The Thriving Christian Artist
The Thriving Christian Artist
356 - 5-Minute Mentoring: What To Do When You Hit A Creative Roadblock
When you come to a roadblock while driving, what do you do? You backtrack, pull out the GPS, and navigate around it to get back on course.
But what about when you hit a creative roadblock in your artistic life?
It’s something we all experience from time to time, and it can feel very daunting. And unfortunately, your GPS won’t be of much help.
You’re going to have to seek out directions to get around the roadblock. And the first direction I would advise you to take is to…
… listen to this episode of 5-Minute Mentoring!
I’m sharing the three keys to overcoming a creative roadblock that I’ve developed in my journey as a Christian artist.
Just follow the keys I talk about in this episode and you’ll find yourself deftly navigating that roadblock and getting back on the right path.
And when you’re ready to build a business that helps you thrive spiritually, artistically, and financially? Here are 4 ways I can help:
1️⃣ Join Us in November - Every artist was created by God to create with Him to both experience and release His Light and Life through their creative expression. Join us for a powerful 3-day healing event for artists called the “Unlocking the Heart of the Artist Experience” where you can do just that! Click Here to Learn More ➡️ https://matttommeymentoring.mykajabi.com/unlocking-2022
2️⃣ Read the Book: Check out my book “How to Price Your Art: Pricing with Confidence for Sales & Profit” on Amazon ➡️ https://www.amazon.com/dp/B097XBP733
3️⃣ Create Art and Profit: Discover how to create the art you love while still providing for yourself financially in my “How to Price Your Art” workshop.
Get more details here ➡️ https://thrive.matttommeymentoring.com/how-to-price-your-art-evergreen
4️⃣ Ready to truly thrive? Join the Created to Thrive Artist Mentoring Program to discover how to build your art business and live the abundant life Jesus promised you as an artist in His Kingdom! Click here for details and to enroll! ➡️ https://www.matttommeymentoring.com/artmentor.html
Connect with me online: https://thrive.matttommeymentoring.com/stay-connected
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If you've been an artist for very long, more than likely you've experienced what we call artist block or creative block. I'm going to give you three ways to definitively get over creative block today and kick it to the curb once and for all here today on 5-Minute Mentoring. Music Have you ever wanted to have someone in your life who you could ask real questions about your art, your business, and even your walk with the Lord? Well, that's exactly what we do every Friday here on 5-Minute Mentoring, where I answer one question from one of my awesome podcast listeners in order to help you start really thriving as the artist you know God created you to be. Well, hey, my friends. So glad that you are with me here today on 5-Minute Mentoring. You know, creative block, artist block. I mean, we've heard artists talk about that for years. I've dealt with that. Maybe you've dealt with that before. It can be a normal part of being an artist, but there are three really definitive ways that I've figured out over the years of how you can really kick that to the curb and get on with the thing that God has called you to do. We don't want to be wallowing around in self-pity and frustration and all that sort of thing. We want to do the thing that God has called us to do as artists, which is to art, to create. And so the first thing I would say, actually, these are three W's, all right? My alliteration engine is kicking in today. And so the first one is what I would say, worship. You got to get in God's presence. You have to be in an intimate, life-giving relationship with the Lord through the Holy Spirit, through the person of Jesus. What does that mean? That means being in his word, taking time to journal, investing Listen, any time that I'm feeling dry inside, 100% of the time, the first solution I go to is worship. Why? Because most of the time when I'm dry in anything, whether it's relationships, my art, work, whatever, it usually means I'm going off of my own strength. I'm just trying to drum it up. Or I've let the well run dry, if you will, and I'm just kind of going on fumes, trying to drive a car with no gasoline. Worship is what's always going to refill that. Always, always, always. First, go back to his presence. Second, the second W I would say is wonder or wow. What is it that is causing you to wonder? What is it that's causing you to wow? How are you sowing inspiration into your life? You got to do things that really cause you to see the wonder of God, the wonder of beauty, the wonder of creativity. When's the last time that you went to a museum or you went to for a walk in the woods or you went and just sat by a lake or a creek and allowed that to just wash over you? When you went to maybe a museum and saw a show, went to a concert, went to a coffee shop and just read a poetry book. These times of wonder, these times of wow enliven They allow us to go, oh, yes, that's why I'm an artist. I feel the breath again. I feel the inspiration again. And so you've got to sow that inspiration, that wow, that wonder into you so that when you go into the studio and do the stuff, you're not just, again, operating from