Creative Pep Talk #96: Follow Your Energy

When there are a lot of things you could work on, which one do you choose? My answer is always the same, and very simple, though it’s not always obvious or easy to follow thanks to the way a lot of us are taught: follow your energy! I explain why—and why ignoring the call of that energy can undermine us over time—in this short episode.

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Transcript: Follow Your Energy

Please note: This is an unedited transcript, provided as a courtesy, and reflects the actual conversation as closely as possible. Please forgive any typographical or grammatical errors.

Nancy Norbeck [00:00:06]:
Welcome to Follow Your Curiosity. Ordinary people, extraordinary creativity. Here’s how to get unstuck. I’m your host, creativity coach, Nancy Norbeck. Let’s go. Hey, everybody. This is Nancy Norbeck with this week’s Creative Pep Talk. And, you know, I wanted to talk this week about energy because I don’t think we’ve talked about it very much, and we probably haven’t talked about it enough.

Nancy Norbeck [00:00:30]:
And I don’t mean energy in a woo woo new age sense. I mean it in the sense of where your creative energy leads you. More specifically, you know, a lot of people will talk about, oh, I have a couple of different things that I wanna do, and I don’t know which one to work on. Well, which one is pulling your energy? Where does your energy want you to go? Which one do you have the energy for on a given day? My answer to people who ask me that question is usually follow your energy. And the reason is that, you know, our energy is speaking to us because if if a project is is calling to us on a certain day, then our inspiration and and all I’m trying not to repeat the word energy over and over again, but, you know, all all of what is in us that we have to give to something, and we may define it as energy, we may define it as something else, is moving us in that direction for a reason. Because for some reason on that particular day, we have more to give to that project than we do to the other ones. Why would we force ourselves to work on something else that we aren’t feeling so drawn to on a particular day or at a particular time when we’ve got all that energy drawing us into a different thing. Right? It’s kind of like if you have all of the ingredients to bake something or doesn’t have to be baking, but, you know, to make something that, you know, is in our fridge, it’s ready to go, why go to a whole lot of trouble to do something else? Now, obviously, if it’s a special occasion or whatever, then that’s a little bit different.

Nancy Norbeck [00:02:13]:
But when the thing is there and all the pieces are in place and everything is ready to go into that and we are ready to put our energy and our attention into that, why not do it? Why make things harder for ourselves than they have to be? I’m really pretty sure, and you know, I don’t have data on this, but I’m really pretty sure that when we make things harder on ourselves than they have to be. And in our culture, we tend to do this a lot and some of us are actually trained in various ways, intentional and otherwise, to do this a lot because we’re told that we shouldn’t do the easy things that, you know, we we grow up or are or specifically taught that things have to be hard. And when we do that, you know, we we train ourselves out of following the path of what actually works easiest, and then we train ourselves to make things harder on ourselves than they actually have to be. And I really think that when we do that, we disconnect with our own sense of what’s working and what we are feeling called to do in any particular moment. And we make it harder for us to feel that sense. And we may even disconnect from it to a such an extent that we lose touch with it completely. And then we end up really stuck. So I’m really a fan of saying, where am I feeling pulled today? I’m going to follow that pull today.

Nancy Norbeck [00:03:51]:
And it doesn’t even have to be a creative thing, right? Sometimes you wake up and you just say, you know what? Today’s the day I’m going to tackle that junk room. Today’s the day I’m going to reorganize that part of my closet that has been a disaster for a long time. Today is the day I’m gonna sit down and do my taxes. It it it applies everywhere, you know, and especially if it’s the thing that you’ve been avoiding for a while. Because I have moments like this where, you know, I’ve been telling myself, uh-uh, I ain’t doing that thing. Whether it’s getting the snow off my car the other day when I was like, no. I’m gonna wait until later in the day when it’s warmer. I didn’t wait until later in the day because suddenly some part of me really just wanted to go take care of it.

Nancy Norbeck [00:04:38]:
So I did. I didn’t know why. It seemed a little strange, but I wasn’t gonna argue with it. Let’s just go do it. Be done with it. It doesn’t have to be a creative thing. It’s stuff all around us. But, you know, when you have that impulse, it’s not always a bad thing to follow it.

Nancy Norbeck [00:04:55]:
Sometimes it’s a really good thing. Those impulses are there for a reason. A lot of the time, you know, we’re trained not to listen to our impulses. We’re trained not to listen to our instincts. I think we should listen to them more often. So when you have that impulse and that instinct that says, I wanna work on this thing today, and you may not even think of it as work. It may be, I wanna play with this project today. Listen to it.

Nancy Norbeck [00:05:21]:
Follow that energy. Follow the impulse and see what happens. I’m pretty sure the more you do this, the more those impulses are gonna lead you in the right direction. So as always, give it a try. See what happens. Let me know. I’m always very curious. And with that, I’ll see you next time.

Nancy Norbeck [00:05:40]:
If this episode resonated with you or if you’re feeling a little bit less than confident in your creative process right now, join me at the spark on Substack as we form a community that supports and celebrates each other’s creative courage. It’s free and it’s also where I’ll be adding programs for subscribers and listeners. The link is in your podcast app, so sign up today. See you there and see you next week. Follow Your Curiosity is produced by me, Nancy Norbeck, with music by Joseph McDade. If you like Follow Your Curiosity, please subscribe, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And don’t forget to tell your friends. It really helps me reach new listeners.