Lauren and Rachael discuss the importance of managing expectations throughout the creative process and journey. As artists, we can’t help but to dream big and plan accordingly; BUT leaving space for unexpected twists and turns can allow us to better enjoy the process and tap into our playfulness. There is so much to gain when we embrace the detours that often occur on the path to where we really want to be. We hope this discussion allows you, dear listener, to be less hard on yourself and develop a healthier relationship with your creative practice.
Lauren and Rachael discuss the importance of managing expectations throughout the creative process and journey. As artists, we can’t help but to dream big and plan accordingly; BUT leaving space for unexpected twists and turns can allow us to better enjoy the process and tap into our playfulness. There is so much to gain when we embrace the detours that often occur on the path to where we really want to be. We hope this discussion allows you, dear listener, to be less hard on yourself and develop a healthier relationship with your creative practice.
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The transcript for this episode can be found here!
Rachael: This episode is sponsored by DRESS FOR YOURSELF, a three-part style course by me, Rachael Renae. In DRESS FOR YOURSELF, I share how exploring my personal style helped me to show up as my authentic self. And in the course, you'll learn how to use personal style to build confidence, how to define your personal style, and how to incorporate play into your wardrobe. Visit rachaelrenae.com. That's rachaelrenae.com/stylecourse to sign up.
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Lauren: Hello, and welcome to Chaotic Creatives, the show about embracing the chaos that comes with living a creative life.
Rachael: We are your hosts, who self-proclaimed chaotic creatives. I'm Rachael Renae. I'm an artist, your creativity coach, and I guess your creativity coach, sure, and your internet hype gal.
Lauren: Hell yeah. And I am Lauren Hom, better known as Hom Sweet Hom all over the internet. I am a designer, lettering artist, muralist, and, most recently, chef.
Rachael: Amazing. How long is the “most recently” going to stay in there?
Lauren: How long am I allowed to use it? I mean, it is technically until I add a new thing.
Rachael: Yeah.
Lauren: It'll factually be most recently of my-
Rachael: Of your titles?
Lauren: Yeah.
Rachael: Okay. I just want you to claim it.
Lauren: Ooh.
Rachael: I just want you to say, "... and chef."
Lauren: Yeah, ooh. Okay, episode four. It's coming. I'm going to do it.
Rachael: Okay. Please challenge me in my titles too. Not you don't have to do it in this moment, but just-
Lauren: Let's fucking fight. Tell me why you hate me.
Rachael: Oh my God. Remember when I made you say, "Why you love me," on an episode?
Lauren: We have a debate brah episode.
Rachael: Yeah. We got to put on our most FinTech brah kind of outfits, and debate each other on crypto.
Lauren: We have to bring up a-
Rachael: I would've to do so much research to be able to even have an argument.
Lauren: Well, that's the thing. You have to come with your research. You have to state your research.
Rachael: Yeah, okay. Maybe that's how we end season three.
Lauren: And then I have to challenge your research.
Rachael: Yeah. We didn't have a debate in my high school.
Lauren: We did, but I didn't participate.
Rachael: Yeah. You were on the mathletes, though.
Lauren: Yes, in elementary school, middle school. I can't remember.
Rachael: Okay.
Lauren: Yeah.
Rachael: Okay.
Lauren: Yeah, spelling bee and math.
Rachael: Yeah.
Lauren: Mm-hmm.
Rachael: Love that, love that for you. That kind of ties into expectations. If you were a spelling bee champion and good at math when you were a kid, how did that transfer into high school, and what those expectations were? That's what we're talking about today, is kind of expectations, and how to manage them in terms of creativity and creative practice, but also in life. Right?
Lauren: I'm sorry, I'm laughing because-
Rachael: My segue was so good.
Lauren: It was so good. But have I ever shared the story of what happened when I lost the spelling bee?
Rachael: No.
Lauren: Oh, God.
Rachael: You've only ever talked about your championship reign.
Lauren: Okay. Well, tying into last episode, I think it's imperative that I share this story about my childhood.
Rachael: Okay. Is dad going to play a role in this?
Lauren: Maybe. Okay. So, we are talking about expectations, and how setting too high of expectations for your creative project's outcome can rob you of the enjoyment of the experience of creating said projects. I think it's an experience that a lot of chaotic creatives can relate to. But when I was in elementary school, we had a spelling bee for third, fourth, and fifth graders. I won the third grade spelling bee. I won the fourth grade spelling bee. So, guess what I thought was going to happen, and what everyone else thought was going to happen, which was extra bad for the fifth grade spelling bee.
Rachael: Did you not win?
Lauren: I did not even qualify.
Rachael: She lost her edge.
Lauren: I got knocked out in the preliminary round, didn't even make it to the finals. My dad and I would study so hard, he'd quiz me on all the words. It was a little nerdy bonding thing. We'd go on walks, and he would just quiz me with lists of words.
Rachael: Love that, multi-tasking.
Lauren: To be honest, I loved it. And yeah, I liked winning. I like a little competition, but I definitely didn't like losing. But it was definitely my first taste of a big personal loss, expectations, and the not meeting them. And then publicly, because you went one, you went two, you're like, "Oh, I'm going to get the trifecta."
Rachael: In the bag, yeah.
Lauren: Yeah, just the school expectations too, because it was so public.
Rachael: Mm-hmm. Though, this was not just in your school. This was more than one school?