that place of emptiness, but you're operating not only from the place of his presence, but also from the place of all the things that you've sown into your heart and into your imagination. Number three, then, the third W is work. You got to get in the studio. You can't wait just for the magic fairy dust of inspiration to come and fall on your head. You know, I find mostly that it's when I have a studio practice that is a regular studio practice of just showing up and doing the thing that God's called me to do creatively as I create that inspiration begins to surround me. As I create, the wow and the wonder begin to come back. As I create, I sense God's pleasure and His Spirit with me. And so if you will worship, if you will sow wonder into your life, if you will just get to work, I guarantee you that creative roadblock that is just sort of this feels like a roadblock or a fence, a barrier inside your life, it will absolutely come down. Lastly, I would just say this. Remember you are not designed to be dealing with these subconscious obstructions and these roadblocks all the time. Jesus said that we could say to this mountain, move, and it would be cast into the seed with what? Just a little bit, just a mustard seed of faith. And when you're with God in his presence, when you're doing things that are inspiring and causing you to wonder and experience the wow of beauty and creativity in life, when you're showing up to work That is in itself faith. It's the substance of the things that hope for. It's the evidence of things not seen. It's not just being an artist up here. It's actually doing the work that God has called you to do. With that little bit of faith, you can say to the mountain of Creative Roadblock, move, and I promise you, it'll be cast into the sea. You can get on doing the thing that God's called you to do. I love you, my friend. Let me know if you're using these three W's in your life to beat Creative Roadblock, and I can't wait to see what you create and what you experience because of the new breakthrough that you found. I love you, my friend. Remember, until next time, you were created to thrive. Hey, my friend, listen, I'm really excited to let you know about a special opportunity that we've not done in a long time. And it's something that I'm super excited about. It's called the Unlocking the Heart of the Artist Conference. You know, when I first wrote Unlocking the Heart of the Artist, it resonated with artists around the world because so many of us were dealing with what I now call subconscious obstructions, these things that get lodged inside of our heart that become a barrier or a roadblock to us walking in everything that God has for us as artists and as kingdom people. And unless we are able to cooperate with the Holy Spirit in a real intentional way and allow Him to heal those parts of us, we walk in places that God never intended us to walk. We walk in struggles that God had never intended us to walk in, and we never experience the victory and the breakthrough that Jesus designed for us when He died on the cross and promised us that we'd live an abundant life. And so the unlocking the heart of the art Thank you. If you've known me for very long, you know that healing the hearts of artists is really my passion. It's at the core of everything we're about and all the things that we do at our conferences and mentoring program and all the things that we're about. But this weekend in particular, if I could describe it in one word, I would say experiential. This is not going to be a typical talking heads conference. This is going to be an opportunity for you to hear incredibly anointed teaching that becomes a roadmap for you to do work right inside the conference, not only with between you and the Lord, but also with you and other folks that are around tables that you can have meaningful discussions with, in addition to experiential opportunities to actually use art as a processing methodology to be able to process the things that God's speaking to you, the things that you're letting go, the things that you're planting in your heart. I'm also super excited to be welcoming my friend Mark DeJesus, as well as my friend Dr. Darlene Mayo and others who will be with us to help facilitate these healing encounters with the Lord. I'm going to be leading worship with some of my friends as well as teaching. It's going to be an experiential encounter with each other and with the Holy Spirit, and I can't wait to see you there. Listen, all the details are right here below at the link. You can just click that, find out when registration opens, which is really soon, as well as all the details about the conference. A little bit of a note, this is going to be not a weekend conference. It's actually going to be a Tuesday night, all day Wednesday and Thursday through lunch. Don't freak out. That's why God made vacation time. And so we're giving you plenty of time to go ahead and plan that out so that you can get babysitters, get off work, make travel plans, all the things you need to do to make it a priority to be here for the Unlocking the Heart of the Artist Conference. I love you, my friend. If God's pulling on your heart, tugging on your heart right now to say you need to be there, do everything you can to be with us and join us for Unlocking the Heart of the Artist coming up in November 2022. All right, see you then. Bye.