Ep 123: The Renewal Ritual Every Creative Needs
A Systematic Approach to Preventing Creative Burnout
SUMMARY
Picture this: you're going through the motions, checking boxes, but the spark that made you fall in love with your creative work feels like a distant memory. What if I told you there's a systematic way to get that fire back and prevent burnout before it happens?
As creative professionals, we often treat renewal as a luxury we'll get to "someday" rather than the necessity it truly is. But after experiencing my own creative drought and finding a way back through systematic renewal practices, I've learned that protecting our creativity isn't just about taking breaks—it's about building intentional systems that fuel our long-term creative success.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
⚡️ Renewal must be proactive, not reactive - Schedule these practices in advance, not just when you feel burned out. Like budgeting for gas money each month, build renewal into your quarterly rhythm.
⚡️ Cross-medium consumption sparks innovation - Consuming creativity outside your medium creates fresh perspectives and prevents tunnel vision. The most unexpected inspiration often comes from the least likely places.
⚡️ Team culture benefits from individual renewal - When leaders model systematic renewal, it creates a culture of creative curiosity that benefits the entire organization and improves long-term creative output.
NOTABLE QUOTES
💬 "You don't have time not to do this. The cost of burnout, both to your creativity and your business, is far greater than the investment of systematic renewal."
💬 "Observation without the pressure to produce allows for pure inspiration."
💬 "Your creativity is your most valuable asset as a creative professional. Protect it, nurture it, and watch how it transforms not just your work, but your entire approach to your creative business."
EPISODE RESOURCES
⚡️The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron - Essential reading on creative renewal
⚡️Guide to Effective One-on-Ones for team leaders at dustinpead.com/free
⚡️ Subscribe to my weekly newsletter here
TRANSCRIPT
Picture this: you're going through the motions, checking boxes, but the spark that made you fall in love with your creative work feels like a distant memory. What if I told you there's a systematic way to get that fire back and prevent burnout before it happens? Let's get into it.
Welcome back to Creativity Made Easy, the podcast for creative professionals who want to scale their business without sacrificing their creative vision. I'm your host, Dustin Pead, creative coach and consultant, and I help creative professionals know themselves, their process and their team so that they can move from chaos to clarity. Whether you're a designer, writer, photographer, any kind of creative professional, you're in the right place. This show is about building systems and processes that free your creativity instead of constraining it. So grab your coffee, open your notes app and let's dive into today's episode.
Episode one hundred and twenty three, the one, two, three episode. And we're going to give you the one, two, three of the renewal ritual that every creative needs. So let's dive into it.
It's summer 2017. After 10 years in full time church ministry, I was running on empty. I knew something had to change. So I looked to something that I had never done before: a six week sabbatical, six weeks to completely step away, reset and reconnect with my calling. And I'll be honest, the first week was brutal. I felt guilty for not working. I was anxious about what was piling up, waiting for me and frankly, a little lost without the constant demands of my time.
But something happened in about week three. The fog started lifting. And by week six, I had the clearest vision for my work that I had in years. I came back refreshed, refocused and more creative than I had been in a decade. That sabbatical taught me something crucial: that renewal isn't a luxury for creative professionals. It's a necessity and it can't be something we do only when we're burned out. It has to be scheduled, systematic, planned and most importantly, protected.
So today I want to share with you two types of renewals that I believe every creative professional needs, whether you're a solopreneur or just starting out or leading a team of creatives.
Let's get into the warning signs that you cannot ignore. Listen, hear me when I say this: burnout doesn't happen overnight. It sends warning signals that most creatives ignore until it's too late. Don't just go through the motions. We get in this mode where we go through the motions and what I call "going through the motion syndrome." It's not like an official term, it's just kind of like where you add syndrome to the end of something because it's what you feel like you're doing.
So you may feel like you're just going through the motions when you're more concerned about getting tasks done than bringing in your creative perspective to projects. It's productive work versus meaningful creative contribution. And listen, we talk about getting things done on this podcast all the time. But if it's at the cost of your health, of your mental capacity, of your creative energy, then we need to fix that. And the way we do it is with these two types of renewals that we're going to talk about today.
Another warning sign that we start to see is that our quality starts to slide back a little bit. There's subpar work that doesn't match our usual standards. There's a lack of innovation or creative problem solving. And then our clients or our fellow teammates, they start noticing the difference.
Another warning sign is emotional indicators. Are there more bad days than good days, more bad moods than good moods throughout the week? Are you being snappy with your teammates or your clients? Are you dreading projects that used to excite you? Are you feeling disconnected from your original vision, your original why that you got into this business in the first place?