Lauren: No, just our school, but still my peers.
Rachael: Your fifth-grade peers judging you. Yeah. I imagine them all with little suits on in their clipboards. The fifth graders are the ones judging you.
Lauren: In the early rounds, one of the words that I got was just a word I did not know and hadn't studied. I got eliminated by the word "parliament," which has that sneaky "ia" in there. What 11-year-old knows that?
Rachael: I don't know that I knew that.
Lauren: One that's smoking parliaments.
Rachael: Yeah, yeah.
Lauren: And so, I got eliminated, and I was just shocked. I was so emotionally distraught. I don't quite remember it. This is a long time ago.
Rachael: Yeah, you bucked it out of your brain.
Lauren: I went home for the rest of the day from school. And my parents bought me a giant stuffed animal to console me.
Rachael: That's sweet.
Lauren: And my friends consoled me the next day, and everyone around me was telling me it was fine. But it was the internal, I think, disappointment that hurt the most, and obviously lived, tell the tale, survived it, and those are necessary things.
Rachael: She's a spelling bee failing survivor.
Lauren: But hopefully, any chaotic overachievers can relate to that story.
Rachael: Oh, absolutely. I think that that tracks with so many aspects of my life. Maybe not in a formal spelling bee championship setting, but where I was good at something, and so I expected to be good at something else, and when that didn't happen, I let it destroy me.
Lauren: Yeah, because your mental, your self-talk gets really bad.
Rachael: Yeah.
Lauren: Yeah.
Rachael: For the listeners, I just did therapy in my car before we started recording. We're actually talking about self-talk and the difference between self-confidence and self-esteem. Did we talk about this on the last episode?
Lauren: No.
Rachael: Okay. I've been thinking about it a lot, because one of my friends did a meditation, or listened to a podcast, or something where they were comparing the two. And self-confidence is kind of like... How my therapist described it was really good. It's like, if you are a house, your self-esteem is the foundation. It's like what is core and important to be able to get anything else. And your self-confidence is your identity, it's the rooms in the house. So, that's more fluid and changing, like you just added chef to your title recently. I change my titles all the time. Whatever we identify with in that moment, whether it's chaotic creative, creativity coach, or artists, whatever, those things can change as we evolve. But our self-esteem, the foundation of who we are, doesn't change much. And so, that has to be strong in order for the other things to be able to develop.
But if I didn't know that those two were so separate, and my friend asked me the other day, she was like, "Do you know the difference between self-esteem and self-confidence?" I feel like I have a lot of self-confidence in my identity and who I am, but some core wounding in self-esteem, which, of course, a lot of people do, it's why I go to therapy, and it's very human to have that. But how my therapist described it was like, if you aren't working on the self-esteem, your house is upside down. The rooms of the identity are what's holding you up. And that's not as stable as the foundational self-esteem.
So, relating it to the overachieving part, I think that a lot of people like us, who are perhaps overachievers or used to achieving what we set out to do, your confidence in your ability to achieve something. And then what my friend said esteem was, because I'm mixing now what my friend said and what my therapist said, is your perception of self. So, I think I tie a lot of my achievements to my self-worth, which isn't good necessarily. So, when chaotic creatives are putting the pressure on the achievements, and expecting that we're going to win the spelling bee every year, it hits harder when we don't.
And so, we're talking about expectations today. We didn't plan to talk about other of those stories to begin, but the reason we're talking about expectations is because I went on a date yesterday, and I filled Lauren in. And how I've historically approached dating is like, "Does this person have potential to be a long-term partner? Can I build my life with this person? Do they have the characteristics that I'm looking for to match me and my future life that I'm building in my head?" But that's so much pressure that I'm putting on this stranger, first of all. And how we interact with different people, it's different with every person based on our own unique expressions of self.
So, what I was saying to Lauren is, I have to approach this as, "This is just a guy. It's just a guy." Those are my expectations. I'm just meeting somebody, and then we're going to talk, and I'm going to see how I feel. I don't need to be thinking about, "How can we merge our lives together? How does that schedule work with this schedule? And how do we inspire each other, and how do we communicate our problems? Because what if I don't even... What if he smells?" He didn't, he smelled great.
But there are so many things that I'm projecting out, and so my expectations are sky-high. So, this was a personal challenge in removing as much as I could, expectations, and just having a fun time, and I did. And now, I'm noticing that I'm not projecting or worrying about, "Okay, what's next? Now, how do we have this second date, so that we can make another?" I'm just like, "It's just a guy." And so, when I was talking to Lauren about this, you brought up the example of relating this to a passion project, which if you haven't listened to it, we did compare dating to creativity in a past episode, in season one or season two? Two, we were on the bench.
Lauren: Yeah, on your favorite uncomfortable bench. I'm glad we gave it a try.
Rachael: We did.
Lauren: Yes.
Rachael: It was fun. And now, we're back in our seats.
Lauren: It was great. But I think, yeah, we did an episode about how a lot of relationship advice is applicable to creative work. And creative advice and relationship advice are very similar, because, similar to a relationship with another person, we have relationships to our creative work. And so, when we were talking about your date, I was like, "This is such an interesting conversation. How can we bring this into creativity?" And I related it to, when we put expectations on our creative projects, especially as adults, we're both in our mid-30s. And yes, it's nice to hear about stories of children love to play, and they create just for fun. But we're not five, we're in our mid-30s, and we pay bills, and we know too much to have no expectations whatsoever.
