Lauren and Rachael share reflections on the year as we head into 2025. If you’ve been listening since episode 1, you know that these gals LOVE reflection as a tool for resetting and crafting thoughtful future goals that are consistent with your personal values. In this discussion, they dig into: being flexible with metric-based goals, the power of self-awareness in setting your goals, AND acknowledging achievements that you didn’t see coming. Your Chaotic Creative Gals are taking a mini break for the holiday season and will be back in January. In the meantime, give us the gift of a rating and review wherever you listen!
Lauren and Rachael share reflections on the year as we head into 2025. If you’ve been listening since episode 1, you know that these gals LOVE reflection as a tool for resetting and crafting thoughtful future goals that are consistent with your personal values. In this discussion, they dig into: being flexible with metric-based goals, the power of self-awareness in setting your goals, AND acknowledging achievements that you didn’t see coming.
Your Chaotic Creative Gals are taking a mini break for the holiday season and will be back in January. In the meantime, give us the gift of a rating and review wherever you listen!
Episode Mentions:
The transcript for this episode can be found here!
Rachael: Before we dive into the last episode of the year, we wanted to put in a little request. We've been giving you the gift of gab all of 2024, and we're hoping that you can give us a little gift in return.
Lauren: Yes.
Rachael: What are we asking, Lauren?
Lauren: When it comes to producing media online for free, there's just a humbling amount of begging that has to happen, it's just part of the game. And we are asking for a rating and a review on this podcast if you enjoy listening to it. I think we do our best to not be incessantly annoying about it.
Rachael: About that, particularly.
Lauren: Maybe we've asked once or twice, but it's not part of... Like we don't even have a script for this.
Rachael: Right.
Lauren: It's not something we prioritize. And the ratings and the reviews that we have gotten organically have been so incredibly lovely, and we actually picked two of our favorites that we wanted to read to you as example.
Rachael: Yeah.
Lauren: Do you want to go first?
Rachael: Sure. This one is titled 'Hooked by Episode one'. Love that.
"As a girly who loves a creative self-help book, this was a no-brainer. I've already learned so much. I didn't realize how low of a Priority Play was on my list. Now I find myself inspired to go back to noodling on things even if I only have 10 minutes."
Thank you, Pauline, for that lovely review. I am truly, that is my goal of getting you to Prioritize Play. Oh, I have 10 minutes. What can I noodle on?
Lauren: I know.
Rachael: Exactly.
Lauren: I'm not a 10-minute girly. I'd rather sit and pick up my cuticles.
Rachael: Sure. It's just as therapeutic for me.
Lauren: Yeah. But yes, we picked that review for you because it just screamed Rachael.
Rachael: It really did. I mean, literally today, I had 10 minutes before a meeting started and I went and I cut 50 quilt squares with the materials to make them. Yeah.
Lauren: I love that. This one is from Ringroy. Great name.
"Found my support group. This is delightful and inspirational for where I am in my chaotic journey. I just wish there was a backlog of 500 episodes so I could binge listen while I inventory my 287 hobbies."
Rachael: A person after our own heart.
Lauren: This is the ultimate Chaotic Creatives review, and we just wanted to say, if you could leave a review that was just a love note to other Chaotic Creatives out there, just letting them know what you get out of the podcast and why they should also listen, we would just be so grateful and that is the free gift you could give us for the end of the year.
Rachael: Yeah. So there's three parts... Well, two and a half parts to that. You can rate it, just give it-
Lauren: Wherever. Wherever you listen.
Rachael: You give it a star rating, wherever you listen. And then there's also the actual review part. But then also if you like an episode and it resonates with you, share it with another Chaotic Creative pal, someone who may not have found us yet. Because we love the gap and there will someday hopefully be a backlog of 500 episodes.
Lauren: If you know someone who also eats croissants and mayonnaise or might actually eat a piece of shit for $500,000 a year, send it to them.
Rachael: Yeah, there are people. Thank you so much. Now let's get to the episode.
******
Rachael: We can put our heads down and work toward these goals, but also making sure that we take a step back and be like, "Oh, in this five-year scheme of things, things are... We're doing pretty good. This rules."
Lauren: Hello and welcome to Chaotic Creatives, the show about embracing the chaos that comes from living a creative life.
Rachael: We are your host, two self-proclaimed Chaotic Creatives, Chaotic Creatives gals. I'm Rachael Renae. I'm your internet hype gal. I'm here to encourage you to use play to live a more creative, confident, fulfilling life.
Lauren: Hell, yeah. And I am Lauren Hom, better known as Hom Sweet Hom on the internet. I'm a designer, lettering artist, muralist, and most recently, chef.
Rachael: Hello and welcome to our last episode before we take a break. So not the last episode of the season, but we're going to take a little holiday break. I told Lauren a funny thing right before we started recording, so we'll let her giggle silently while I keep talking. Yeah, we're going to take some time off for the holidays because we're both doing some traveling. And yeah, I won't look at you. I'm going to be probably hermiting in my parents' basement, which is what I usually do for the holidays and just pounding through my fantasy romance novels.
Lauren: You have more?
Rachael: Oh, there's always more. Oh, I've reread them several times.
Lauren: Forgot that's a thing you can do.
Rachael: Oh, yeah. Just keep revisiting that feel. Anyway, because it's the last episode of the year of 2024, we are going to talk about some end of year reflection practices. I have some practices and Lauren is a true Chaotic Creative, and maybe it'll spark some ideas.
Lauren: Hopefully both of our demeanors and experiences can speak to at least one of yours. I want to be a practice routine person, but I'm more of a spurt person where I get little bursts and then I falls off. Burst, falls off. And that's kind of like my natural cadence.
Rachael: Which I think is really good to recognize. And I was actually listening to our first episode of the season earlier on my drive here, and I was talking about how much I love routine and how it's so important for me to have that. And I think having continued practices, I always do big reflections on my birthday around the end of the year or the new year. Those are the two major ones. Sometimes I do them at the season change because my yoga studio sometimes has a seasonal shift sort of meditation.