Julia Cameron, author of The Artist's Way, which is a book that I love—it's one that I highly recommend. If you go to the resources page on my website dustinpead.com, I have a bunch of books that I think are just cornerstone, pivotal, must reads for any creative professional and The Artist's Way is one of them. In the book she calls these warning signs "creative drought" and she emphasizes that waiting until you're completely depleted or completely empty is like waiting until your car is out of gas to find a gas station. We don't do that. We're more proactive. We see the warning signs. We see the needle fading down. If you're like some people, I can't resonate with this, but you wait until the gas light comes on. That drives me crazy, but whatever, at least it's one last final warning sign that you need to get gas before you run out. And we can't ignore these warning signs.
So let's talk about the first type of renewal and it is the renewal day. Renewal days are all about stepping back to remember why you do what you do and getting clarity on creative direction. So what makes a true renewal day? Activities that give you renewed vision for your creative profession. Things like journaling to process and clarify your thoughts, reading books that inspire your creative vision. I like to go on like nature hikes or any kind of physical activity on my renewal days. They can create space for that reflection. It can remove you from the screen or from the sketch pad enough to allow your brain space to think about what it needs to think about. And you'll start to see some breakthrough come through that. And so through prayer, meditation, other practices that can center you, these things make up a really great renewal day.
And I like to plan these quarterly at minimum. I plan them in advance, not just when I feel burned out. We're looking at the warning signs. We don't wait till the gas tank is empty, like Julia Cameron says. We're planning these out in advance. We have gas money in our monthly budget every month we use that for gas, so you have these renewal days in your quarterly budget if you will, so use them. Plan these in advance not just when you feel burnout. Prep your team and your clients for these protected days. Block off the whole day. If you use a calendar system where people can add themselves to your calendar, make sure you block off that whole day. Let everybody know well in advance that that day you're not going to be available. You'll pick things back up the following day.
I like to take mine on Fridays, make it like an early refresh into the weekend. Recently, I had a client take one of these renewal days and they came back with some clear directives on what to stop, what to start and what to continue. And I love that because that clarity refreshed their entire team and the ripple effect of their renewal made a big impact on their team culture. So renewal days are away from the work. They're away from your typical grind.
I will typically, in fact, as of this recording later this week, I'm taking my quarterly renewal day. I'm going to go to a creative gathering here in Atlanta called Creative Mornings that morning. Then I'm going to have lunch with a friend and then I'm going to go that afternoon to the local spa and get a massage and just try to detox my body and my brain as much as possible before enjoying pizza night with my family where we watch a movie and eat pizza every Friday night together. That's one type of renewal day.
The other type of renewal day that I need you to take is called the creative fuel day. And this is where we're doing things that specifically fill our creative tank. We talk all the time about we can't give out what we aren't filled up with. So creative fuel days are about consuming creativity. I recommend doing it in a different medium than your own to inspire fresh perspectives of your own work.
So writers maybe go visit art galleries, not read more books. Designers should maybe attend some concerts, not browse Dribbble or Pinterest or any other design inspiration sites, things like that. Photographers, maybe go to the theater. Don't study other photography. Staying in your medium creates tunnel vision. And in order to be more creative, you need to widen that vision out. And so there's reasons why we get inspired in the least likely places. It's because it triggers something in our brain to go, "now that gives me an idea for back over here to center of what I was working on, of how I could be more creative for this project."
On these days, it's super important: be an observer, if at all possible, not a participant. There's a difference between consuming creativity and creating. You can have days where you're just creating for creatives, for creating sake. Those are great things to do. I highly recommend doing that. Most weekends, I would recommend you do that. But these days are about, these creative fuel days is meant for you to consume. It's you're fueling yourself up. So you need to practice the observation without the pressure to produce because ultimately that makes for pure inspiration later. I'm going to say that again: observation without the pressure to produce allows for pure inspiration. Process what you observe through your creative lens.
So in preparation for these days, you plan them just like you plan the renewal day, your creative fuel day. You plan them as well. You research and you select experiences intentionally. You can go alone or you can go with others. Both have benefits and maybe I might suggest that you alternate between those. So if you're doing four of these a year, if you're doing them quarterly, then maybe on the first and third instance, you're going to go do them alone. But on the second and fourth instance, you're going to bring some other friends or some other creatives along with you. These new perspectives will start to show up in projects a week later and immediately you can come back from these days and you can start to share inspiration with your team, with your clients, with whoever's around you in your corner because it's going to begin to build a culture of creative curiosity within your business. And that is the win of these creative fuel days.