And I think that in the modern day and age, we're also exposed to way too much, that we will have expectations to some extent. And we talked about, before this episode going into it, we want to talk about managing those expectations, not getting rid of them completely, because I don't think that's realistic, but just contending with, "Hey, how do we manage our expectations in a way that makes this more enjoyable?" Because, ultimately, we want to enjoy our creative work more if we're going to... There's a lot of angst that comes with being creative, and we want to make it as enjoyable as possible, or at least not get in our own way.
Rachael: Right. And I think one of the things that the fellow chaotic creatives can probably relate to is that, because we live in a capitalist economy and culture where we all are trying to make money and maximize, we have a tendency to try something, like it when we're doing it as play, and then immediately think, "Okay, how can I monetize this?" And so, then, that is so much pressure that we immediately put on this creative practice.
And I know I've talked about it in several other episodes, but that's what my ceramics journey was. I started it as a practice and being bad at something, and trying something new, and working with my hands, and unplugging from the digital world. I loved it, and then I was like, "Oh, well, I already run a product-based business. I might as well sell this too." Completely changed my practice. I was forcing myself to be more of a production potter, and that wasn't fun.
The thing that I enjoy about ceramics is the experimentation, the play, and not having a plan. And I might have the framework of an idea, and the process of figuring out how to get there is the fun. But as soon as I put expectations on, like, "I need to produce this because of this deadline," or, "I pre-sold this," or, "I promised this," or, "I have a market," it changes my relationship with that practice. Just like me thinking about, "Okay, I need to go on this date so that I can find a partner," that changes my relationship with my approach to the date, instead of just, like, you've talked about networking, how we should approach networking, is just making friends.
Lauren: We've talked about this so many times throughout this podcast, but monetizing your creative hobby is maybe the perfect example of putting an expectation on your work. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but when you do it way too early or in the process, it can put too much pressure on your creative practice, where you actually start to not enjoy it anymore.
And I'm speaking as someone who did monetize lettering, which was a hobby for a while, and then it became my full-time thing. And so, it doesn't ruin it. I wanted to spell that myth, but it does change it. And I think the experience you share, just like a really common one, especially for something that is, if you're a maker and you're doing one of ones and making things by hand, there's just a real constraint on how many things you can make. And like you were saying too, in a capitalist society, in a market, you have to charge adequately for your goods and services. And it usually is either people are unwilling to pay that high price, or you need to produce a lot at a lower price, and it can become a bit of a slog.
Rachael: You're basically exploiting yourself by not charging for your time. Sure, maybe you're recouping the cost of the materials, but how much time went into that? And that is what capitalism is all about.
Lauren: Yeah. And I really commend you for having the inkling and giving it a try, and then knowing yourself well enough to be like, "All right, I got to reel it back."
Rachael: Yeah. How I'm talking about it, it sounds like it happened so succinctly and clearly, but there was a lot of angst, and sort of just frustration and restriction that I was feeling. Agitation is probably the best word, and I couldn't articulate why, but it was also at the time where I was like, I knew I needed a change from my stationary business, and I thought adding a new product type in the ceramics gave me a new way to play, but instead, I just didn't want to run a product-based business anymore.
And then because I stopped the stationary business, I stopped ceramics too, because I was like, "Well, I don't have a platform. I mean, I do, but I don't want to sell stuff." But then when my current studio opened, I was like, "Actually, I do miss making things out of clay." And I've been very intentional about not producing things with the intention to sell, and it feels great. People ask me, "Are you doing any markets?" And I'm like, "No, I'll attend." I'll be a guest, like a patron of the other people making stuff, but it just doesn't fulfill me in that way. Ceramics needs to be, I think, more about the journey, the creative play, and my exploration of ideas, and that's how it's best suited for me.
Lauren: Oh, yeah, 100%. That's what it is for me too, because I've never sold a single ceramic thing, because I'm so damn slow at it, and the kind of hand-building that I do just takes way too long. I have to charge thousands of dollars.
Rachael: So beautiful, though.
Lauren: Thank you.
Rachael: Yeah.
Lauren: But I have so much fun doing it. So, I think it's important to add context to what we're saying. I am a full-time designer, letterer, illustrator, so that's my source of income. And then you have a full-time job, and so we're able to not monetize those creative hobbies. And so, everyone has the work that sustains them financially. And then once you have that, you have a little bit more wiggle room with the ability to choose to monetize or not monetize other things.
There are plenty of people who have a full-time job, who do sell at markets on the weekends, and that is enjoyable for them. And you have to come to your own conclusions about those things. After culinary school, I've dabbled with ways to make money with food. I still haven't landed on one that feels sustainable for me, which is why I'm still doing design. I still like design. I think that it's worth trying out, seeing how it goes, and figuring out what parts you like, what parts you don't like.
But I think, yeah, monetizing your work oftentimes puts a very clear expectation, especially if you are monetizing your work in a way where you expect it to create a certain amount of income for you. When people quit their full-time job to go freelance, for example, that oftentimes can be a quick road to burnout, unless you've clearly and methodically laid out a plan for yourself, or saved up a lot of money ahead of time, which I always recommend doing. When I quit my job to go freelance with lettering, I did that slowly over a year, but I had been building up my freelance lettering business for years before that. And so, I think that's an important context to add, because I don't know anyone who just quit their job overnight to pursue their passion.
