by Leigh Goldsmith, Health Coach at Freelancers Medical

Why have you chosen freelancing? Artistic and creative freedom? Living life on your own terms? Being in control of your own destiny and joy?

If that’s why you’ve pursued this path, why can it sometimes feel so...stifling?

Despite being published more than 10 years ago, Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way is still one of the most influential books on the power of creativity. It provides valuable lessons for people who may have lost touch with their own ideals and want to rediscover their natural creativity. I’m running a free workshop on the book for Freelancers Medical enrollees in NYC.

Creative recovery is something we do not know how to do. And we can’t do it alone.

When is it time for a creative recharge?

• You are racing around trying to take care of yourself, your business, trying to make it all work, and you don’t have any time for your essence.
• You don’t have time to do things you are passionate about just for the sake of pure unadulterated contentment and joy.
• You don’t have time to connect back to what has you feeling fulfilled and purposeful.
• You feel you’ve gone astray from what you think is important and try to live in ways that other people think is important.
• You’re not creating and doing what you find meaningful.

Why does this happen to freelancers?

On top of all this, freelancing can be a lonesome profession. You may not often engage in stimulating conversations with people cut from the same cloth as you.

But we have so much to learn from each other, and human connection—it’s what we live for, it’s why we strive to make meaningful art, careers, impacts on the world.

Creativity is not created in a vacuum, and it’s so important that we get inspired with other creative people like us. People who are optimistic and wanting to live a more creative and fulfilling life.

Here are a few exercises Cameron suggests for getting out of the way and letting go of fear:

1. List 20 things you LOVE doing? When was the last time you did these?

2. List five people you admire and wish you could spend time with but are deceased (famous or not). Keep in mind to list people you genuinely think would be fun to hang out with for eternity, not people you think you should hang out with. What traits do these people have that are awesome and can look for in friends?

3. Ten Tiny Changes: What are 10 things you want to change for yourself (from big to little things)? List them: I would like to ________. Pick one you want to accomplish this week….do it now!

Share one of those changes in the comments below!

Join us at 408 Jay Street, 4th Floor, Brooklyn at 5-7:30pm on Wednesdays starting April 23. Register for the class by clicking this link. To learn more about the workshop read our class description on the calendar by clicking here. This workshop is free and open to all Freelancers Medical enrollees. We look forward to getting inspired with you.