Questions to Calibrate Your Creative Compass | By Steven W. Alloway

In this first month of the year, we’re talking about your creative compass: figuring out your creative direction, so that you have a clear path towards your goals—and a clear understanding of what those goals are and why.

So how do you calibrate that compass? How do you understand the journey that you’re on, so you can be sure you’re headed towards the right goals? It helps to ask questions. It also helps to break things down into their most basic parts. So, how about we take the six most basic questions of all and use them to understand the creative journey that we want to take: Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How?

Only let’s not take them quite in that order. If we shuffle them around a bit, they actually form a pretty clear path that can lead us right to our creative goals and intentions. Starting with… 

Why?

“Wait a minute,” I hear you ask. “How can Why be first? If you’re setting your creative compass, shouldn’t What be first? Don’t you need to figure out what you’re doing before you can ask why you’re doing it?” Not necessarily. In fact, I think that if, as you figure out what it is you’re doing, you don’t already have a clear idea as to why, you’re just setting yourself up for failure.

Why should be at the core of every goal. Why are you doing this?

“Doing what? We haven’t decided what we’re doing yet!”

OK, but in more general terms… Why do you do what you do? Why do you create? And why do you specifically create the things that you create, instead of something else?

Which then leads to questions like, Do you enjoy what you do? Is your creative life rewarding? And if not, why not? If you’re honest with yourself, that should lead you right to…

What?

What do you want to achieve? What can you do that’s in line with your Why? And if, in exploring your Why, you found that your creative life isn’t rewarding… What can you do to make it more so? How can you get back to the heart of what drew you to your art in the first place? Or, alternately… What can you pivot to that will be more rewarding?

In preparing for this article, I Googled “How to set creative goals” to see if I could get some ideas. One of the results said, “Make sure all of your goals are specific and quantifiable. Don’t just say, ‘I want to feel better about my writing this year.’ Map out what you’re going to do!”

Honestly, though, I think “I want to feel better about my writing this year” is an amazing goal. You could set a goal of, “I’m going to write 500 words a day,” or “I’m going to submit queries to 10 publishers, agents, or magazines every month.” But if what you really want is to feel better about your writing, then what good is either of those goals if they don’t help you to do that? 

It is true that “I want to feel better about my writing this year” is pretty subjective. How do you know whether you’re on the right path toward achieving it or not? So those specific, quantifiable actions like writing every day and submitting queries are important to help you move forward.

But those actions can take some time to bear fruit. If you’re sending out queries every week, you’re likely to see a lot of rejection before you see any acceptances. That’s no reflection on you or your talent; it’s just the nature of the beast. But that doesn’t make it any less discouraging. 

And that’s why you need your Why before your What. When you’re two or three months in, suffering rejection after rejection, you may find yourself asking, “Why am I doing this?” And if you don’t have your answer, then it becomes a lot easier just to give up.

But if you have your Why at the core of your What, then you can tell yourself: “I’m doing this so I can feel better about my writing. And I feel good enough about it that I can send out these queries every month. Whatever these agents and publishers think, whatever anyone else thinks, I have confidence in what I’m doing.” And then you can keep doing it.

When?

Once you’ve figured out what you’re going to do… When will you do it?

“This year! Duh!” you intone, rolling your eyes just a bit.

Sure, but more specifically. If you have a goal of, “I’m going to do this every day,” or “I’m going to do this much per week, or per month”… When, specifically, will you do it? This is particularly important when setting your intentions. You can know the Why and the What, but without a clear When, they become very difficult to enforce.

I have a lot of things that I do every day. Do you know when I usually do them? Sometime after midnight, as I’m getting ready to go to bed, and suddenly realize that I haven’t yet done the thing (or worse, several of the things) that I vowed I would do every day. So even though I’m dead tired, I end up not going to sleep until I check them off my list, one by one.

And if I say I’m going to do something every week? Forget about it. At first I’m rushing around on Saturday to meet my quota, but after awhile, it just falls by the wayside. Establishing a habit with something you only do once a week is difficult. And doing something little by little, incrementally throughout the week, instead of leaving it all until the end… Well, for a procrastinator like me, that’s practically unthinkable.

 If you’re in a similar boat, then figuring out the When becomes that much more important. Whatever you’re doing, carve out room for it in your day and in your week. Will you work on your goal as soon as you wake up? After breakfast? Before lunch? For those with day jobs, will you do it when you get home from work?