Rachael: And it seems that way when we see it online.
Lauren: Totally.
Rachael: And I remember a couple years into starting my stationary business, and I have had a full-time job the whole time in addition. And my goal when I started my stationary business was to build it up enough to sustain me. And I remember I paid for this big trade show, boot camp thing. I flew to LA and went to this workshop, and it's like what I asked everyone. Any networking, any lunch that we had, I was like, "When did you quit your job? How did you know you were ready?" And so many people, and I was probably like, what? 25, 26. So, I was like, I just want them to say, "Quit it now. You'll figure it out." And everyone said, "Don't quit until you have to. Work your job as long as you can." And now, as someone who has always had that full-time job and has reeled back monetizing my creative hobbies, I'm getting so much more fulfillment out of the creative practices, because I'm not putting that pressure on it.
And so, I remember one of my exes, I asked him that question too, I love to ask people that question. And he said that he was doing his extra work, his creative work on the side, and then he had his day job. And his creative work was taking up so much of his time that it was like one thing had to give. And I had never hit that point with stationery. I always still maintained a social life, and definitely didn't have enough money to quit and sustain myself. But I romanticized the idea of being a creative business owner, and put that pressure on all of my creative energy to produce products, and then I was just burnt out in a different way.
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Lauren: Hi. You know how we're always yapping on this podcast about trying new things in your creative business? This episode is brought to you by one of my creative experiments, my Mural Mockups. You get 10 high-resolution Photoshop mockups, with easy-to-edit smart objects, which, in non-creative dorkspeak, means that you can drag your drawing into the mockup, and it'll instantly make your art look like a mural on a real wall. Pretty cool, right?
Fun fact, Kristle, who you all know and love as the editor of this podcast, shot all of the photos for these mockups, so I love that. These mockups are perfect for muralists and aspiring muralists who want to shorten the time it takes them to add mural images to their portfolios, and present their work to clients. You can head to homsweethom.com/mural-mockups, or the link in the episode description, to check them out. Okay, now back to the show.
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Rachael: Do you want to talk about how you started lettering with low expectations?
Lauren: Oh, yeah, just to give some, I guess, backstory. I don't know how replicable this is, but when we first started talking about the idea for this episode, I was reflecting on-
Rachael: The Just-a-Guy episode.
Lauren: Yeah, the Just-a-Guy episode. I was reflecting on how, when I first got into lettering, I was studying advertising in school. And so, the pressure I put on my ad portfolio versus lettering as a hobby, which was just something to like, I wasn't drawing much in the advertising program. And so, I was like, "Oh, this is just a fun thing." And so, the way I was able to play, ideate, and the lightness that I moved with with lettering, versus the banging my head against a wall, like, "Got to come up with a good idea for my ad portfolio," was just night and day.
And I picked up lettering halfway through school, like the 50% mark. And it's not like my school even had a type major, lettering major. And so, I finished the ad program, got a job in advertising, but I had started my daily dishonesty blog, which was just a hand-lettering project, where I was lettering all the little white lies that my 21-year-old girlfriends and I were telling ourselves. But that was a Tumblr blog that I was just posting my lettering work to. And that blew up on the internet in 2011, which is a different era of internet too, which is, I'm so nostalgic for it, but I'm like, "It's in the past, it's gone," which is nuts.
Rachael: Manage your expectations about the internet.
Lauren: Yeah, it's always changing. It's going to continue changing.
Rachael: Yeah, and we'll never get that back.
Lauren: Nope, it's different now. Algorithmic feeds, baby.
Rachael: Yeah, and monetized content.
Lauren: Yeah. Oh my gosh.
Rachael: There were no ads on Tumblr.
Lauren: No, no sponsor posts.
Rachael: No.
Lauren: I had 50,000 Tumblr followers. No one ever asked me to do a sponsored Tumblr post.
Rachael: Yeah.
Lauren: I did get a book deal from that Tumblr. But yeah, that was how you monetized your Tumblr.
Rachael: Right.
Lauren: Yeah. So, I was able to publish my personal work and start a project that way, in a way that felt a lot less stressful, and it was really easy and felt like play, in a way that working on my ad portfolio didn't, because of the expectations. I'm an ad major, this is going to be my career. I'm hedging my, hopefully, 30-year career on this portfolio, versus, "I'm going to throw a Tumblr up. It's going to be fun."
And I just was reflecting on the difference in energy and attitude towards those things. And that's why I still believe in personal work and passion projects so much. It's like, you can try to come up with, you can try to do the work that you think you should be doing to get work or get jobs, but you need to make space for work that feels fun too, because I think when you get into that play-and-flow state, that's when you feel the most motivated, alive, and engaged in your work, and will have your best ideas. And you need some of that to sustain yourself too, when you're going to do this for a long time.
Rachael: Yeah, using your creative energy, let's say, on your ad portfolio, is draining, whereas you're refilling your creative energy bank by doing a passion project, by doing something that feels fun, even if it's weird. And I do think, even thinking about you posting it on Tumblr and how we now feel like everything we create should go on the internet, that is an expectation in itself that it has to be polished enough to share, which isn't true, but that's what we're used to seeing. And so, there's kind of that subconscious expectation, I think, at least for me, like, "Oh, I can't share a work in progress because it's not a final polished piece." I mean, I guess I'm not really... I share my face more than I share my work.