Lauren: I like that.
Rachael: And guided meditation and journaling practice, so they give you a couple of prompts. So I'll do that, but I really like that reflection. I honestly don't often go back and look at what I wrote down, but it just helps me mentally prepare for the next season. So yeah, I thought I could talk about my practices even though they're not super rigid. I think that's what I've found most too, is in sort of the Chaotic Creative ADHD all over the place mentality, if I get too rigid, I get really hard on myself, where I'm like, "Oh, I didn't journal three pages today." And so then I stop completely.
Lauren: Yeah, because that feeling of like, "Oh, I didn't do it and now I'm off track" isn't going to help you get back on track.
Rachael: Yeah. Which I feel like we've talked about that in creative practice capacity. But yeah, so I give myself a lot of grace when it comes to these practices. But at the beginning of the year, and it's like end of year reflection and beginning of the year, I kind of take mid-December to mid-January and sort of work at these things. I don't just sit down and do it all in one go. It's kind of like I start noodling on these things.
So I love to think about what kind of goals did I set for myself the last year. So for 2024, some of my goals were to say no more because as I mentioned in episode one, I tend to say yes, and then I pack my schedule and I feel overwhelmed, and then that brings me to burn out faster. I wanted to experiment with little to no alcohol, which I mostly do naturally anyway and have continued to... It's a pretty infrequent part of my life. I wanted to make hard pants. That has been on my to-do list.
Lauren: What are hard pants?
Rachael: Like your pants that you're wearing now, buttoned up, firm, not stretchy waist soft pants.
Lauren: Pants that you could pull down at the end of the day and walk out of and they'd still be standing up.
Rachael: Yes, exactly.
Lauren: I love when that happens, by the way. It's so charming.
Rachael: Yeah. It's like your pants are their own little character in your life. Yeah. I feel like that is something that would help me in my sewing practice. Learning the skills to be able to do that, it's quite intimidating to me and I don't often wear hard pants.
Lauren: Oh, I guess, you did give me your hard pants.
Rachael: I did.
Lauren: Yeah.
Rachael: Yeah. And I have a pair of jeans, but most of my pants are elastic waist, which is-
Lauren: I got to embrace that.
Rachael: Yeah. I'm just a flowy bottoms kind of gal.
Lauren: Which is great.
Rachael: So yeah, the hard pants didn't happen. And I've had that on my list for two years and I'm not going to put it on my 2025 list. These are all just also from the top of my brain, I didn't bring my list, which I-
Lauren: That's good.
Rachael: I write them down and I tape it to my wall so that I can continuously reflect. So those were my... Oh, make a scrap quilt. So just use the scraps that I've had, and I've started several of those. They haven't turned into full quilts yet, but I'm entering right now the mode of quilt season, basement, cozy time. So those are kind of the things that I started as goals for this year. And then I also set professional goals. So for my Rachael Renae business, I wanted to start a YouTube, which I did. And I'm trying to be better about setting metric goals. Even if I don't ever achieve them, so I was like 5K subscribers, that feels like a reach, but if I hit it, I would be stoked. I am realizing that YouTube is really hard for me. It is easy for me to talk like this. It's easy for me to write my newsletter when I can just kind of bring them.
Lauren: Free flow. Yeah.
Rachael: Yeah. Even Instagram feels like quick videos. But YouTube, unless I'm just doing like a gab-sesh is what I call them, and just talking at the camera, it's pretty hard for me to move the camera, get this, capture this, and it really takes me out of the creative flow of a project. I would love to share more of the background of me doing the projects, but then speeding up this part, finding this angle, showing-
Lauren: It detracts from the project, you're now a cinematographer.
Rachael: Yeah. And a lot of those projects are personal projects for my own fulfillment, and so taking myself out of them has been really de-energizing, draining.
Lauren: You know what the solution is? Four iPhones mounted to your table.
Rachael: Perfect. I just wear a GoPro on my head at all times.
Lauren: I've thought about that before and I was like, "I can't."
Rachael: No. I could probably convince myself it's like a headlamp, which I have that for camping, and I have worn a headlamp.
Lauren: I hope to never wear a headlamp in my life. I don't wear hats. I'm very vain about my hair.
Rachael: Yeah, we're not touching your head.
Lauren: The only reason.
Rachael: Yeah. How do you feel about a crown?
Lauren: Like a-
Rachael: I don't know, like a-
Lauren: Costume?
Rachael: Crown or... Well, I know you don't really wear costumes, but what about barrettes? I've never seen you wear any accessories eyes up. You have nose piercings, you wear earrings. There's no... Thankfully.
Lauren: Wow. I didn't even realize my head could be a vessel for-
Rachael: My head is a vessel for a lot.
Lauren: Yeah.
Rachael: Yeah.
Lauren: No. Even all of my New York and Michigan friends think I'm a nut, but I won't even wear a winter hat.
Rachael: What about a babushka-style like scarf around your head, if it's really cold, out of necessity? You just don't go outside in the winter, I feel like.
Lauren: Yeah, that's my strategy.
Rachael: That's super fair. Okay. So yeah, those are some of the things. I create these goals, and some of them are far-reaching goals, like 5K subscribers is a lot for not having a YouTube channel. I was posting regularly. I created a schedule for myself and it felt restrictive. It felt draining, it felt stressful. And so I'm like, "What goal is this serving?" And ultimately, it's connecting with my audience in a different way, but I would rather connect to them through this platform.
Lauren: Yeah. With fewer subscribers or listeners. That makes a lot of sense to me. It reminds me of something I think I heard one of my favorite comedians say in an interview. His name's Josh Johnson. He's blown up in the last year in particular. He became a daily show correspondent. But even before then he was writing for the show. Anyways, I've been following his work for a long time, Kristle and I went to go see him here recently.
Rachael: Fun.
Lauren: He's just lovely. There are a lot of bits that I've wanted to send to you, but I also know you don't really watch a ton of comedy.
