingers are pointed, blame is assigned, and you could say they're toxic and you move on. But she was saying, "No, we should take a beat to appreciate the good," which is why maybe subconsciously why we wore a funeral garb.
Rachael: Yeah.
Lauren: It's not like this is even a funeral because season two is going to happen.
Rachael: Yeah. It's a rest.
Lauren: We should probably tell people to keep an eye on our Instagram in the meantime because that is most likely where we will be posting official meetup details. It might go in the show notes of this episode too, but we wanted to have a proper planned meetup towards the end of summer, early fall to celebrate the end of season one, but the launch of season I think.
Rachael: Yeah, kicking it off. Yeah, absolutely.
Lauren: Maybe meeting up when it's a little less hot outside. We want to meet you when we're not all sticky.
Rachael: We live in the Midwest. We should not be having 90 degrees. That's some California shit.
Lauren: California's a dry 90, that's the problem. Where it's-
Rachael: The humidity.
Lauren: Yeah, it's the humidity.
Rachael: We hate it.
Lauren: But having lived in California and New York, this is fine.
Rachael: Yeah. It's just like-
Lauren: Not good for a meetup though.
Rachael: Right. We want to be fully comfortable for new interactions. I feel like I have so many more things I want to talk about. We're going to save them for season two, aka, they're going to be gone as soon as we stop recording. But thank you so much for listening for an entire season. We've had some really lovely feedback from you folks, and we really appreciate that.
Lauren: We do read every comment and we're constantly texting each other, being like, "Did you see this?"
Rachael: Yeah.
Lauren: We actually have a folder-
Rachael: What’s millennial ankle?
Lauren: Yeah. We have a folder of screenshots of nice things y'all have said that we keep in our drop box just for little feel good hype file notes.
Rachael: Right. Those are our flowers. Yeah, the hype file is a necessity for sure. So we'll keep you posted on the meetup. We'll keep you posted on season two. In the meantime, we will probably continue to post on Instagram, but let us know if there's any specific topic you want us to cover in season two.
Lauren: Yeah, send us a message or leave a comment on chaoticcreativespod on Instagram.
Rachael: Yeah. Thank you so much. We have enjoyed making this and hope that you have enjoyed listening/watching.
Lauren: And shout out to our lovely editor/producer/magic maker Kristle. She's so embarrassed right now.
Rachael: Kristle really made us professional. I think if you and I had been just doing this on our own, it would just be like there wouldn't be any editing, the clips would just be raw. Kristle makes us professional, and we appreciate her. Yay.
Lauren: Thank you for listening and/or watching. We'll see you next season two. Bye.