Yeah. So, thinking about the expectation, I think we talked about this in our creative challenge episode, our last episode of season two, just understanding what the goal is. Is the goal in me doing this work to refine my skill enough to make money and quit my job someday? That's okay if that's the goal. But you need to understand that it might be harder to do the work, the practice, if that's the goal. Then, is my goal to have fun and play? Is my goal to refill my creative energy bank? I'm just envisioning a video game, like life bar going up as you doodle, do daily dishonesty, or whatever. Because once we can understand the goal, hopefully that helps us manage our expectations. Like, tying it back to my date, which I said I wasn't going to talk about, and now I keep talking about, but-
Lauren: Hey, it's all I want to talk about.
Rachael: Yeah, thank you.
Lauren: But we're trying to make this relevant.
Rachael: Yeah.
Lauren: Our lovely audience.
Rachael: And we're all multifaceted creatures, so it's okay to talk about it all.
Lauren: Hey, the gals are dating.
Rachael: The gals are dating.
Lauren: Sign up for the Patreon if you want to hear more.
Rachael: Sadly, not each other.
Lauren: Yeah. Oh, sorry. That sounds like clickbait.
Rachael: Yeah, the gals are dating. But-
Lauren: We're wearing matching outfits.
Rachael: All of a sudden, both of us show off a sparkly ring on the left hand, "We actually got married to each other."
Lauren: Sorry.
Rachael: We would've so much gold if we were... What a power couple.
Lauren: Yeah.
Rachael: Love for you to cook for me every day.
Lauren: I would enjoy that. Yeah.
Rachael: Cute. Maybe we'll be a platonic life partners someday.
Lauren: Hey, that sounds great.
Rachael: But thinking about the goal, is the goal to go on a first date in order to find someone to spend the rest of my life with? Or is the goal to go on a first date, see how I feel, maybe have a fun night that I probably wouldn't have had because it's out of my routine? And I did that.
Lauren: And I think that, again, managing expectations, it's okay to know that, ultimately, you do want to find a long-term partner.
Rachael: Yeah.
Lauren: I think, as adults, that's, of course, we have these... Especially when you're resolute about, "I know myself well enough that I want this," or, "This is something about me that I know that I need this, or I want this." But to contextualize it in the moment of like, "Okay, I'm going to go on this date. I know that this is a long-term goal, but I don't have to bring all of that into this one moment," and say, "The goal for tonight is I'm just going to see if I enjoy myself. I'm going to have a good time."
And I think that's part of managing the expectations. I don't know where I heard this, but I've heard it so many times in my life about, when it comes to setting goals, it's good to set goals in order for them not to become detrimental and for you to stress out about them. It's good to set goals, but be flexible with how you get there.
And so, be open to taking many different windy roads to getting to your goals, whether your goal is to start a creative business, whether your goal is to travel around the world, whether your goal is to go to culinary school, I don't know, whatever it might be, to illustrate a children's book. It's good to know these big goals, where maybe you see someone else do it or whatnot, and you're like, "That seems so cool." I think that's a really beautiful thing about being exposed to so many different kinds of artists and creatives, it's like, "Wow, I didn't even know that was a possibility." And then you get to roll that away in the back of your mind for like, "I would love to do that." We all know what that feeling is of "That's so cool."
Rachael: I'm so drawn to that.
Lauren: Yeah. Or even if it's not even a professional goal, but learn how to bake, "I'm going to bake my own wedding cake," which sounds so stressful. But you might see someone do that, and you're like, "That's so sick. I want to do that." And so, I think it's good to be like, "Okay, I want to do that," and then figure out. You don't have to have a dedicated timeline. You don't have to have a 10-step plan of how it's going to happen, because if you're too rigid in the plan of how it has to happen, you will likely make yourself upset for no reason.
Rachael: Yeah. It's fun to hear you talk about this, because I haven't really shared a ton about my, I have a creative visioning workshop, where it's goal setting in not like a, "I need to accomplish this by this timeframe." And I have illustrated that idea of, "Okay, your goal might be here, but the path that you take might circle back, loop back around. You might backtrack to get to that goal." And you also might have smaller goals along that path, and your goal also might change as you're starting to work toward that goal that you originally set. And all of that flexibility is great because it's growth. It's you learning more about yourself, when you go in with the expectation that it's not going to be a straight path, likely.
And so, as long as I know that going in, that I might have some side-stepping, I might have some side quests. We love the side quest. Giving yourself that flexibility from the get-go, giving yourself the flexibility built into your expectations of reaching the goal, I think is really helpful. And also, recognizing that the goals might change as you're reaching for them. Maybe your goal was to go to culinary school, and then you went there, and you're like, "Actually, I hate this." It's okay to be like, "This isn't my goal anymore." Obviously, that didn't happen, but I have had goals that I've worked toward, and not reached and reflected. And I think reflection is an important part, and we talk about that a lot here, giving yourself permission to change the goal.
Lauren: 100% because you're in the driver's seat. Your goal is... If you decide you want to pursue something, and you decide to go for it, you can always change your mind. Even when I was reviewing the culinary school contract, when I actually put the down payment and signed up, they have a tiered system where it's like, "Okay, if you drop out at this point, this point, in this point in the program, you recoup this much money."
Rachael: That's sick.
Lauren: Yeah.
Rachael: Wow.