Rachael: Here's the thing though, I really like it. I just never... I think I was talking to my friend, Nyree, about this because she's a big comedy person. You are, Carly is. A lot of my close friends are, you guys watch stand up. Do you go see it?
Lauren: Yeah.
Rachael: If someone is like, "Let's go see a comedy show", I'll go. I'll laugh-
Lauren: That's true. You have come with me before.
Rachael: Yeah. And when Nyree and I were in London.
Lauren: I was just going to say you're the girth goblin.
Rachael: Girth goblin. Yeah. We went to like a... It was a Don't Tell Comedy. Yeah. We went to a version of that when we were in London and it was funny because they all just talked about American politics and we were just like, "Yeah, we know. No." But I had a good time. I am very easily entertained and I think a lot of things are funny. And I like comedy, but the thought I had to figure out why I'm so resistant to sitting down and watching a special, and Nyree sent me a clip of someone and I was like, "Hey, would you mind putting together five comedy specials, and where they're at and tell me which ones to watch?" It's like I needed instruction.
Lauren: Sure.
Rachael: Whereas if it's a book, I'll just kind of wander into a feeling of, "This sounds good." But-
Lauren: You've honed your intuition there.
Rachael: Yes. Yeah, a comedy special is really overwhelming for me, so I'm happy to accept clips. I'm happy to go with you guys to the shows.
Lauren: But yeah, Josh mentioned something because he's blown up. They were doing an interview with Wired, I think it was on their YouTube channel, we can put it in the show notes. But he was talking about navigating social media, focusing on growth because that is the goal for most content creators, any artists who are putting their work out there. I think you'd ideally like to grow a large audience of raving fans, but he was talking about how he tries to set goals that he has some control of the outcome over. And something like hitting 5,000, 10,000 subscribers, followers. Daddy algorithm is in control.
Rachael: Daddy algorithm. Yeah.
Lauren: We can do something like post every day. So what Josh has been doing is posting one video a day for the last year, and his YouTube subscriber count has gone up like 500,000. It's nuts. He's been putting in the work. He found this kind of formula that works really well where he's doing kind of topical news stuff because adjacent to what he does at the Daily Show as well. They're longer clips, so I think the watch time helps with the algorithm. He's talking about things that are big headlines, making commentary. He's just a nice storyteller. It's not like pop, pop, pop, punchy comedy. He's just like a chill dude who is good at holding an audience's attention. And he's been doing this for 10 plus years. But yeah, the idea that setting goals where you have control over like "Can I hit this goal posting every day?" is better than saying "I want to hit a 100K of subscribers" because then you're disappointed. Of course, when you don't hit that, you're like, "Clearly, I suck." But that's not what happened. It's really kind of a crap shoot.
Rachael: Yeah.
Lauren: But like you said, did you write your newsletter every week? Amazing.
Rachael: Yeah, absolutely. I think that's such a good point and I'm going to take that as I think about my reflections for the end of 2024 and going into next year, because I think I set those more metric based goals when I was working with one of my coaches who I have appreciated that they're just trying to help me set metrics and try to reach them. But I'm more of a feelings based. And you're right, can I commit to writing my newsletter every other week? Can I commit to posting five or six days a week? Absolutely. I do those things regularly. And those will naturally cause growth of whether that's a deeper connection with my existing audience, which we've talked about. I'd rather have the followers that I have now and never gain another one if I can encourage a deeper connection and help people feel more seen and provide more value to those people that are already there.
Lauren: Yeah. And one thing I've been reminding myself of because my follower count has gone down over the years, I think algorithms change. It has nothing to do with the quality of your work. I was actually telling Kristle this the other day, one of the biggest, the most evidence I have for engagement not being a good metric to derive the value of your work from, is if you or I posted our best piece of work tomorrow and it got however many likes, I guarantee you that if the day after we posted that we were getting married, getting divorced, some huge life event, pregnant, 10 times more likes. It has nothing to do with the work. It's just like what happens to get instant engagement in the algorithm and the algorithm doesn't know the difference between a good comment, a bad comment, like an excited one.
Rachael: Oh, I mean, you can go to your explore page and get sucked in by. "I went to the dentist today, and I can't believe that they said this." And you're like, "What could they possibly have said?" And it's like, "You have a cavity." But I click on... That example didn't happen, but it's sort of like how the creator catches your attention and that's just not the type of content you and I are interested in creating. We're not trying to be like, "Hey, look it over here. Hey." We're like, "Hey, we provide value in whether it's our art or our commentary or our giggling."
Lauren: Like, "Hey, do you need a pal through your screen, like a creative pal?"
Rachael: Yeah.
Lauren: I've been trying to put together a list, and maybe this will be a good topic for the new year. But I've been trying to put together a list of almost like a 10 Commandments for myself, a framework of how I want to operate on social media.
Rachael: I love that.
Lauren: And because it's anything goes, and you see it done a million different ways. I get in my head about it a lot. I've been posting less this year than the previous years. One of the things that I'm resolute on is I want the things that I post. I will not waste my audience's time. I will not do hooks that are just going to keep you there for a second longer. I will get straight to the point, I respect you and your autonomy and I want you to be off of your phone more. And I do, but we all, of course, have things to say on the internet and they can be helpful, I just don't want to waste people's time. I
Rachael: I think that's really beautiful. And it can still be a valuable thing and a hook.
Lauren: Yes.
Rachael: Sometimes you can be like, "Here's three of my top tips." And it's like, these tips are all valuable. It's not just like-
Lauren: "Watch till the end."
Rachael: Yeah.
Lauren: Yeah.
Rachael: I don't want to... Ooh, that's so good. We definitely should talk about that every year.
Lauren: And you and I already do that. I've just been trying to extract, what have I been doing in the past that works? What do I want to tweak? One thing I was telling someone the other day is I personally absolved myself of any responsibility to respond to every comment and message. I used to. And then I realized that I actually don't like opening my phone, because I feel like I just have a bajillion messages now. And I had to accept that, "Okay, I don't scale and I'm currently not at a place where I can feel comfortable using technology to scale me replying, but I know there's plenty out there should I want to." And I tried to hire a friend to help me answer DMs.
