Baby Steps

It’s October and that means it’s make-along season! It started with Inktober years ago and has branched into so many other make-alongs that I actually ran across this cheat sheet on Bluesky. And that’s just the ones that are running on Bluesky this month that this one person collected!

Maybe October make alongs are trying to capture that back-to-school energy? Maybe the cooling weather energizes people? Or maybe because people love making for Halloween that this month just really gets everyone’s creativity going? It’s my birthday month so I often have a few new things to try out. This past week I got a Sardines embroidery kit and a couple of new crochet patterns. I want to try all the things! And make all the things! And dig out old things and work on them! I feel that October creative energy moving too!

If you’ve ever started a make-along challenge and quit or thought about doing one and never got past collecting some supplies, I want to talk to you for a minute. Lean in. No, closer. No, closer than that. I need to tell you something.

I am so dang proud of you.

Was that maybe not what you expected?

If you’ve started anything!! Any. Thing. At any time. Good for you. The whole entire point of these challenges is to get us started.

If you’ve collected a few supplies and put them in a basket to sit on your coffee table, that’s a good first step! If you’ve managed a few days/prompts of a challenge, give yourself a pat on the back. Good job! If you’ve done a week or more and then had to drop out because life happens, that’s still fantastic! Great job! If you finished the whole thing in the time allotted or at ALL, amazing work friend!! Celebrate any victory you’ve had on this continuum.

Kick being down on yourself for not finishing to the curb

These challenges can be, well…a challenge. I’ve not finished a whole slew of them loads of times. That used to make me feel like crap. But I’m here to encourage you to let go of feeling bad about not finishing an art challenge. I’ve come around to believing that these challenges are just engines to help get us started in forming a making habit.

My number one rule of habit making is ALWAYS, you get to start again tomorrow. Heck, if you need to, you can start again in the next hour. Don’t waste time being down on yourself for not doing the thing.

There’s enough bad juju in the world, you don’t need to add this particular angst to your plate. This is me telling you that you get a free do over. As often as you need. Because anytime you start making your thing, that’s worth celebrating.

An alternative view

I used to have some very particular thoughts as to what counted as making for me. If I was actively painting a canvas, that counted. If I was making a book, it counted. But very few other things did. This past week, I spent a whole day sorting my pens and refilling empty ones.

It was a pretty delightful day. Did I make any finished items? No. Or even start anything that can be finished pieces later? Also no. But I laid a lot of groundwork for me to make other things. So in my new mental tally board, this counts as a good making day. These are baby steps to being able to make more. I count it now. I count all the baby steps.

Somewhere along the way with social media driving me, I decided that things had to be finished and that only finished things “counted”. I don’t know why I decided that. Nothing that I’ve ever done in my twelve plus years of making has worked that way. But it was there in my head and recently I noticed that it was really weighing me down.

Now maybe I’ve swung back too far the other way and insisted that nearly everything counts. That so many thing are baby steps and I can congratulate myself for a productive art session even if all I do is shuffle papers around and maybe draw a few swirls with my water pen full of ink in a sketchbook. Even if that’s all I’ve done, I’ve still heald open space for my creativity. And holding that space allows for magic to wander in when it wants.

What baby steps are you taking? I’d love to hear about them! Email me or start a conversation by leaving a comment on this post! If you’d like to keep up with what I’m working on, I’d love to have you as a newsletter subscriber. I include blog posts from here, cool things I find online, and pictures of my dogs. Sign up here.