Lauren: I know. So, the more you do, the less money you get back. But at a certain point, you get no money back. But if you drop out within the first, I don't know, month or two, you get money back, which is nice.
Rachael: Which makes sense, because you're not getting that education, so why would you pay for it? Yeah, that's great.
Lauren: Yeah, exactly.
Rachael: Yeah.
Lauren: Yeah.
Rachael: Huh, I'm glad you didn't drop out.
Lauren: Yeah, me too. And I think culinary school is an interesting one too because I planned for that for years. I saved up money, and it was something I was pretty resolute in doing, which, my goal for culinary school, and my expectation was, I want to take a year to explore food, and do this for me. Sure, maybe it wasn't to grow my business. It wasn't necessarily to become a chef working in a restaurant. It was just something I always kind of wanted to do. And I figured-
Rachael: You knew that feeling of wanting to pursue that for yourself.
Lauren: Yeah. And so, my goal was just to go to culinary school and enjoy myself. And so, whenever people would ask, I talked about this in previous seasons, I always found it funny when I told people I was going to culinary school, the number one question I would get is, "What are you going to do afterwards?" And I'm like, "I'm not there yet. I'm just trying to go."
Rachael: Yeah.
Lauren: But that's a good example of, I think we live in a society where it's no individual person's fault, but we are conditioned to jump ahead of ourselves, get ahead of ourselves, thinking like, when you bring home, if you tell your parents you're dating someone, or your family, they're like, "When's the wedding?" We just do that where we zap forward, and people have good intentions when they do that. They're like, "Well, you're going to school to be an engineer. You're dating someone. Clearly, it's going to be a lifelong thing." And we start to do that to ourselves, when it comes to our own creative projects, our own creative explorations.
And I think the thesis of this episode is just, you don't need to do that to yourself. Give yourself the gift of... I was telling Kristle earlier, it sounds so facetious to be like, "Just enjoy the journey, man." When I'm in the midst of trying to strong-arm myself into finishing a project and getting the results that I want, and I hear someone say, "Just enjoy the journey," I want to punch them in the face. But actually, just enjoying the process is actually the best way forward.
Rachael: It really is. Yeah, because-
Lauren: Please don't punch me in the face.
Rachael: The creative process is just a guy.
Lauren: Just a guy, yeah.
Rachael: Yeah. I think I, too, also strong-arm myself, when I'm not meeting the expectation that I set-
Lauren: It's intellectual hubris to think, "If I just work harder or stay up a little later or be a little better, I can make it work the way I want it to work."
Rachael: Yeah. And I think my version of that is, when it's not working, I don't necessarily try to push further, but I automatically do therapy talk in my head of, "What lesson did I learn from this?" And it's like, "Bitch, you're allowed to be upset." You are allowed to be annoyed that this didn't work out, and you can be sad.
And also, there is probably a lesson, but you don't have to jump to that right away. Have I been working on a quilt for a year, and then I ruined it by doing something stupid? You can be upset. The lesson is like, "Take your time. Maybe make a plan, clean your sewing machine." But also, I can be upset in that moment. That's maybe not a great example, because you can usually fix a quilt, but just join the journey, man, even if it's at a low point. I feel like I've talked about surfing in previous episodes, even though I've never done it. And I feel like surfing analogy could tie in here if I knew more about it.
Lauren: It's been a while since you've brought in a surfing analogy.
Rachael: I was on my basketball kick lately.
Lauren: Yeah, which I also love. I was going to say, I think while entering a creative project, it's easy to think about, "Okay, I want the outcome to be this." It's easy to think of your grand plan or your grand vision and get attached to that, but the outcome, though it's easy to glom onto, is not actually the ultimate. That's not the reason you're doing it. You're doing it for the enjoyment of the process too. And I was talking with Kristle before, if you're drawn to, "I want to learn how to paint," or, "I want to learn how to sew," it's not like you could just buy a painting or buy a piece of clothing.
You're doing it because there's something within you that says, "I want to take the time to learn how to process this information and metabolize it in my body, so I have this skill now." And you also get the peace of mind, the quiet, and the frustration from learning that new skill. You'll have new insights, you'll learn things about yourself. That is part of it. And you just have to pick up the paintbrush, or pick up the needle and thread, and go for it. That's the only way you get any of those results. And you can't think about, "Oh..." You will enjoy it less if you think about, "Wow, my painting sucks so much, because it's not good right away," or, "My ceramic sucks so much, because it's not good right away." You just got to go through it.
Rachael: Yeah. I think I love thinking about it as it's the process, not the product, because so much of my creative practice is about the personal growth, sort of parallels, that I experience and noodle on while I'm doing a creative project. And if it were only about the product, the mug that I made, or the blanket, or whatever, like you said, you can buy those things for so much less time and money than it takes to practice doing them. But it's so fulfilling and a rewarding experience to learn.
And I think you talking about learning, growing, and the frustrations of learning reminded me of something that I've been seeing a lot on the internet lately, is convenience is killing us. We don't want to be inconvenienced with buying our groceries. We don't want to be inconvenienced in building relationships. We don't want to be inconvenienced in figuring out our taxes, or whatever it is, because we're not willing to feel that agitation and that frustration. We're not growing.