Rachael: I remember that. Yeah.
Lauren: But then I realized it was kind of a trap because I was like, "Wait, but as my audience gets bigger, I'm going to need more customer service agents." And that just kind of felt icky. And then I had the realization, I was like, "Wait, the person who really wins is Mark Zuckerberg, if I respond to all my DMs and set that as the standard." Engagement for engagement's sake is bad.
Rachael: Yes.
Lauren: Engagement because you genuinely want to connect, good.
Rachael: Good. Yeah. I think that's such a... Ooh, I can't wait to hear more about your 10 Commandments.
Lauren: Stay tuned in January.
Rachael: Stay till the end.
Lauren: Oh, gosh.
Rachael: You won't believe what we say at minute 45, but you have to listen to the whole thing to understand the reference. No, we would never do that to you. I love the people who on YouTube when you're going and you're trying to find the one thing and then they're like, "Here's my whole backstory." And then someone in the first comment is, what you need is that one time stamp.
Lauren: Yeah.
Rachael: No, it wouldn't be 1:60, because that would be two minutes. Hello math. Time math. Anyway, I love the time stamp. But I think that's such a good point, like engagement for engagement's sake. Also, the, quote, unquote, "rules" are always changing of what's going to help you. And so the more that we can just lean into being authentic, I'm not going to be dancing on to the trending songs. I've never used the trending audio. I like using my metal songs or my punk songs, and that feels good to me. That feels more authentic than me trying to sync up audio and do a dance and whatever. That's just not... I don't want to...
That's a waste of my time, it's a waste of the audience's time. That's such a good point. And I think answering the comments used to be one thing that a lot of Instagram coaches told you to do. And yes, it is valuable to engage and connect with your community, but if you're just replying to say, "Thanks so much" because they sent you two hearts, you can just like it. You can just be like, Ooh, somebody commented. That rules.
But answering the questions. I do use some automation in my Instagram because I've found a way that feels good to me, and I know we've talked about that. I use ManyChat when I'm sharing a resource, especially a free resource that a lot of people might want, and it's just overwhelming to answer the DMs one at a time.
Lauren: Of course.
Rachael: So I say, I'm always upfront and I'm like, "Hey, if you reply with this specific word, my automated fairy, is what I've been calling it, will send you this." But it's me writing the content.
Lauren: Totally.
Rachael: It's me putting the link in. It's just saving me time.
Lauren: Yeah, it's no different than a newsletter getting blasted out.
Rachael: Yeah.
Lauren: For sure. But it's just, you, as the creator, get to decide where you want to turn that spigot on and off of what channels you're available to contact people through and be contacted through. I have a once in a while sent out newsletter and that feels good. An email inbox feels like the pace for me right now, and I've been trying to pet myself back up to get back on social media because I know it's still more helpful for me than it is a nuisance. But yeah, I think ultimately, most people who are listening to this are also feelings people like we are. And if something doesn't feel good, you're not going to want to do it. So you have to find a way to make it make sense to you and to do it in a way that feels good. It doesn't have to be that you follow the rules that everyone else does. Some people set containers where they're online certain days. Some people set containers, whether it's like, no DMs. You can turn... I have my comments limited to only people who follow me.
And I prefer it that way. I used to think that people would think that I did something wrong and that's why I limited the comments. But no, I just don't want randos that I have no shred of connection with to say mean things to me or unnecessary things. And I still do think Instagram's a nicer place than TikTok from what I've heard. It's not a bunch of 10 year olds being like, "I hate you."
Rachael: Yeah. I feel like, you sent me... I was talking to Lauren offline about how certain people have kind of messaged me in more of a maybe abrupt way. And I've answered, and I've talked about this on previous episodes where I don't just being a link or someone's Google.
Lauren: You're your own customer service rep. You get turned into a rep.
Rachael: Yeah. Someone is like, "Where did you get this link, please? Send this to me." And it's like, "Hey, I'm a person." And I'm happy to share. I'm never going to gatekeep where I got something. But if you aren't going to approach me with-
Lauren: Humanity.
Rachael: ... a shred of humanity, it wears me down. And I was kind of talking about this with Lauren and you sent me a really good-
Lauren: A little infographic.
Rachael: Yeah. Of the people who have the most access to you, obviously, your IRL core community.
Lauren: People who have your phone number.
Rachael: Yes. And then the literal last layer of that is people who follow you on the internet because, though, we have connection and we may have rapport, you don't know me and I don't know you, so it's hard for us to understand the nuance via text. I had a really lovely interaction today. I went to this ceramic studio at lunch, because I'm trying to just force myself to get back there, even if it's in small increments of time. And I was like, "I'm going to wear my headphones. I'm going to be productive." And of course, I didn't because I love to gab. And that has been such a lovely space for connecting with community. And there's a gal there that we've said hi to each other and I always was like, "I think I follow her on the internet."
And I had my headphones on and she was like, "Hey." And I took them off and I was like, "Hey." And she was like, "I have never actually introduced myself to you." And I was like, "I think we follow each other on the internet." And she was like, "I think so too." And then she introduced herself and we had such an amazing conversation. I was so boosted after going there. And right before I was about to leave, I went and I asked her, I was like, "Can you tell me what your Instagram is? I want to make sure that I am following you." And I wasn't. And I explained to her, I'm trying really hard to unfollow people who I don't know in real life because I don't feel like I should have access to your personal life if I don't know you.
And it's one thing for me to follow other influencers or people who are sharing as content creators, but if it's just a person and I'm like, "Oh, that person has cool style." I shouldn't know who your mom is or who your partner is or what you guys ate for dinner. Like that, I'm trying to navigate that sort of parasocial relationship and remove that when I have control over it. And I said that to her, because I don't want anyone to feel like, it's like I don't think you're interesting, so I don't follow you. But now that we had that lovely conversation, I was like, "Okay, I know what you do for work. I know what your pet's names are. I asked you the pinata question. We giggled about a lot of stuff. Now I feel like I'm allowed to have access."