We talk about the observation thing all the time, but we want to build a culture of creative curiosity within your business. That will make you more creative and that will give you the fuel that you need to play the long game without burning out.
All right. So the application of these renewal practices looks different depending on your role, but the principles remain the same. So for solopreneurs, they're different and for team leaders, they're different. So for solopreneurs, build the habit early. Don't wait until you have a team. Start with half days. If a full day feels impossible, start with a half day. Hey, I'm going to work in the morning and then I'm going to take the afternoon off for my renewal day or my creative fuel day. Or opposite. I'm going to do it in the morning. Then I'm going to come back refreshed and face the work. So start with half days. If you need to set boundaries with your clients around that renewal time and be clear with them about that, this is time that you're not available, but you're doing it to protect yourself from burnout and to make yourself more creative in the long run that will help serve them better.
For team leaders, this is about modeling. Lead by example, your team watches how you handle renewal. So create team policies that protect renewal time, not just for you, but for your team as well and make it safe for people to actually disconnect. Don't tell them you should disconnect, but when they come back, go, "man, thank God you're back because all of this stuff happened." Don't do that. You need to be proactive about that so that when they come back, they're excited to be back into the fold, just like you would be after one of these renewal days.
Listen, renewal days and creative fuel days, they fail if they're reactive. I'll say it again. Renewal days and creative fuel days, they fail when they're reactive, not proactive. So clear your schedule way before you go, not after. Set up systems and gain margin. So work doesn't pile up. That's what we talk about here all the time on this podcast. That's what my business Chief Creative Consultants is all about is setting up systems so that you can gain margin so that work doesn't pile up. So think through communication strategies for clients and stakeholders. What do you need to communicate before and after so that you can set yourself up for success? Be proactive about this.
So what now? What can we do? Here's exactly what you need to do to implement these renewal practices in your life. Number one, just start thinking about all of the burnout that you're thinking through right now. Think through all the warning signs that I mentioned and honestly assess where you are. Rate yourself on a scale of one to 10 for your energy, your creativity, for your enthusiasm, for your work and start to notice your scores. And start to notice how are you actually feeling? This is a great reason to be journaling every day because you can see it in black and white.
Number two, schedule your next renewal day or creative fuel day within the next 30 days. Go ahead and look at it. Block a full day in your calendar if you can right now. If you can only do a half day, then block a half day in your schedule right now. Pause this podcast. Block it out. If a full day feels impossible, again, you can start with a half day, but prepare your team and your clients in advance. Let them know this is a time that you will be unavailable so that you can be available for them in the long haul.
I would say another thing you need to do immediately is to start keeping a note of renewal activities or fuel activities. So I keep a note on my phone that anytime I hear something like, "man, that would make for a really good activity on my renewal day" or "that would make a really good thing to go consume on a creative fuel day," I will jot that down on my phone so that when those next ones come up, I'm not sitting there going like, "I don't know what to do. I know I planned this thing. Dustin said I needed to put it on my schedule. So I did and let all my clients know, but I don't really know what I'm supposed to do." But if you start creating that list of activities that renew your vision and fuel your creativity, then you'll have that at your disposal as that day grows nearer. So it might be books that inspire you, places that you think about or that help you think. Activities that center you. Having this list ready makes planning these days easier.
And lastly, if you lead a team, introduce this concept in your next team meeting. Share the warning signs, explain the two types of renewal and start the conversation about how to support each other in this practice.
Again, for setting yourself up for creative longevity, I cannot recommend enough The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. It is essential reading on creative renewal and how to avoid artistic drought. I also have a guide on my website. If you need to guide your team through these practices, you can check out my guide to effective one on ones for team leaders, for anyone who's wanting to take their teams through these renewal conversations. Reminder, you can get all sorts of free resources, frameworks, tools at my website, dustinpead.com/free. So check that out.
Listen, I know what you're thinking. "I don't have time for renewal days. I'm too busy." But here's the truth. You don't have time not to do this. The cost of burnout, both to your creativity and your business is greater, far greater than the investment of systematic renewal. Your creativity is your most valuable asset as a creative professional. So protect it, nurture it, and watch how it transforms not just your work, but your entire approach to your creative business.
Next week, we're back with a very special episode. I have a guest that's going to join us to talk about how to go from bottleneck to business leader within your creative business. It's going to be an amazing episode. Don't miss it next week on the Creativity Made Easy podcast. Have an amazing week.