And so, I keep seeing internet therapists be like, "Gen Z kids are abandoning their friendships because they think that they should never be inconvenienced." So, it's like, "Hey, Lauren, I'm having a really hard time, and you haven't been texting me back. Can we schedule a time to catch up?" And then Gen Z Lauren would say, "You're trauma dumping on me. That's not fair for you to ask that of me," when actually, it's just like you have to have hard conversations to build a relationship. You have to go through frustrating experiences in your creative practice to grow that creative practice, and to learn more about yourself through that process.
So, it's like, yeah, the convenient thing would be to buy a mug or a blanket, but because you feel that fire in your soul, brah, you got to try it. You got to do it. You got to try to catch that wave, and then fall, and then try again. Is that how it works?
Lauren: I don't know. I'm a bad-
Rachael: I think I love doing that voice.
Lauren: I'm a bad Californian. I don't know how to surf.
Rachael: It's okay. I actually wouldn't expect you to. That doesn't feel like-
Lauren: I know how to do the much less cool-
Rachael: Body board?
Lauren: Yeah.
Rachael: I think that's pretty cool.
Lauren: I know how to tummy surf, not to be confused with body surfing, because that actually looks hard.
Rachael: Is body surfing with no board? Yeah, that feels like the hardest of them all.
Lauren: Yeah.
Rachael: Anyway, we're not by an ocean. I think what I'm trying to say is lean into the inconvenience. Yeah, we have to wrap up.
Lauren: No, it's okay.
Rachael: Leaning into the inconvenience, leaning into the frustration, knowing that you will come out a better version of yourself through that process.
Lauren: I had someone ask me the other day, because we were talking, and he was like, "What do you do all day?" I know this is funny to anyone who knows me, because I'm sure you've wondered similar things.
Rachael: Oh, I know what you're doing. You spend a good chunk of time selling shit on Facebook marketplace. You procrastinate, and then you do a bunch of work, really good work in a short amount of time. And tell me if I'm right when I finish my summary of you, and then you're also procrastinating in the best way by making lots of really good treats, and then giving them to me and Kristle, and then you probably, at least weekly, if not daily, go down some sort of research rabbit hole. Yeah, that's my summary of your day.
Lauren: It's very accurate.
Rachael: Thank you. Yes. Yeah, it's a good balance.
Lauren: Well, yeah.
Rachael: You're learning. You're practicing your creativity. You're being environmentally friendly by giving things a secondhand life, by selling the shit that you're not using, and then you're doing your work.
Lauren: Yeah. I brought that up because... And I love that you know me so well. I laugh when he asked me, and I told him basically all those things. A lot of it involves batch cooking meals for myself that I freeze. I call them deadline dinners, where I was telling Kristle about this. I've been workshopping this, if I'm going to start actually producing cooking videos or cooking content, I need a container. I've posted one-offs here and there, but my lifestyle is very much built around being a freelancer. And what that means is, sometimes work is nuts, and then sometimes it's very slow, and my life and my social life is built around that. And so, I usually have a big pot of stew or something going, and throwing in a load of laundry, doing my research rabbit hole, answering some emails, just kind of dicking around the house, tidying up.
Rachael: Dicking around is my favorite thing.
Lauren: It's so good. And half starting a craft, and then not picking it back up.
Rachael: Yeah, maybe ever.
Lauren: Yeah. Oh, yes. And the reason, when work is slow, I tend to cook a lot of food for myself, portion it out. I love curries, soups, and stuff that freeze well, I'll portion it out for myself, freeze it. So, when work is busy, I can have a nice home-cooked meal that's delicious, and I cooked that for me just three weeks ago. And that's the ebb and flow of my life. And so, I'm kind of allocating my time and resources based on when I have some free time, I can go.
Rachael: Yeah, I think it's just that your sort of breakdown, an apportionment of time. It's just non-traditional. And so, it's hard for people to understand that you are really leaning into the ebbs and flows of the busy work. And when it's a lower busy time at work, you're filling it with other things that would normally be maybe more routinely set by other people. And that's amazing, and I love that for you.
Lauren: But I brought it up too, because I spend a lot of that time, as both of you know, not on my phone. And it's really important to me to be able to cultivate the ability to focus and guard my attention. And cooking does that for me, and that's what ceramics does, like crafts, things that sometimes I fall into a trap too. I mean, I'm human, where I'm, like, watching a YouTube video or listening to a podcast and trying to multitask too much, where my attention is too fragmented.
But it is important to me to slow down a bit, and just kind of focus in on one task at a time. And that's a lot of what I do during the day, and I've come to terms with, I have to be okay with going a little bit slower sometimes. That's been a reset of my expectations, especially in the past year, living alone and going a little bit slower of like, "Oh, my brain and body feel better when I'm a little less frazzled."
Rachael: Yeah. I feel like my goal in life is to live a slow life, where I can just dick around and follow where my interests are. My favorite days are weekends that I don't have any plans, maybe tentative plans. I love making plans with you, because we're like, "Maybe if we both feel like it on Sunday, we'll do this." And sometimes it happens, and sometimes it doesn't, and we're never mad at each other. At least I'm never mad at you, I don't think you're ever mad at me.
Lauren: No, never.
Rachael: But I'll wake up, and some days it's like, "Okay, I'm going to mop my kitchen. I'm going to water all the plants. I'm going to clean all the rooms in my house. I'll listen to music. I got some incense going. I'm feeling really good about that." And some days, it's like, "Ooh, I want a really slow day," and I make a couple cups of coffee. I read most of the morning, and it's like noon. And I'm like, "Wow, I feel so rejuvenated from just sitting and reading."