Lauren: Yeah. It does seem like a social faux pas to not follow your friends. Or I struggle with the same thing. I found myself, even though I wasn't posting as much, I would still lurk for a while. I don't even lurk anymore because I want to experience my friends in real life. I want to have our experiences. I don't want to passively consume them. And I'm really struggling with that because half of my Instagram connections, actually a little more than half probably, are professional connections. We all got on there because we were sharing our little design projects. And then you meet people, you follow each other, blah, blah, blah. And there are some personal connections on there too. And yeah, I don't want anyone to think that I'm mad at them because I didn't like their last post or watch their story. I just, I'm not on my phone that much. And I figure if it's really important, we'll get in touch.
Rachael: And I think that that's really great. I think-
Lauren: It still doesn't feel great because I still feel like I should be supporting my friends, and with my eyeballs.
Rachael: Sure.
Lauren: But it's also a trade-off because it's like I stare at my laptop, my big screen all day for work, and I work on my medium screen, my iPad. The little screen is the one that makes me the saddest, maybe because of the body language that I have when I'm on the little screen.
Rachael: Just fully shrimping? Yeah. Or for me, it's laying in bed and it's right underneath my face.
Lauren: Oh my God. Actually, because I've been getting so into skincare YouTube, I was like, "Oh, it's probably not good if my neck's like this on my phone. Probably not good for the decolletage."
Rachael: Sure. Yeah. Got to keep that taut.
Lauren: But I think we should absolutely record an episode on this in the new year.
Rachael: Yeah, let's do it.
Lauren: I know that this episode is about reflections, and the next episode will be about not necessarily resolutions, but maybe things we want to orient ourselves towards. And I think there's nothing wrong with setting metric-based goals, but I do struggle with them a lot of times because I think as a Chaotic Creative, but also an overachiever, looking for acceptance that way by achieving my way somewhere, I tend to really white-knuckle the metric goal.
Rachael: Sure.
Lauren: And I understand why people say choose a number because then it's a tangible thing to work towards, not a feeling thing to work towards. But if it's less helpful to you, then you don't need to do that. Consistency is way more important.
Rachael: Yeah. It's just going to make you feel bad about yourself.
Lauren: Yeah. And I really resonated too with that point you made earlier about saying no to more things because it reminds me of a conversation Kristle and I had maybe last year. It was a while ago, but I thought this was a pretty apt analogy. Leaving, we've talked about that. I think we've talked about that Questlove quote about giving yourself time to hear your ideas, having downtime. Downtime and rest is really important for creativity. However, as Chaotic Creatives, we're always trying to maximize a bit and do a little bit more, not even from a professional productivity standpoint, but just like, "Can I listen to the audiobook while I do a load of laundry while I brush my teeth?" Sometimes. Sometimes I can. And the analogy was it's like when you go to a coffee shop and you order a coffee and they ask, "Would you like room for milk?" And some people say yes, some people say no. I always say no, because I just want all the coffee. But the phrase we've been using is leave room for milk in your schedule in your life.
Rachael: I love that. I think it's funny that I say no to milk because I don't want milk in my coffee.
Lauren: Why?
Rachael: But you say... Because I like black coffee.
Lauren: I thought it was because it gave you the shits.
Rachael: Oh, no. Not in that amount. Ice cream on the other hand... Anyway. But you say no to milk because you want more coffee, because you're a maximizer.
Lauren: Yeah. Sometimes I have to work against my maximize tendencies. My friend Zee is the ultimate maximizer. He will ask for beverages when we go out to restaurants and stuff with no ice. He just wants the full glass of beverage.
Rachael:
Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Oh, that's so interesting. So do you think that you would sacrifice your own personal preferences in order to maximize? Do you like milk in your coffee?
Lauren: I don't like milk in my coffee.
Rachael: Okay.
Lauren: Yeah.
Rachael: Because I could see you being like, "I like it, but I don't need it today."
Lauren: I need to extract more value. Oof. I think that I lead with my personal preferences because it's like, is the juice worth the squeeze? There is only so much juice you're going to get out of the lemon before it's just all pith water. So yeah. But if possible, I do like to get a little bit more out of something.
Rachael: Sure. And I think that's really lovely.
Lauren: It works. It's wonderful in so many ways, but I think this is where, as Chaotic Creatives, just self-awareness comes into play where you need to know that's your tendency and take a beat before you make your decision and say, "Am I doing this? Because I just want to maximize the value out of this or squeeze an extra drop. Or is this actually helpful to me?" So for example, I think a lot of people can relate to this. It's like hoarding art supplies where you pick up those boards that you saw on the side of the street and you're like, "Oh, I'm totally going to upcycle these." They sit in your garage for six months and then a year and then two years, and then you're like, "I got to get rid of these boards." It's just knowing, it's the urge to pick up the street junk that we have to say-
Rachael: Do you have a plan for this right now?
Lauren: Right now. Right now. It's not grocery shopping for stocking your pantry for the far, far future. But buy what you need, you can always go back.
Rachael: You can always go back.
Lauren: Yeah.
Rachael: Yeah. I think you talking about leaving room for milk in your schedule reminded me that one of my goals for this past year was also to build rest and creative play time into my schedule. And I failed at building it in. I fit it in how I normally would, but I did not dedicate calendar time to it. And I think that's something that I would like to do into the new year. So yeah, I think we touched on it a little bit. It's probably time for us to wrap up. I think my favorite part about having these goals and doing this end of year reflection is being able to recognize what's not working for me and assigning a reason for that.
Okay. YouTube isn't going to be the thing that I grow more aggressively because it doesn't light me up as much as writing my newsletter does. But can I maybe instead pivot or enhance this other sort of avenue of my creativity in the newsletter, do more writing and commit to doing that better or more consistently or something? And I think those are the types of goal setting and reflections that I like to do. And maybe when we talk about the 10 Commandments of creating content in the new year episode, we could also talk about any goals.