(I don’t recommend that last one. After a long, stressful day, it’s easy to say, “Ugh, I don’t feel like it.” Even something you’re excited about can become drudgerous when it’s looming over your head at the end of a long, difficult day. Suddenly, the thing you want to do becomes the thing you HAVE to do, and it becomes a lot harder to work up the motivation.)

Figure out what works for you and your schedule. When do you tend to have extra time? When do you feel the most motivated? When are you at your most productive or most creative? Maybe try different times or different days, to see what flows most naturally.

Where?

There are several different ways to look at this question. If we follow directly from When, and the issue of scheduling to maximize productivity, then it’s a question of what kind of space you have to work on your project. Having a dedicated space that’s just for your creative work is important. A room, or even just a corner in your house that you turn into an office, a workshop, a craft room, a music room—outfitted with the things you need for your art and stripped of the things that could be distractions.

Or maybe you function better WITH distractions. In that case, a coffee shop or a coworking space could be a better option. Know what type of space you thrive in and work to find or create it for yourself.

But there’s a different question of where that’s important to explore when planning out your creative goals: Where will your project reside? What’s its ultimate destination? What’s the best home for it?

I’m dealing with that question while working on my own goals right now. I’m planning an epic show: a dinner fundraiser where we serve a variety of freshly made dishes and then perform songs and sketches. Where can I mount a project like this? Somewhere with a kitchen, but also a stage. Someplace with plenty of room for tables and chairs, so we can have a good crowd—but also someplace that won’t cost us an arm and a leg in rent.

These criteria are, of course, very specific to my group and our current project. But the question of Where is one you’ll have to deal with no matter what you’re working on, and your criteria, even if they’re very different, may well have a similar ring.

Writing a novel? Where will you submit it? Traditional publisher? Self-publishing? Which publishers are most likely to connect with what you’ve written? What platforms, venues, and media will you use to reach your target audience?

Of course, if you’re just in the beginning stages of your project, it’s likely that questions like that are the last thing on your mind—and that’s OK. As you’re working, you’re not creating for a publisher or an editor or a target demographic. You’re bringing your vision to life, whatever it may be, in the best way you know how. All of that other stuff can come later.

However, underneath the queries, the submissions, the marketing, and all the rest, there is an underlying question: When the work is finished, where will this project’s home be? It could be a physical location, a virtual or digital place, a community… And the answer may change throughout the creative process. But understanding it can help to guide you as you’re figuring out what path to take and how to bring your vision to life.

Who?

“That’s an easy one!” you say, smugly. “Obviously, the Who in this equation is me! They’re my goals, and I’m the one working towards them!” OK… But who else? Who’s doing it with you?

Nobody does it alone. If you’re trying to do it alone, you’re at best making things harder on yourself, and at worst, setting yourself up for failure.I’ve said this over and over again, and I’m going to keep saying it until… Well, at the very least, until I listen. Because asking for help and getting other people on board is something I still tend to struggle with.

So who’s going to help you as you work towards your goal? You might need others to help you on a major project. You might need an accountability partner to report your progress to and make sure you stay on track (while doing the same for them, of course). Maybe you just need friends to cowork with.

Since we’re taking things out of order in this article, let’s try an experiment. The logical thing to do, in terms of asking for help, would be to make a list of the things you need, then make a list of the people you know or are connected with, who might be able to help with those things. But instead, why not try making the list of people first?

Make a list of people you know you can count on, people you’ve worked with before, people who have expressed interest in working with you, people you’d like to collaborate with, and just people whom you think might say yes if you ask them.

Once you’ve got that list, then make the list of things you need and see how many of those things could be covered by the people on your first list. I’d be willing to be that making that list of people first will give you a better idea of what you need help with, as well as where you can go to find that help.

How?

OK, now that you’ve got all of your Who’s, What’s, Where’s, When’s, and Why’s sorted out, the only thing that remains is the How. Well, that’s the best part. Once you’ve figured out all the rest… That IS the How. You’ve got the Why at your core that gives you What you want to do. You’ve got When you’re going to do it and Where. And you’ve got plenty of Whos to help you! Put it all together, and that’s your blueprint, right there! A detailed plan of How you’re going to work toward your creative goals this year. All that’s left to do is dive in and get started!

Good luck!