Lauren: I love that your slow day starts with a couple cups of coffee. I would just be like...
Rachael: Well, obviously, it's one at first, but I mean slow. I'm sipping them until they're cold. And then I reheat, and then maybe I'll have a second one. I think, maybe even not that long ago, the three of us were talking about cups of coffee intake. Lauren just gave me one of her grinder that you thrifted?
Lauren: Yeah.
Rachael: Yeah. I cleaned it with rice, like you told me. And now I have my decaf coffee bean grinder, so then I can have... I like the taste and the ritual of making coffee, like a pour-over, but sometimes I want it in the afternoon.
Lauren: Yeah.
Rachael: Yeah. I think I can do too, if it's early enough in the day. Anyway, I want a slow life. That's what I was getting at, is I want the opportunity and the comfort to be able to think about what I want to do, and follow that intuition a little bit, like, "Ooh, do I want to work on this creative project, or do I want to go for a walk? Do I want to go to the thrift store? Do I want to hang out at home?"
But by overbooking myself, I kind of get into a frazzled, overwhelmed state. And I'll end on this final thought that one of my friends sent me a meme, which so much good information comes from memes, but it feels so childish to say, "I learned this from a meme." But it was like, I am saying no to plans, not because I am busy, but because I don't want to be busy. And I had never thought about it from that perspective. The reason I want to say no is because I don't want to be busy, not because I already am. I want to protect the down time, which I know I've talked about many times on the podcast of overcommitting and feeling overwhelmed. So, managing expectations about our week, our lives, our careers. Any final thoughts?
Lauren: Yeah, my final thought is the realization, I'll bring it full circle from the story I originally shared. I just had the realization from this conversation that, even though I didn't win the fifth grade spelling bee, I like to tap back into that devastation, that 11 or 12-year-old me felt. I recovered. I was fine. I still spell pretty well, but now we have spell check and everything. So, that wasn't even the point. I had the realization that, even though I didn't win the fifth grade spelling bee, I still loved the time I spent with my dad practicing for it.
And I think that even going into the third grade spelling bee, not knowing if I was going to win, even going into the fourth grade spelling bee, maybe thinking I was going to win, it was for the enjoyment of spending time with my dad going on walks, spelling words, and him quizzing me. And it was just to spend quality time with my parent, and that's really sweet.
And I think that that's how we should try to approach our creative projects that we go into whenever possible, is like, "Hey, even if I have big hopes and dreams for the outcome of this project, can I shift focus away from that, and focus in on how good this feels to work on? Or can I shift focus to a goal that I can control of? I'm going to set aside an hour a day, or an hour a weekend even, for the next year, to work on this thing. And I'm going to feel really proud of myself for that." We've talked about this in different ways throughout this podcast, but yeah, I was just reflecting on like, "Oh, I was so sad about this spelling bee," but I still really enjoyed the months I spent prepping for it. Me losing didn't make that time a waste, by any means. And now, I have a funny story to tell on a podcast, like 25 years later.
Rachael: Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I think it's a perfect example of it's the process, not the product.
Lauren: And on a surfing analogy.
Rachael: Yeah. Yeah, man. No, I think that we should tell people where to find us out to support us.
Lauren: I did it last time. You got to do this.
Rachael: Okay, fair. We have a Patreon, and we have multiple tiers. We share background, behind-the-scenes shit, like me horking my meatball sub in six minutes or less, and also just some silly stuff that we maybe take out for the final cut of the podcast. You can get discounts online in Lauren's courses, and just other stuff to connect with us as humans and-
Lauren: Yeah, ask us questions.
Rachael: Yeah.
Lauren: Maybe we'll do some, I don't know, we talked about live streams, maybe some craft sessions or Q&As.
Rachael: We're experimenting. If you're-
Lauren: A zine, perhaps?
Rachael: Oh, I really want to do a zine.
Lauren: A cooking and crafting zine?
Rachael: Cute. Yeah, and surfing? Just kidding.
Lauren: No, never surfing.
Rachael: I'll have my own surfing zine.
Lauren: I wouldn't put it past you to get all the gear to surf.
Rachael: I'm such a gear gal. That's how I get excited about things, is like, "Well, I have all the gear. I have no excuse not to." But you know how much fucking gear I have in my house?
Lauren: I know. I've seen it.
Rachael: I know you do.
Lauren: Yeah. She's a gear gal.
Rachael: Yeah. So, if you would like to support us, we have the Patreon. If you don't want to support us monetarily, but still like what we do, please leave a review on whatever platform you're watching or listening on.
Lauren: Share it with a pal who might enjoy this episode. Share it with a pal who's been going through it right now. Maybe a pal who needs to loosen up on the expectations of their creative work, a pal who needs to chill out.
Rachael: I can tell that you're super not comfortable doing that. I'm like-
Lauren: I can't because I grew up in California.
Rachael: Oh, yeah. You had to practice not doing that.
Lauren: Whenever I see people doing it, I'm just like...
Rachael: Yeah, that's an ick for you. Yeah. Maybe share this episode with a pal who needs to lower their expectations around dating. Just a guy. Anyway...
Lauren: Thank you for listening, and we'll see you in the next one.
Rachael: Bye.
Lauren: Bye.