Lauren: Yeah. After we've digested these reflections.
Rachael: Yeah.
Lauren: Because I didn't really come into 2024 with any specific goals other than continue the healing process from my breakup on a personal level and figure out what my life looks like when it's just me, really getting in tune with what I want. And then professionally, my goal was, "Okay, I'm going to get back to Detroit and just jump back on the bandwagon. We pressed pause and now I'm back and we're going to hit the ground running." And for a myriad of reasons that I legally cannot talk about at the moment, as of this recording, that didn't happen.
Rachael: Yeah. You talked about slow creative work and some of the other things in previous episodes.
Lauren: It got thrown off for, again, we talked about things that are outside of your control. I didn't realize that this was so outside of my control. However, work was a little slower and weirder. And now finally in Q4 of 2024, I feel like I've finally gotten the reins back and I'm in the process of really getting it back on track. This whole year has felt just kind of a waiting period of what is happening. I felt like I was floating. And there were still lots of little moments of joy and fun and creative inspiration.
Rachael: Of course.
Lauren: But I think that sometimes I look back at my early career and I had just had so much resolution about, "I want this and I'm going to go for it." And at 33 now, 10 years later, I'm just kind of like I'm good with whatever. But that's not really helpful. And I think through trial and error and dipping your toes in the water of things are the only way you figure out what you want to do.
Rachael: Yeah. And I think the older we get, and we talked about values in a previous episode, we come to value different things. When we're at 20 and eager and hungry for success and whatever that looks like in our little-
Lauren: Horny for success.
Rachael: Horny for success. And I think the older I get, at least, the more I want a balanced kind of slower life, and so I'm not willing to hustle as much as I used to. I still do.
Lauren: I try to gaslight myself into hustling.
Rachael: Yeah. I think, yeah, I'm not willing to prioritize just the hustle anymore because I recognize how important rest and play are to me. Yeah. I think I'm really excited to reflect on, do a deeper reflection because we kind of just hopped right into this, and so this is off the cuff. But I think, also giving ourselves the grace of, it doesn't even have to be looking at a year. One of the things that I added to my ongoing notion template that has my goals in it is things that I accomplished that weren't on the goals list. Because it's giving myself the flowers. Okay, yeah, you didn't grow your YouTube but you did this instead. And that's really cool. You started a podcast and now you're in season two, and that's awesome. And we should be proud of those things that, we shouldn't see things that could potentially be viewed as detours, as detracting from our goals. It's just that we're taking a different path to get there.
Lauren: Yeah. It reminds me of the advice that's given a lot of times of, we probably even said it ourselves, nothing is ever a waste of time. Anything that you were attracted to, wanted to try, even if it is a detour or a side quest, and I'm really saying this to try to validate myself too of, taking a big side quest, going to culinary school because that just seemed like something I'd like to do. Even though I didn't have a specific career outcome attached to it. I think that we should, it's so rare to give yourself the gift of doing something you want to do just because.
We talk about how playful we were as kids, just kind of trying anything and everything and approaching things with an awe and wonder that once we learned the rules and grow up, it becomes increasingly harder to do that. And I think that, yeah, one thing that we can all be proud of ourselves of is nothing is ever a waste of time. If you tried it, you probably learned something. We talk about this in a career sense too a lot of times. Our parents will say this, where every skill that you have from a previous job, all skills are transferable.
Rachael: Oh, absolutely.
Lauren: All skills are transferable. And you might not see the vision or the path for them yet, but you never know when you're going to dip into your toolbox a couple of years later.
Rachael: For sure.
Lauren: Because one thing that was quite delightful for me this year was, in all of the chaos that ensued professionally, my dormant student body president that lies asleep within me just bloomed. She fucking bloomed. She's back.
Rachael: Tell me more.
Lauren: I am... So if anyone is a Myers-Briggs person, I'm an ENFP, which means I'm a campaigner. I'm a good organizer. I'm good at getting the friend groups together. I'm good at planning. It's very eldest child energy. And it means that you are like, what's the word? You can inspire a crowd. You can get the people riled up. And so when the alarm bells started kind of going off in my head of like, "Okay, something's weird with my business." I started contacting other artists being like, "Hey, is this going on? What's going on?" And I ended up organizing a group of us together and that's how we solved the problem.
And even though it's been a very tumultuous year, I was really proud of myself for like, oh yeah, I forgot that intuitively inside of me is a take action person. And not just like a, "How can I get the most coffee in this cup?" person. My natural demeanor and skillset is actually quite useful for rallying people together and can be used to actually get shit done, which was very invigorating for me because I felt like I hadn't gotten much shit done for the previous six months of the year.
Rachael: And that feels so good. On a much smaller-
Lauren: It's like a shot of caffeine to my self-esteem.
Rachael: Yeah. I feel like on a much smaller scale, because my sort of summer travels are over and I've started kind of addressing my personal to-do list for the fall, I have been like, "Okay, this weekend I'm getting these five things done professionally with respect to updating courses or doing this or doing that." And I feel so good when I'm like, "All right, you need to bully yourself into getting this done." And I do, and it's not really bullying, but it's not allowing my-
Lauren: You're parenting yourself into doing it.
Rachael: Yeah, there we go. But truly organizing myself, basically. I know I have taken that test several times and it's changed over the years, which makes sense.
Lauren: Really, mine's never changed.
Rachael: Oh.
Lauren: Yeah. Tom and I used to take it every year to see if it would change.
Rachael: Yeah. Oh, I have had, every time I've taken it, it's been different. And I think it's because I'm more self-aware and self-reflective and honest with myself about the answers. I thought I was being honest when I was like-
Lauren: Are you this kind of person?
Rachael: Yeah. I can't remember what the latest one is.
Lauren: Oh my God, we need to link the 'What Vegetable Are You?' quiz.
Rachael: Yeah.
Lauren: That Kristle sent me. That Kristle's sibling, Mars sent to Kristle. It's so charming. If anyone is a fan of personality tests, this is like a silly little one.
Rachael: I loved it.
Lauren: It was just so whimsical and simple, but it was... I don't know. I think it just is going to resonate with the Chaotic Creatives.
Rachael: Yeah. I want to make one. We should make one with our version of the questions.
Lauren: And you and I got the same vegetable.
Rachael: We did, which surprised me.
Lauren: I know.
Rachael: Yeah.
Lauren: I know.
Rachael: But maybe it's because we can both rally and get shit done.
Lauren: Yes. And if you want to know what vegetable we are, you have to DM us on Instagram.
Rachael: Yeah.
Lauren: You have to DM the Chaotic Creatives Instagram, which is mostly Rachael.
Rachael: Yeah, that's okay.
Lauren: That'll be our little thing. Do the vegetable test. It's so delightful. And then share it with your friends and see what vegetables you get.
Rachael: Because vegetables is the perfect way to describe that.
Lauren: Yeah.
Rachael: Okay. I feel like on that note, we can start to wrap up. What are you working on? Excited about?
Lauren: Ooh.
Rachael: If anything?
Lauren: I'm excited about sending an invoice right after we wrap.
Rachael: Love that.
Lauren: Got to get paid for a project.
Rachael: She's like, "No milk today."
Lauren: Actually, I did have my milk this morning. I went... When Kristle was driving in, she pulled into the driveway as I was walking up to it and she was like, "What are you doing outside? Yeah, you're supposed to be inside."
Rachael: I think you're an indoor cat. And I love that.
Lauren: Since the weather's turning and leaves are yellowing, falling off of trees, my foraging season-
Rachael: I was just going to say that. This is for a reason.
Lauren: ... is at its tail end. And so I was walking back with a bucket of crab apples. There's a bunch of crab apple trees around this neighborhood, and I was just picking them and I made some crab apple jelly. If anyone has crab apples growing near them, they're very high in pectin, which makes them gel up without any gelatin.
Rachael: Oh, you don't have to add any.
Lauren: No, they're naturally high in pectin. So are grapes, which is I think how grape jelly became a thing. Don't quote me on that. That's my hypothesis. Yeah. So I just boiled a bunch of apples and made crab apple jelly, and I think I'm going to strain the rest of it to make applesauce too.
Rachael: Cool.
Lauren: I might actually go out after this and get another bucket of free crab apples.
Rachael: Okay.
Lauren: I'm always afraid the cops are going to pull me over. Being like, "This woman's stealing apples that are going to fall off the tree in a week."
Rachael: Yeah.
Lauren: I'll put up a fight. I'm going to rely on you two to bail me out if anything happens.
Rachael: Yeah, we will. For sure.
Lauren: Thank you.
Rachael: Because after we recorded an episode a few weeks ago, you had a literal sack of something hanging from a cabinet to drip whatever out, because you explained that process to me, a couple of weeks later, my mom was like, "I'm making grape jelly." And I was like, "Oh, I understand the process now." And she did. She made grape jelly and she was going to bring me some... Because my mom just visited, but she's never been super clear on the TSA rules. And I was like, "You're just taking a carry-on. Don't waste the space with the jelly. It's got to be under three ounces. Just don't do it." So I did not get to try it, but perhaps I will over the holidays.
Lauren: I see. But jelly is all that I'm working on. I don't consider myself a big control freak, but it does feel nice to have some semblance of stable footing.
Rachael: Stability.
Lauren: Yeah. And it's not quite there yet, because it's literally only been two months.
Rachael: But again, thinking about... I know I mentioned, like I set these goals for myself and my business, and I really only started Rachael Renae as a business like a couple of years ago. And you were talking about the comedian... Is it your friend or you just know him? The comedian?
Lauren: Oh. No, I wish I was friends with Josh Johnson.
Rachael: Okay.
Lauren: Call me.
Rachael: Call me.
But I think you mentioned him having worked for 10 years before he blew up. And I think it's important to recognize that we often, in the internet age, see success as overnight, but we don't see the background of work and the years of work. And so you have 10 successful years behind you, and this one tumultuous year feels like it's the end of the world. But of course, you have the capabilities to get back on track, find that stable footing. It might look a little bit different. It is looking a little bit different. And same thing with me, not achieving some of my business goals, like I did other things. I'm growing it. I'm still just doing it in my spare time.
Lauren: Yeah. Which is commendable.
Rachael: Yeah, thank you. It feels like, okay, we can put our heads down and work toward these goals, but also making sure that we take a step back and be like, "Oh, in this five-year scheme of things, we're doing pretty good. This rules." So-
Lauren: Yeah. At the end of the day, it is all work. And I think one of the core tenets of this podcast is let's try to do more of the work that feels like play. Because everything is labor. We're putting our time and our energy and our even just mental energy into things. And so let's make sure that it's worth it to us and that we're engaged in it. And if we're no longer engaged in it, we can pivot. We're in the driver's seat. But yeah, I mean, you working on your business on the side, because you feel the conviction for it, that's what drives you.
And it actually reminds me of another thing that Josh said in this interview. We'll definitely link this. He, I think, in the written interview was talking about, he went to school for theater lighting design, not even performing arts. And they were asking him, "How did you decide to make the jump to comedy as a career?" And he was like, "Well, I grew up poor in Louisiana. And I realized that I pursued arts and was passionate about that. And then I found comedy and was also passionate about that." He was like, "I realized that you could be poor doing anything. And so I'd rather be poor doing comedy."
Rachael: I love that.
Lauren: And I think what that really speaks to is, is the time spent worth it to you?
Rachael: Is it fulfilling?
Lauren: Regardless of the outcome. Because so many people are attached to, I want the outcome of success in my craft. But are you willing to put in the hours to get there? Because it's a slog. Kristle and I went to go see Sheng Wang recently, and on stage, I didn't know this because he's Asian and ageless. He was like, "I've been doing this for 22 years." And he's just now doing theaters, Royal Oak Music Theatre, like mid-size theaters. But he's like, "I'm so grateful to be here. This is what I love doing. And I went from doing comedy in the back of sex toy shops and now I'm doing theater and this is incredible." And he did this super weird, hilarious thing where he opened the set by saying that and then saying, "I want to thank each and every one of you" with direct eye contact and just stared around the room.
Rachael: I'm obsessed with that.
Lauren: Yeah.
Rachael: That's so good. Yeah, I think, it's just an example of, we always ask like, "If money were no object, what would you do? How would you spend your time?" But then it's so easy to get sucked into like, "Oh, I can make money doing this." I find myself doing it a lot with my stationary business and thinking like, "Oh, well, I could just make a print or a sticker or something and sell that." And then I'm like, "You are doing that because you want to make money. Not because-"
Lauren: It's a good catch.
Rachael: Yeah. Or doing a sale of my stationary stuff. I do like making things, but I don't want that to be... I accidentally logged into my old Instagram, my stationary business Instagram. I had a bunch of messages of people asking me to be a vendor, because I never go on there. Now I'm on Rachael Renae and the Chaotic Creatives one. Those are the messages that I'm answering. And I had this urge to be like, "Ooh, I could sell some of my old stuff." And then it was like, "No, girlfriend."
Lauren: A little maximizer.
Rachael: "You don't like doing this. It's very draining for you to go do an event. Don't do it." And I had to catch myself.
Lauren: That's smart. But then at the same time, when we talked about all skills being transferable, when you do feel that pull of like, "Oh hell, yeah. I really want to make this." Like your hats.
Rachael: Oh yeah.
Lauren: You have the skillset of the vendors, how to produce it, how to ship it. That is on autopilot for you in a way that it is not for me because I don't sell physical products.
Rachael: Exactly. Yeah. No education is ever wasted. That's one of the things-
Lauren: You get to whip it out when you want to.
Rachael: Yeah. That's one of the first things my therapist told me. Because I was talking about, "Oh, what if I want to be a creative? And I have a master's degree." And she was like, "No matter what happens, no education is wasted." And that has stayed with me. I have said a couple of times, let's wrap this up and then we're just gathering.
Lauren: Sorry.
Rachael: No, no, no. It's okay.
Lauren: I'm eating a cookie now, so we should wrap it up.
Rachael: Okay.
Lauren: Cool.
Rachael: Wait, first tell me how the cookies are. I made these cookies.
Lauren: You are correct. They are not very sweet. I don't mind.
Rachael: They're still good. I'm still eating them as if I've never eaten. But I had four of them for breakfast with my coffee this morning, because it's oatmeal.
Lauren: Yeah.
Rachael: Yeah.
Lauren: They're good.
Rachael: They're good. They're just like, I prefer a sweeter cookie.
Lauren: I think because they're chocolate too, it helps. Because chocolate, I like dark chocolate. So it's registering as a dark chocolate oatmeal muffin cookie.
Rachael: Okay. All right.
Lauren: But if you ate the ones I made, they'd probably taste way too sweet compared to those.
Rachael: Oh, I'm for sure going to have one.
Lauren: They're really good.
Rachael: That's kind of what I've been surprisingly into is this weekend, I made two different soups and froze some and have some for me to eat this week. I had a craving for sweets, and so I found this cookie recipe. Also, a couple of years ago, I did this nutritional therapy course called-
Lauren: You mentioned.
Rachael: "Root Cause Reset" just to kind of deal with some inflammation and gut shit. And I'm internet pals with Dianne who runs the course. She's a nutritional therapist and she's like funny and sassy and I love her. And I messaged her and I was like, "I'm sure you've posted this in a Root Cause Reset reference, but did you ever share a pumpkin spice coffee recipe?" And she linked it to me. And so I made pumpkin spice syrup and then have been making these, I guess, not healthy. Well, kind of. It's like pumpkin. There's a little bit of maple syrup and vanilla in there, and then pumpkin pie spices. And then you mix some of that syrup with coconut milk and your coffee and collagen. And that's what I'm drinking right now.
Lauren: Kind of like a health tonic of sorts.
Rachael: Yeah. Just like a better for you coffee. And I won't spend money at Starbucks, so-
Lauren: There you go.
Rachael: Yeah. BDS.
Lauren: BDS, baby.
Rachael: Yep. So anyway. Who would've thought that Rachael would be excited about cooking, baking, whatever?
Lauren: I love seeing when you're doing a little cooking meal prep on Instagram.
Rachael: It's kind of like, every once in a while, I get a little burst.
Lauren: Got to get a burst. Yeah.
Rachael: You're talking. I sent Lauren a voice message and I was like, "Okay, be honest. Do you think I can keep sourdough alive? And can I have some of your starter when you do discard?" And she was like, "Yes, you can have some, but I don't think you can keep it alive." And I really appreciate that honesty because you're right.
Lauren: But you will be taking some after this and just give it a shot.
Rachael: Okay.
Lauren: I have some for you. I fed it. It's ready to go.
Rachael: I need full instructions.
Lauren: Maybe naming it will help. Actually, that might be more devastating if it does.
Rachael: Yeah.
Lauren: I'll give you instructions. There's a way to do it, like lazy girl style.
Rachael: Okay. Sick. That's me.
Lauren: Yeah.
Rachael: And then to finally wrap up, I am really excited because when my mom was here this weekend, we had just slow mornings and she sleeps a little bit later than me because the cats get me up really early to feed them. And so I sat and had my little pumpkin spice bev at the kitchen table with my quilt books and made a plan for a quilt that I'm going to gift to someone that I care about. And I'm really excited about it. Yeah.
Lauren: Sorry, I know the insider information.
Rachael: Yeah. So I think that that is going to be really fun and I would like to work on that.
So this is it for 2024 Chaotic Creatives.
Lauren: We made it.
Rachael: Happy New Year. See you in '25.
Lauren: Happy New Year. Bye.
Rachael: Bye.